LogFAQs > #964242982

The Sinking City + DLC (PC)

Been wanting to play this for a long time. If you've been following my history you'll know I'm a fan of Frogwares and I've beat all their Sherlock games. I also know about the other CoC game and how this was suppose to be that game.

The game is ok.

Great story great plot, mired by its own mechanics which unfortunately I've seen in their previous games. Curiously their next one is a foray back into Sherlock but open-world. Perhaps Sinking City was a sort of testing ground for this engine.

What kept me going was the stellar voice acting and the plot (which I'll get to later). I could listen to Charles Reed all day. Looks like that voice actor took this game seriously. Looks like most of them did. The repetitive gameplay didn't show up until I was practically halfway through the game. At times I felt like this shouldn't have been open-world. Because it is touted as one but wastes its opportunities on stupid mission design---90% of the side stuff are fetch quests and unless you're into reading implied horror instead of experiencing it you're not gonna have a good time. But that is the sidequests. You can just ignore most of it and do the main story.

And it was going so well too. They had like 3 missions then suddenly everything else was just the same 2 houses with the same encounters. I smell rushed development.

Other missed opportunities include the sanity system which made it appear it was going to be like Eternal Darkness but just ended up being something like hearing the sirens in Silent Hill---alot of darkness, alot of hallucinations, all nullified by just going into your weapon wheel and popping 1 anti-psychotic. And while we're on the topic of sanity, I love how killing humans in this game doesn't give you XP and no matter how powerful they are a shot to the head does them in. And if you kill a citizen NPC while roaming, your sanity goes to zero and most likely you'll die...however you can spot some citizens murdering others in a sort of scripted animation but you won't be able to do anything about it! Witnessing the murder doesn't drain your sanity, but stopping the crime by shooting the killer drains you! lmao.

Yet another missed opportunity is the idea that currency in the game is through bullets. And you already spend so much crafting even dispensing one. However, there are no stores in the game and your reward for quests are XP and...bullets. So why even bother doing side stuff to begin with. Never mind they're clones of each other; the gameplay loop expects you to expend bullets only to be rewarded by them. Inane. And you only need to spend a bullet officially in story stuff thrice in the game all optional, all piddly.

The whole running around go anywhere and possibly fight anything has shades of Vampyr but the main diffs are a) there is fast travel b) the fights only happen indoors and in "infected areas" which there arent alot and c) the monsters are monotonous and theres not alot you can do once you're maxxed on skills and weps. And in fact the game continues giving you skill points even though you're capped. Hilarious. I kinda get that they couldn't exactly use Lovecraft stuff---like the King in Yellow are The Yellow Kings. And so the monster designs here resemble waterlogged Silent Hill rejects. Which is honestly fine. I always kinda shit myself whenever the big ones prowl about but that's because of the survival mechanic of having to craft your bullets which will scare you for around the first third of the game.

There are only 3 boss fights and I've only died to 1. The game isn't really made for combat either; you can't dodge roll for one so if an enemy pack swarms you you're done for early game. And some of the bosses move like regular third person shooters which is annoying in hindsight.

The similarities to Vampyr are surprising: a) A Skill Tree earned by doing what the game expects you vs fighting (in vampyr, the open world battles give you less than doing plot stuff) b) emphasis on dialog and mystery solving but in Vampyr the branches and choices are more interesting and c) Survival Mechanics: you dont wanna fight much cos it takes alot to craft bullets. In Vampyr, Blood is based on how well you suck and if youre aiming for a good ending you cant do it alot.

Well enough of shitting on the game, back to the good stuff. I really like how they adapted the story here. Its done in chapters and every chapter is a possibly-connected lovecraft thing whereby when you solve it then it moves on like a showcase and they're not soo blatant that you can expect to know where its going. I honestly LOVE the King in Yellow in this and it Hastur is my favorite among the mythos. I think they got everyone: Shuggy, Yoggy, The Order of Dagon. Strangely the only one missing in this game is Nyarly. But he's overrated.

Speaking of the story: Achievements. Not every story path gives you an achievement. Idk if thats a mistake or not but it ends up making it so that the game wants you to play a certain way to reward you and sometimes it doesnt make sense you get rewarded for choosing the shittiest decision. How many people are going to replay this game again?

That's it I guess. I could go on about the backtracking but at least fast travel exists. In the end I had to employ a speedhack though as I started to get bored around the third act. Not my favorite game but a valiant Modern CoC effort. We could use more Lovecraft games honestly and I'm not talking about Lovecraft-inspired indies.