Call of Cthulhu®

This game starts off by building up a uniquely dark atmospehere, but ultimately remains a shallow, yet overstuffed experience, that can't be carried by the few original ideas. At it's core, this game seems torn between being a detective game, an RPG and a straight-up walking simulator. In the later parts, it also tries pulling off some stealth and FPS sections, unsuccsessfully. I find the RPG mechanics poorly explained and implemented, and the option of approaching some obstacles in different ways doesn't offer enough depth to justify it's inclusion. I do like the character design and the environments, but sometimes it's very hard to see in the darker parts of the game. Especially the more action-heavy segments suffer from poor visual clarity. The story does have some interesting elements, but a lot of it feels just like a remix of Lovecraft's greatest hits, without the chilling commentary or throughlines, which made them timeless. There are also many small moments where you might wonder, why the main character acts a certain way, and doesn't take the more sensible approach. The cast of supporting characters is interesting enough, but they aren't developed well throughout the story and some of them are dropped entirely without adequate resason. The protagonist seems like a standart grizzeled detective at the beginning, and mostly stays as this undeveloped stock character till the end. The investigation segments can be fun, but sadly, a significant part of the game is influenced by RNG in the form of both visible and invisible dice thows, which decide about your success without much input from the player. Your decisions don't affect much and the game doesn't give you much space for your own reasoning or conclusions. This game suffers from different problems than the comparable Sinking City, but quality-wise, both games are on a similiar level in my opinion. Where the Sinking City feels a bit too spread out, Call of Cthulhu tries doing too much and overfills the game with underbaked ideas and mechanics.