Call of the Elder Gods

Initially I was very into it, both the characters and premise were engaging with some challenging but reasonable puzzles. Unfortunately as it went on it started to drag a bit until I was forcing myself to do the puzzles. While a great set up the build up is rather lacking, the introduction of some villains and lovecraftian elements all feel somewhat hollow to a point where it feels like just moving through areas. Some of the puzzles are great, a neat challenge that are fun to solve and require some thinking, despite this many area tedious requiring you to search a fairly sized area and move about it to various different hints or contraptions to activate, fine the first few times but having at least one in each of the 6 chapters started to become more annoying than anything. Without a nice story to hold interest it felt more a chore to play. A few good elements here but it doesn’t come together into something I enjoyed playing. [h1]★★☆☆☆[/h1]

Vaig jugar a Call of the Sea que em va encantar. En aquesta entrega tenim una seqüela de la historia principal. Treballen i adapten perfectament relats lovecraftians i ho notes quan estás jugant. No et mareges visualment com sí em va passar amb el primer, els trencaclosques són una mica més complicats així que recomano estar atenta i jugar en calma. Hi ha alguna cosa del lore que encara no he comprés però per la resta és SUBLIM.

I played the first of the series and loved it. I enjoyed this one too. Puzzles were interesting and relevant to the story. Definitely one I will be playing again. I hope that they make another.

Puzzles are too hard to figure out

Unfortunately quite a big step down from the first game. Was expecting more of the supernatural but most of the game is "IRL", which is quite a big disappointment. Story also isn't as good. Overall, quite disappointing because the first game was so good.

It's decent, but nowhere near as good as Call of the Sea. As an standalone game, it's a solid 7/10. As a sequel to Call of the Sea though, it's maybe a 5/10. The story of Call of the Sea was more subtle and poignant. While it had those supernatural elements, it was in service of an emotional journey of discovery for Norah. In Call of the Elder Gods, it's a lot more blunt with its storytelling—lot of telling and not much showing. Call of the Sea takes place over the course of a couple hours as Norah explores the island, and so the environments feel cohesive. Call of the Elder Gods jumps between different locations so there's less cohesion and the immersion breaks every chapter. Some of the puzzles really obvious and feel like busy work. Other puzzles are hella obtuse that require paper-and-pencil or lateral thinking. The characterization between Evie and Harry feels kinda childish? Evie doesn't listen to what Harry says, and Harry just ignores what Evie is asking. On top of that, Norah narrates and just tells us what Evie/Harry are thinking rather than letting them show it in their actions/behaviors. Their exchanges end up feeling pretty cheap. Call of the Sea exclusively features Norah narrating/thinking so it felt immersive. There were no other human characters so it didn't have this issue. The story mentions bits about WWII Nazis and Communism, which fits the timeframe but I can't help but squint and see it as social commentary. It's a bit too surface-level to feel like it was necessary to the story. The addition of significant dialogue exchanges, and letting you choose your own response leads to significant padding imo. When you have playable segments with both characters, the other one just stands there. It feels kinda dumb. For the voice cast, Cissy Jones returning as Norah is great. Yuri Lowenthal as 67-year-old kinda misses the mark. His performance just doesn't capture the age that comes with a 67-year-old, and often is very shrill. When he's supposed to be yelling it feels like a fake yell. Mara Junot is very neutral, she has a very white-girl voice (accent and timbre) but I think that's historically accurate for semi-educated black people, before the modern AAVE accent. edit: the ending is cool but only because of the time loop—the Elder God thing is whatever. there's a minor plothole/retcon about Evie's dad being connected despite having died due to succumbing to the black ooze in Call of the Sea. Also Norah has golden blonde hair in the ending cinematic rather than her proper dirty blonde/brunette. I think the story tried too hard to be this big narrative that it loses the kind of emotional weight. It tries to tie it all back together but it's not that good. I'm surprised they didn't give Evie a reunion cinematic with her father, they didn't really build up Evie's side of the story much. ~~~~~ The following is rambling, you can read or not. While the story of Call of the Elder Gods is serviceable, it feels like it either retcons or invalidates some elements introduced in Call of the Sea. Call of the Sea's usage of black ooze implied it was tied to Norah's fishpeople/deep ones heritage. Her surviving was because she was descended from the eldritch fish people (deep ones). When other characters come into contact with it, they are severely debilitated and eventually succumb to illness and die (such as with Frank Drayton, Evie's father). But in Call of the Elder Gods, it's the blood of an even greater Elder God? For one, the Elder God kinda invalidates Norah being a deep one? What's the point in Norah being descended from a Deep One if that's not even the major eldritch entity tied to the black ooze? Another point is the black ooze in Call of the Elder Gods somehow grants immunity for a victim's loved ones. But doesn't that mean all the bad guys are also assimilated to the Elder God? If that wasn't the intention, then Frank Drayton dying because he wasn't compatible with the black ooze is then retconned into being a good thing that he was assimilated to the Elder God. In Frank Drayton's case you could say it's a blood-related thing making Evie immune. But Harry isn't blood-related to Norah. Why would the Elder God just be able to determine that Harry was Norah's loved one and grant him immunity? It sounds nonsensical when compared to the much more grounded logic of Call of the Sea's interpretation of the fewer elements (deep ones, black ooze). It felt like Call of the Elder Gods both stuck too close to Call of the Sea in that it tried to expand the lore into something bigger, but also strayed too far in that it didn't actually make sense with the established lore. The characters too, are a bit iffy. If you played the "Norah returns to Harry" ending of Call of the Sea, Harry and Norah are still together for another 12 years (by one source). Knowing Norah would die from the illness (and that Norah knowingly and willingly returned to Harry prioritizing their love), I would expect them to have lived their remaining time to their fullest. So when Norah actually dies, it's much easier to accept for Harry. Combine that with the 30-something years since Norah's death to the events of Call of the Elder Gods, you would have expected Harry to have peacefully (if mournfully) accepted Norah's death instead of dwelling on her death with such a stifling demeanor in Call of the Elder Gods. In Evie's case, I just don't care much. The story doesn't do much to connect you to Evie's story. Frankly you could rewrite the story to cut out Evie and change the Doctor West timeloop thing and you would have a signifcantly more impactful sequel with Harry learning more about his wife's heritage and former civilizations. The globe-trotting spectacle of Call of the Elder Gods I genuinely think detracts from the experience. Every chapter being a different location around the globe means the characters spend a lot of time traveling (even though it's visually skipped), which is absurd compared to the maybe couple hours or days of Norah's adventure in Call of the Sea. The introduction of other characters to actually have dialogue with was also problematic. The story fell into a habit of a lot of explicitly dumping lore on you, or "tell not show". Whereas Call of the Sea was more introspective and speculative, using the environment and horrific events to build the lore with no other characters directly conversing with Norah as it pertains to the island. Call of the Elder Gods's puzzle locations amount to two or three rooms in any given location and there's no sense of connection. You wonder how other people didn't discover this (even before the Starry Wisdom cult). Call of the Sea you were literally progressively traveling deeper into the island where the civilization's remnants are believably hidden. It's believable that it had to be an expedition into a dangerous territory to find it, and that everybody involved except Harry died.

Les énigmes sont toujours sur l'idée du premier jeu, mais en ce qui concerne le lore, il est beaucoup moins ésotérique, abstrait, et un peu trop cliché, pas assez captivant. Pour ce qui est du gameplay, je pensais que l'alternance des personnages amènerait une autre dimension, notamment au lore justement, mais en fait pas vraiment, il y a d'ailleurs des moments ou l'alternance est de trop, presque forcée, juste pour l'inclure dans le gameplay. Je suis assez déçue comparée au premier.

Better than the first game (Call of the Sea) in nearly every domain.

Xenomorph from half life asks us to fix their goo problem.