Call of the Elder Gods

TLDR: harder and better puzzle design than the last game, with a weaker narrative because it tried explaining too much. Still love this studio and am excited to see what they do next

After the magnificent and absolutely perfect "Call of the Sea", we have a slight downgrade but still great game in Call of the Elder Gods. I for once understand all the creative and narrative choices the studio made, and even if I don't always agree with them, I get their thinking and give them points for trying. The game can be broken down to 3 main points: The Narrative: Call of the Sea was perfect. It had a perfect premise, great writing and an ending that closed the story properly. So the question is "where do we take from here"? The answer is to see another story, that of Evangeline, who also sees strange visions and contacts Harry from the first game and they go on an adventure. The game abandons the sweet and subtle love story, and opts for a "end of the world" narrative. Which works, but feels more, grandiose than the quiet last one. The writing for me is slightly worse. First, the Nora narrator doesn't work at all. It strikes in the nostalgia, but just that. The dialogues are ok, but eventually is always a "don't try to stop me prof. Everhart". Which grows tiresome very soon. The game adds many new narrative ideas (which I won't spoil) but this is due to the sequel character to the game. Plot twists exist, but the game ends way to abruptly about them. A seventh chapter would have solved that immediately. Second thing about it is the puzzles. Yes they are considerably harder than the first game. The notebook helps but now is really difficult. To solve a puzzle you must have 7-8 things got right to proceed and if you don't that's too bad. The five pillars puzzle is a perfect example of how not difficult but complicated these puzzles can get. But thank god there are a lot of guides out there so you will find a way out. But it didn't have to be that way and it is sad. The art. As in the first game it is amazing and its one of the few games in Unreal that run great. So I liked it and I liked a lot. But it isn't like the Call of the Sea. It has plot and structure, but it lacks the gentle soul that Call of the Sea had. Still, you will have a great time. Support it.

Call of the Elder Gods is another lovely little game but Out of the Blue Games, (who ‘out of the blue’ appear to becoming a developer I really enjoy) and a pretty good sequel to Call of the Sea. Off the bat, there are many similarities to Call of the Sea, just with a higher budget. The gameplay is mostly the same, gentle environmental exploration, reading logs and notes and decent puzzle solving. There is now the addition of dialogue options at different points, however, as we have characters in game, interacting with each other. I found the puzzles really enjoyable for the most part. There was never any moon logic, they made sense and they were enjoyable to uncover piece by piece. There was one puzzle which I did find a little irritating, but I was able to uncover enough clues to brute force it essentially. Graphically, it employs the same cartoony art style, though it’s not too stylised to totally lose the creepiness at points and overall it looks beautiful. While similar to the first game, I think it’s had a few upgrades and there’s a much greater variety of environments that are very interesting to explore. It ran very well for me on max settings at 4k at 120 FPS almost the entire time. The game characters actually look pretty decent and in keeping with the style as well. The cutscenes are where the game shows it’s still operating on a more limited budget than many others, being comic book style slides, but the narrative held my attention, the slides were nicely illustrated and of course fully voiced and there’s plenty of in game character interactions as well, so I didn’t mind this element overall. The story itself is for the most part pretty good, with a couple of flaws. It really held my attention throughout, leading you on a globe trotting adventure with some very scifi interludes as well and both main characters are likeable and well rounded. They both feel of the time period as well, with no modern dialogue that seems out of place. The game does a good job of having a black women as one of the main characters in a Lovecraft inspired game, without making it feel forced or a ‘statement.’ There’s references to racism that her and her father in the first game experienced, but without crashing the game to a screeching halt to tell us that racism is the bigger horror, ala Lovecraft Country. The characters have bigger fish to fry, and that’s the focus. There’s a sense again of a wider universe and some elements are left as a mystery. The game also ties into the first game nicely. The voice acting is excellent, much like the first game, with good performances all round. The game is narrated by the deceased main character from the first game, who gives an excellent wry narration to proceedings. I would say there are a few flaws. The first two are relativity minor, but the main villain is not that well developed. The first game didn’t really have a villain, just a creeping sense of trying to stop the inevitable, but here the two main characters are in a race to stop a cult and it’s leader. Unfortunately while not terrible, they’re a bit generic and unenveloped. Secondly there seems to be issues with dates and ages getting mixed up at points. It’s not a huge thing but is a bit annoying, and it suggests for example that the main character was in his early 40s in the first game, when he seemed to be portrayed as at least a good decade or more younger. Finally I found the ending a bit too happy for a game that mines Lovecraft mythos for it’s story. It’s not a bad ending, and as mentioned there’s some mystery left, but it’s just it’s a bit too neat and happy for my tastes, with no horror or uncaring universe elements. Quite the contrast from the first game which very much leaned into the inevitability of events and uncaring nature of the world/universe, which felt very Lovecraftian. The ending does perhaps fit into the style of the game itself, which is more Lovecraft lite, borrowing the elements but having more of the tone of Indiana Jones, despite having more active supernatural or scifi elements directly on screen than the previous game. There are still somewhat creepy parts of the game, but I would not describe this as a horror game. Overall I really enjoyed my time, it was a good 9 hours of pretty excellent entertainment and story telling. I’m keen to try American Arcadia by the same developers and would be keen to see what other games they have up their sleeves.

Piękna gra piękna historia i bardzo fajne zakończenie, polecam mocno

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Good story and puzzles.

Loved everything about it. like the build in Hint system. Going to play the next one, can't wait. Love the story. Beautiful to look at. so many places to explore. I highly recommend it. Runs smoothly on my laptop.