All Drama aside, let's talk about how you liked the game itself

[barbayat]

I didn't hate it. It definitely has something going for it, but there are soooo many questionable choices in the game design.

As someone who likes looking for hidden stuff and enjoys collecting things, I still found myself underwhelmedd. You really noticed how they had like 4-5 location layouts that were slightly varied but still the same. Once you figured them out finding the secret stuff was easy.

Unless you are the kind of person who is super exicted for minutes on end about finding something with a reference they are just really bland fetch quests. I feel that is what makes up the majority of the game. I mean cool I found the Necromicon, great reference, thanks for the squid hat, it made slogging through the rest of the story slightly more entertaining ....

And the story ... it wasn't bad, it actually might have been really good if it had been given any depth. Just like the city itself is a huge open place with no depth, the story is as deep as a puddle.

None of the choices really influence anything meaningful. I know you can decide something but what does it matter? The effect it has is so miniscule it might not even have been an option. What does it matter if you can kill or save a character if they die anyway? You try your luck with a ritual or not - the same person dies.

[Now to a more spoilery talk ...]

Even the side quests felt kind of empty, so that thing with the mirror and Bethany? There is no depth to it. If you side with her, you see the coffing wiggling and that's it, you can't talk about it, it's done. you get your reward and bam .. and rewards do not matter anyway as you can get enough stuff simply by running into a house or contaminated area, loot it and bail - do it a few times and you're maxed out.

The stuff with Joy, she didn't need to be there. She doesn't tell you anything, if you found her quest it could've been through an advertisement. Worse you find really interesting stuff - like that hidden location with the dagger and her poster and that doll ... you can't even bring it up.

Albert Throughmorton is suddenly up and about? Great, let's not bring it up, after all he probably is just a boring clone thing, everyone has ample access to the clone factory it seems.

Or that photograph quest. UGH, sure there is a serial killer, cool - oh wait we are done with it? Okay, thanks game, at least you got your token gay relationship for those browny points mentioned. Oh wait, does the ape man/ganster photo count, too? My bad two counts, have an extra cookie ....

That is why the city feels so empty to me. There is stuff in there but it's all meaningless. Pretty lights in a window during Christmas season. You notice but you never really mention it or care.

But what if you had actual options to do something that mattered. What if you noticed something and then could talk to the characters and influence something. Get invested in what is going on. Then you are probably not supposed to care.

Tell me who thought the Mass Effect 3 approach to endings was a good idea? Don't tell me it's fitting the Lovecraft theme of men's utter meaninglessness in the cosmos, that doesn't excuse super lame short ending cutscenes of which two felt very contrived on top of everything. Even in tabletop sessions where our characters utterly failed to solve anything, I got more out of it then anything you can do here.

Honestly, if I ever play again, I probably won't even bother with going to the endings. I'll probably just be sight seeing, soaking in the atmosphere, talk to a few of the characters and rememeber how none of it matters, get my squid hat and enjoy my tentacles bumping around.

I probably wouldn't care so much if the set up wasn't so interesting. The ongoing conflicts were good, but this "quest done, involvement over" approach sabotaged it.

[Tsunero]

You summed it up perfectly. This game has a severe case of "look but don't touch". It's like an indie Cyberpunk in that regard. Planet sized bread world with a pea of butter spread on it.

I liked a few side quests like the living golem or the real Salem witch but that's about it.

I was extremely disappointed with all your decisions amounting to nothing, especially with the main quest. My other gripe was the city itself, even with all the fast travel points unlocked, navigating it was just a pain. I also hated the dated approach of looking for each and every house on the map manually (half of which aren't even accurate most of the time).

Combat also sucked big time, just like with the interiors, you are fighting the same 5 enemies (with rare exceptions). Combat AI doesn't exist, everything locks on you and rushes you and gets stuck on geometry.

Not going to touch this ever again that's for sure and even though I only paid 16 eur for it I still feel ripped off.

[Hakke]

i played only 7 hours and so far i like it a lot- but i can already see that everything said above is true just not so notable in the beginning. wonder if i should just stop playing it now lol

edit: what?? startopia is now available?? ok what sunken city are we talking about? :D

[Konachibi]

I'd say my biggest gripe would be the combat. When I first encountered some of the enemies, they honestly scared me, but after a couple of times that fear quickly went away as I worked out efficient ways to kill them, along with realising their A.I was very basic and easy to cheese.

I soon realised that the reason there's a severe lack of ammunition carrying capacity wasn't so much a hindrance than a purposeful design choice to add artificial difficulty. Enemies are bullet sponges, and you won't be carrying enough ammo to deal with them all in heavily infested areas. That doesn't make the game any more scary, it just makes it irritating, especially when you likely entered that area with a full arsenal, failed to pick up more resources due to already being at carry capacity, and then end up running dry by the other end of the area, and the best you probably got from the area was just more crafting resources.

The side quests are all references to Lovecraft, but that's ALL they are. There's no secrets, no unlockables aside from pointless outfits, no weapon upgrades. The only reason to do side quests is to get exp just to relieve some of the artificial difficulty by increasing carry capacity.

Even the sanity meter could have been handled much better. While it does come with some rather unsettling animations from the main character, the whole 'jumpscare' value of things flashing on the screen quickly wears thin, and eventually you either stop noticing it, or stop caring.

There is some good in this game, I dare say there's even some great potential, but much of it is wasted by bad design, repetitive areas and a complete lack of rewards for accomplishing difficult tasks. References to The Shadow Out Of Time or The Whisperer In Darkness are not rewards, I've already read all of Lovecraft's work, so having a game just wave it around in my face like, "Look, cool reference!" isn't about to impress me.

That being said, I picked it up for £20, and it feels like a £20 game, so I can't really complain that much, I'm getting my monies worth out of it. Just glad I didn't buy it at the £40+ price Frogwares were demanding when they tried to self-publish it here, because it's certainly not worth that much.