(mysterious music)
- [John] Lovecraftian games are definitely
on the rise in recent years
with varied degrees of success,
but The Sinking City's blend of a mysterious
and cosmic plot with clunky but serviceable
third-person action rises above many of the rest
of this fleshed-out genre.
That said, while developer Frogwares'
delve into Cthulhu lore has incredible moments,
the tedious backtracking and trial-and-error puzzles
of this pulpy 1920s tale
can be the wrong kind of terrifying.
(mysterious music)
The Sinking City feels like it's picking up
eight movies into a Lovecraft cinematic Cthuniverse,
delivering a concentrated dose of its distinctive flavor.
The first five minutes alone pull from
so many of Lovecraft's plots, quotes, and themes
that it reverently captures the intrigue and interest
from these pulpy stories.
- Innsmouthers' bodies were blessed by the sea.
You gonna see a lot of us here,
so you better get over it.
- [John] It's not free of cliche, though.
This is hardly the first story in this universe
where you play as a private eye, for example.
- Let's just say I'm a private detective
and leave it at that.
- [John] But its mysterious, twisting plot
is compelling and does a respectable job
of combining old ideas in a new way.
- Welcome to the proud city of Oakmont.
Alas, now is not its finest hour,
though it is its most important.
- [John] The Sinking City's open world
is set on an island on the Eastern Seaboard
that has suffered a huge flood,
and the impressive environments find ways
to enhance the storytelling.
It's reminiscent of memorable games like Bioshock
and the Silent Hill series.
As one might expect from a Lovecraftian game,
discovering clues, fighting monsters,
and visions of macabre and otherworldly imagery
propel detective Charles Reed down this path,
taking a toll on both his health and sanity.
It's a real hoot.
(shotgun firing) (Charles grunting)
(shotgun firing)
The characters that you interact with
are interesting and well-acted,
but I find it disappointing that The Sinking City
frequently recycled the same character models.
It's especially noticeable that all of the black men
you actually have conversations with
have the same cartoonish face.
Other roaming black NPCs have some variety,
but this strange reuse was distracting
during some of the most shocking moments
that otherwise do a passable job of portraying
the racial tensions of the era.
(mysterious music)
While the plot remained captivating,
much of the actual gameplay of The Sinking City
left something to be desired.
Combat feels clunky, a bit like older Resident Evil
or Silent Hill games but with characters
that react to controls at a snail's pace.
I don't expect to be an acrobatic crack shot ninja,
but maneuvering Reed,
who's supposed to be a military veteran,
felt frustratingly slow.
That said, the difficulty was fairly well-matched
to his limitations and I rarely had real trouble,
partially due to the glaring absence of
any sort of boss fights.
That seemed odd in a game about overcoming epic monsters
and Elder Gods.
Moving around the map is tedious and time-consuming
especially before you unlock fast travel locations.
The Sinking City makes an effort
to show off its diverse neighborhoods
by sending you through each of them in turn,
which is great at first but quickly turned annoying
as I search for shortcuts
around the maze of the flooded streets.
It's also a little immersion-breaking
that its citizens walk around seemingly unfazed
by the destruction around them,
even as monsters are literally taking over.
If navigating the city was a problem,
the research system reached groan-worthy tedium.
Quest information is often cryptic
and borderline meaningless and not in a clever way.
- You're a private eye, yes?
Well, I've highlighted the police station, city archive,
newspaper, places you'll need to get to the truth.
- [John] There are four separate locations
spread throughout the map in which
you are meant to interpret information,
so when that information is vague,
I had to resort to running to each of them
for some trial-and-error.
Then I had to resort to another guessing game
in order to combine the correct quest item
with the piece of information I needed
and apply different combinations of filters
in order to discover appropriate information.
While the idea certainly has thematic novelty,
the execution was laborious.
One of these took me several hours
of going back and forth until something popped.
In contrast, I thoroughly enjoyed another mechanic
tied to investigation called the Mind Palace.
While nothing particularly new or inventive,
it's a way for you to interpret information
with decisions about how it plays into the bigger picture.
It let me sort and re-sort my discoveries
by drawing clues and conclusions from evidence
and make decisions that determine
the character's moral perspective.
The choices you make here sway the outcome of certain events
and determine your path to the end game.
This process is often fed by a retro cognition mechanic
which recreates elements of long-passed scenes
Reed was not present for,
actually creating ghostly apparitions
of characters in the past.
For those that also played 2018's Call of Cthulhu,
this was very similar to a mechanic in that game.
(energy crackling)
(gunshot popping) - Take this, ape-face!
- [John] As The Sinking City came to its closing hours,
I began to notice that every character
that contributed in a large way to the story
fell deep into the morally-gray category.
This dedication to moral ambiguity
made me appreciate the attention to detail
and commitment to intrigue and surprise by the developers,
and provided an ending with more than just
a binary good or bad decision.
- (chuckling) Not so fast, Charlie.
- [John] These endings weren't quite as climactic
and exciting as the cosmic stakes
had led me to expect, though.
(dramatic music)
The Sinking City's creation of a new Lovecraftian vision
pairs with compelling stories, exciting environments,
and memorable characters to make for
one of the better Cthulhu lore games I've played.
Its commitment to tastefully updating
the storytelling methods of the genre
while preserving the setting and tone of Lovecraft
shines through the tedium and frustration
and of trial-and-error detective work
and excessive backtracking.
I really hope Sinking City gets to refine these ideas
in a sequel because there's a lot of promise here
that gets watered down by the tedious stuff.
If you want more Lovecraftian games in your life,
make sure to check out our review of Call of Cthulhu
or check out some gameplay of The Sinking City
and interview with Frogwares from E3 2019.
For everything else, stick with IGN,
and until next time, remember, in his house of R'yleh
that Cthulhu waits dreaming.