Game #866: Call of Cthulhu(Switch)

  Please stop doing the Switch dirty!

 It's a first person adventure game, it's all about talking with NPCs and investigating objects. The more you investigate the more dialogue options you can open up with NPCs. You also have different stats(Investigation, Strength, Deduction, Medicine, Occultism) that you can spend points in to open up different dialogue choices. Some dialogue choices may open up different routes towards your objectives.

 At the beginning of the game I decided to spend all my point in Eloquence and proceeded to fail every single Eloquence check chapter 2 threw at me. Turns out that anything below the maximum level is just a percentage, meaning, there's always chance involved, which is... interesting. It's interesting because this is a bit annoying, but in a weird way it also adds a certain spice to the game, since you can't really be sure if you're gonna succeed and get a conversation to go your way or even gain access to the routes you wanted. If this was an Action game I think I'd be pretty pissed about this, but since it's an Adventure game I kinda, sorta welcome it.

 Loading times are a bit excessive, but the game loads an entire chapter every time it loads, so it's one big loading screen instead of various loading instances throughout a chapter.

 That said, the game has a HUGE issue on Switch... Chapter 5 is broken. How the game shipped like this is baffling, but I saw other people complaining about the same thing, Chapter 5 can't be completed for some of us. In my case, I wasn't sure about what I was doing, so I triggered both the Gas Leak and Electric sub-objectives, so it got to the point that if I tried to finish either objective the game would crash. Other people managed to get through that part, but the game would crash come the next cutscene. This is absolutely inexcusable. They released a patch, so I did manage to finish the game, but the fact that this game released in with this GLARING game-breaking bug is nothing short of a disgrace.

 The game is pretty much a walking simulator through and through. What's more, its attempts at real gameplay fall short of their mark. The stealth segments are boring, the Shambler boss is boring and annoying, the two-lamps-and-fog segment is dull.... Honestly, the game is at its best when you are talking and investigating. The story is pretty good, and it feels fairly in-line with Lovecraft's works, even if it's probably a bit less subtle.

 I liked the game, I liked the story and I liked delving into its world. While the gamey parts of the game were pretty lackluster, the overall game is very engaging, particularly if you enjoy Lovecraft. That said, EVEN if they did patch it, I can't in good faith recommend a game that has a game breaking bug right in the middle of the game.

 4.5