Game review 07 November 2019, 15:10

author: Michael Pajda

Stygian : Reign of the Old Ones Review – Lovecraft Doesn't Die

Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is one of those games you will love and hate at the same time – you just have to like the dense climate of Lovecraft's mythology and, like me, bear all the glitches that make completing the game neigh impossible.

The review is based on the PC version.

I am not a particularly ardent fan (cultist?) of the universe created by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Nevertheless, I've had a few encounters with the games heavily inspired by the Cthulhu mythos – including the unremarkable likes of Call of Cthulhu and The Sinking City – and I was mildly entertained by both. It would be a lie, though, to say I've been holding my breath for Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones. I expected a decent game inspired by the demonic vision of the universe conceived by the aforementioned writer, I was even rooting for the so-far-obscure new studio, Cultic Games. And Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is, in my opinion, a game that squanders huge potential with glitches and overall poor technical delivery.

What starts with laughter...

The beginning of the adventure in the debut production from Cultic Games is surprisingly good – particularly the character-creation tool makes a good impression. There's a few default templates of characters that we can use, though it's much more interesting to try and create your own figure. We can define not only their name, gender, age and appearance, but also a system of values (there are six of them: from nihilist to materialist, and each of those traits affects the overall "sanity" of a given character). Then, there are eight classes that determine the hero's specialty (a soldier focuses on survival skills, shooting and combat; an aristocrat will have more charisma, better conversation skills, and more knowledge about science and occultism). On top of that, each of the classes has 4 additional subclasses that affect the statistics, which we can further modify... The diversification here is impressive. It's a real paradise for the players keen on these things.

The adventure begins with a wake-up call at a local bar, The Old Eel, where the protagonist is awoken by a shady type, the Dismal Man. He promptly disappears, and it seems it all was just a nightmare. The obsessive desire to find the mysterious intruder quickly becomes one of the main thrusts of the story – at least in the beginning, because after a while, it fades into the background and remains merely the backdrop for subsequent tasks – these are varied, and I never felt like the ideas were repetitive.

The supporting characters and the secrets that they keep are intriguing, as are the events in which we become entangled. Discovering the story bit by bit feels really good, and each subsequent side quest is a delightful experience. These are triggered automatically, creating a pleasant impression of randomness.

Chances of greatness

What's interesting is that we will not able to complete all the tasks in one approach – not only because of the decisions we make, but also... because of the character we've created. But then, the choices we make only matter in the first half of the story. As things progress, the decisions lose their power. To add insult to injury, making choices that are in line with our assumed conscience often results in a game-over screen. Maybe the devs wanted to show how the protagonist loses their free will?

Another genuine advantage are the visuals. The peculiar style gives the story a grimy, gloomy flavor, and that's despite the fact that the colors are pretty saturated, and the grotesque animations of characters reminded me of the clunky Fallout: Shelter. Cut-scenes, on the other hand, are quite compelling. Especially since they feature many intertwining artistic styles, which reinforces the feeling of delusion (which is very important from the perspective of the story, as it pushes us deeper into madness).

I also loved the dialogs, and the idea that some of them fade away, overlaid by the protagonist's inner furies (which can be a tad irritating sometimes). This can even lead to brawls, which are another thing Stygian does right.

The combat system resembles the one from Heroes; there are hexes and action points that we use for movement. Simple? Perhaps, but casting spells, shooting guns and figuring out the most efficient way of moving around (especially when the opponent is stronger, which is not infrequent) is just a lot of fun!

Tired of sanity? Play some Stygian...

So, why is the score so low? Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is full of glitches, which, for many people (especially the impatient types) may turn out too much after about three hours. And I'm not talking about trifles like unintuitive inventory, which you need to learn by trial and error (there is a guide explaining the basics, but not all aspects are explained in sufficient detail).

I can turn a blind eye on the fact that the characters aren't very keen on executing our orders (which makes the combat at the very end of the adventure pretty tricky). The characters sometimes go backwards to the indicated place (which looks like a creepy and off-putting moonwalk), and they often don't care about following the main character, only reappearing when spawned in the next location.

The greatest issue this game has, though, are the freezes. And I don't mean stuttering animation. These are recurring, major freezings of the entire game, often happening around the end of combat sequences. It once happened to me on the battle summary screen, which forced me to restart a difficult fight that'd already been rather frustrating (the game hadn't saved). Believe it or not, but these happened so often that completing the game designed for 15-20 hours of gameplay took me almost 60!

I was only able to reach the end credits thanks to my huge determination, repeating some of the fights over a dozen times (otherwise, the autosave works well, it only gets sketchy with combat). After a while, faced with rehearsing the same portions of the game, I started listening to podcasts while playing... You need a lot of enthusiasm to get through all the difficult moments and reach the conclusion of the story. Too bad, for this takes a toll on the story and the general concept of the game.

Is it worth it?

Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones is mostly a game for aficionados of Lovecraft's oeuvre. The atmosphere of the heavy and horrific stories pours out from the screen like water from a squeezed sponge. It is, however, impossible to ignore the slew of major and minor glitches and other technical shortcomings, including horrible stability of the game.

Bear in mind this game can work very differently on different configurations, so maybe your PC will be more acceptable to it. However, the risk is too great to recommend this product with a clear conscience to players who are not emotionally attached to the works of Lovecraft. If, however, luck will allow the game to run without these issues, you might just be delighted – the potential is just huge.