LONG BLOG
The Council Review - Because Patrick is a Tease (FULL SPOILER WARNING)
Small Disclaimer: I have no fucking idea what I'm doing.
Hey all. If you're like me and tired of the cock teasing of a certain Patrick Hancock not finishing his review of the Council then fret not, Soulbow is here to save you. You can find his reviews (and frankly they're going to be a lot better than mine.) Right here.
https://www.destructoid.com/review-the-council-episode-1-the-mad-ones-495314.phtml (Episode 1)
https://www.destructoid.com/review-the-council-episode-2-hide-and-seek-505421.phtml (Episode 2)
https://www.destructoid.com/review-the-council-episode-3-ripples-514928.phtml (Episode 3)
https://www.destructoid.com/review-the-council-episode-4-burning-bridges-532992.phtml (Episode 4)
Now I've been badgering Patrick for a while about getting this last review out, but as my Mom used to say. "If you want something bad enough, go out and get it. Don't wait for the world to deliver it to you." So here's my review of all five of the Council episodes. No disrespect to you Patrick, I'm just an impatient S.O.B. and you were taking too long.
Also hella spoilers ahead probably, just saying, you've been warned.
Episode One - The Mad Ones
So you seem to control this numb-nut named Louis. A guy who has more mother issues than an episode of Archer. I'm going to keep this short and sweet, if you want the full review please check out Patrick's amazing work. I'll just be touching on the main points.
You set foot on an island looking for a Lord Mortimer fuck-whistle and that's the premise. Pretty much right off the bat you're forced to choose one of three classes that give hints as to what sort of player you're going to be. I decided to be a detective for this run cause the other two choices were just fuck awful and who doesn't want to be Sherlock Shit-Holmes himself in the 18th century? So buddy's looking for his Mom who suspiciously has gone missing and low and behold her dumbass of a son seems to be the only one who can find her. You run into different characters including for some whatever reason dummy thicc George Washington is there to screw with you.
G.W. Here being Dummy Thicc.
Look, this is sounding amazingly negative but it's not all bad. There's a cool "confrontation" module used where you have to try to swingle, strongarm or just skeeve your way through a conversation. This is matched in part though by the "observation" gimmick which never gave me enough time to try to figure out what the fuck I'm supposed to be looking at and where is the other one I have to clic-oh it's over and I failed; shit, I'm still talking negative. Uh, you ride or die with George Washington a bunch so that's neat.
So that's Episode one in a nutshell. Four quests (basically little detective stories/missions) then I got to nail a big tiddy goth chick at the end of it.
6.9/10
Episode 2 - Hide and Seek
I'm realizing as I make my way through this episode that if you ask the same question twice, either by mistake or you're just so bored you're clicking through everything, you can't skip the dialogue. This means that if you choose the same thing twice, you have to watch Louis-mother-issues-Richet run his gob again and can't skip through it. So that stinks.
This game is drab. Like, extremely drab. It's also frustrating as shit. There's books you can read that you may think have clues in them or something that will help you on your case. So you go to examine it, and there's four options. You pick one, which opens up a wheel with five more options. Once you pick one of those you have yet ANOTHER wheel with four options before Louis will start talking about that section. I went through every single one of these on one of the books (took me about 15 minutes since you can't skip any dialogue.) Nothing. Nothing of value was in those books. It's absolutly bonkers.
So yeah, you do some more detective shit and talk to people then the episode ends on a cliffhanger.
4/10
Thanks Mom, I can't say the same for the piece of SHIT game you're in.
Episode 3 - Ripples
Patrick, I'm sorry I ever doubted you. This game is balls, severe bull balls. This episode seems to have more technical issues too. Characters mouths not moving and clipping on their outfits runs rampant. You do the same shit you've done before.
I got to nail the big tiddy goth chick again though, so there's that.
Then promptly found out I was nailing her SISTER that time, and nailed the original the first time. So, the real one killed her sister. Then, finally, I found my mama. Sans an arm. She seems to think that the two lords who summoned us to the manor are in fact demons that control our thoughts. Also, she thinks you're a lizard person planning on turning all the frogs gay. Ok fine, I made up that last part, but the demon thing is hundo P.
4/10
Episode 4 - Burning Bridges
Ok like I said at the top, full spoilers ok? Alright? Everyone ok with that? Here we go.
So I was a dumbass and lost my hand at the end of Episode 3, but it's not even like it matters.
You go back and question the guests, talking to them the whole time and not fucking ONE of them mention that you, you know, are missing an apendage. That's probably because they're all being possessed by demons though. That's right, you find out in this episode that your good old buddy Mortimer who owns this hunk of rock is actually a demon! And he's been possessing the other members to sway their thoughts and to manipulate you! I'll give it credit that this is a pretty cool twist, and that it's actually real. However, it might just be this cool cause the rest of the game is so fucking boring.
Seriously, it took me 3 full episodes to reach this point, I just can't say I really care anymore. Also, by this point you have so many skills that I couldn't even equip a manuscript (skill-boosting books that you can pick before each quest starts.) So you just speedroll over everyone and it becomes a game of looking at your journel during the conflict so you know what vunerabilities or immunities they have and picking your appropriate response from there.
It's like the game knows that it's coming apart as well, because I'm experiencing even MORE issues with characters lips not moving while talking, lack of lip syncing, and just general performance tom-fuckery.
Oh also right it's revealed you're a demon, Mortimer is your Dad and the big tiddy goth chick is your sister. Tally-ho to the final episode!
Let me just inform you, Mr. Napoleon, that your game is a raging tricycle of SHIT.
I don't fucking care anymore/10
Episode 5 - Checkmate
Here we are, at the last episode. I now have the ability to control bodies, and read minds. Me and my father Mortimer have had our talk about establishing the illuminati to keep the human race "slumbering." It's a lot, all at once. They basically threw every old time conspiracy into one pot and just let it boil over.
So the episode starts by you having to convince the other coucil members to side with you one way or another based on who you sided with. It's a cool idea which I honestly can't speak on if it changes based on your previous decisions, cause I'm never again touching this hunk of junk again. Anyway, so, you use all manner of sneaking and infiltrating people's brains to make this happen.
Look, the puzzles in this game make little to no sense and you're given next to no direction to try to solve them. This leads to a bunch of trial and error which literally makes the game 3x longer than it has to be. It's pompous and total bullshit, which can be said for the rest of the series. It's a game that strikes me as an upper-class, "better than you, git gud" style that just doesn't make any sense and is so far up its own ass the eyes on this demon are brown.
So you kill your uncle and it turns out your father wants to posess you to make you the next heir and infuse his demon soul, which he does to you. So I guess you die, the credits roll and it tells the story of all the rest of the characters you interacted with. Roll credits.
Unreal. What an absolute waste of a game in the sense that it takes all this time to tell you literally nothing. Nothing matters, nothing majorly happens beyond the whole demon possesssion, it's all crap. Seriously, nobody buy this game.
I'm sorry Patrick, I should of never of doubted you. The last episode, btw, is about an hour and a half as opposed to the rest of the game (which each episode is 3 hours MINIMUM.) It's a weak, lazy reason to write the ending. Just don't play this game, just don't. I need some councilling now, cause holy crap I'm so messed up from this.
Overall? Even with my higher scores per episode, the amount of bullshit that happens throughout each episode just soured me to the whole thing. Maybe, MAYBE there is a good game here if you play it perfectly the first time, but I doubt literally anyone is going to want to play it through again.
Overall: 3/10
LOOK WHO CAME:
