It gives me satisfaction when something I wrote years ago is relevant for a recent piece and that turned out to be the cause, well, right now. There's a link to one of the earlier Reports where I talked about my favorite genres which just so turned out to be adventure games and RPGs, both relevant for The Council review down below. I also got around to posting that SF novel review.
The Council
( PC (Steam) – Adventure, RPG– 2018 ) + TRAILER
Being my favorite genres I've waxed nostalgic for, one of the points that's nagged at me was always “how come adventure games and RPGs never had a closer relationship?” and appropriate answers failed to materialize. I'm talking about your Quest for Glory variety where character building has an impact on point & click adventure side of things. One glance at The Council and you may think it's a Telltale copycat, but I'm pleased to report game is more along the lines of what I wanted. Some production caveats notwithstanding.
Premise we're working with is an ingenious one that seems rather obvious initially, but the more you think about the setup the more you realize how well it all feeds in synergistic fashion where narrative and mechanics reinforce each other. Babbling aside – nearing the end of the 18th century Louis and his mother Sarah de Richet, Golden Dawn members who just dealt with the crisis of a certain occult tome, find themselves invited to Lord Mortimer's mysterious island where fate of the world seems to be decided every so often by some of the most prominent figures. Or should I say Sarah is invited, promptly goes missing not long after arrival and so her son receives an invitation in follow-up. Not necessarily to get involved in the talks themselves but to just find out what happened to his spry mother while putting some investigative skills to good use. There's more to the island than meets the eyes, though.
Historical figures game makes use of liberally were probably the biggest draw for me because while their fates are set in stone to follow actual history they're certainly flavored in particular fashion. This also means the whodunit story is somewhat compromised by character limitations, but made up figures balance out that package. Amusingly, George Washington's tooth aches even made it in. The Council is working with limited cast, and some have more screen time due to immediate introductions, so you better not end up disliking many of them.
While I'm on the narrative side of things, which is an overwhelming part of the draw in a game like this, it would only be fair to mention what I perceived as noticeable drop in direction and quality starting with episode four. I'm not sure what went wrong there to make the writers stray from established ideas and regular politicking, but their decision to upset the game board to such a degree made me audibly react when the non-existent TWEEST was revealed. It is truly Shyamalan worthy and it pains I can't discuss it due to spoilers. Penultimate and ultimate episodes were overall much shorter and more focused, something I won't hold against them because The Council made the exact opposite mistake in earlier ones due to non-narrative reasons. Which leads me to...
Gameplay, where you might be pressed to say something along the lines of “it's a point & click adventure game, what GAMEPLAY is there to be had beyond clicking on hotspots?” and surprisingly enough you'd be wrong.
Doing away with classical pixel hunting, substituted to a degree by collectible coin hunting if that's your thing, majority of The Council is spent mastering the game's dialog system and when to use your considerable skills vs limited resources Louis has access to. Entire game is presented in third-person, but there are very few classical puzzles you may be lead to expect considering the genre. That's not to say there aren't other obstacles in the way.
There's outstanding effort put into recreating an opulent manor with all the artwork to go with it. Louis loves to comment, too.
You won't see any “I swing my sword +5% harder” here with skill uses aplenty for every subject.
You have to take into account character's weaknesses and immunities on top of context itself to decide if a tagged option is worth the cost.
While we're on the subject of dialog and given its importance I should point out how some systems work in the game. At the very start you get to choose some starting skills fitting into one of the three archetypes: Diplomat, Occultist or Detective. No worries because you can pick and choose from all three as you level up throughout the game on per-chapter basis and depending on how many things you managed to accomplish (find items, discovers information about characters, make choices, etc). In an interesting turnaround all of fifteen skills have foremost dialog uses on top of your regular interactions. Game commonly has alternate routes and solutions to accommodate freedom in character building. For example, something like Linguistics can be used to straight up translate an ancient text and to converse about languages. With so many skills I'd be hard pressed to single out any that felt shafted or downplayed, and that is to game's credit. Skill rank also matters because it lowers the Effort cost required to use said skills and if you're spread out too much Effort becomes the bane of your existence since you're tempted to do everything while slowly nipping away at your reserves. Fortunately this is why The Council has restorative items meant to sustain yourself with, make the next skill use free, detect character' weaknesses to make better skill calls, etc.
I got my ending and settled for it, but looking things up after the fact does reveal developers don't subscribe to Telltale school of smoke and mirrors. There ARE tangible choices to be made and I can't allow my letdown closure to tarnish what's being offered. Just keep something in mind – play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Problem seems to be more along the lines of developers' inability to commit to that initial story hook so certain episodes bring very little of long term consequence in terms of choices. Peak action comes in the form of dialog Confrontations that could've been better realized had they not boiled down “reference my journal for character traits = exploit”.
Earlier I hinted at some non-narrative issues game has in earlier episodes. I was referring to episodes two and three where developers decided to go full puzzle mode which puts these episodes at odds with the opening and remaining ones. Problem? The Council doesn't actually have many “use X on Y” puzzles and instead goes for cross-referencing and information gathering to make your own calls. With no manual saving and one save per file this ended up being infuriating and I would not be at all surprised if you just decided to look how to open up a certain circular door starved for hands, for example. My point is where later episodes jumped the shark narratively these two episodes ground the game to perfect standstill with their “puzzles”. For added effect you have to take into consideration game doesn't let you skip lines until you're replaying episodes.
If there's one aspect of the game for which I have nothing but praise it would be the presentation. Game obviously doesn't aim for realism with character models and I think it nails the slight caricature look. Levels, as limited as they are in number and exhausted by the time you're halfway through, are breathtakingly realized with some of the densest and vibrantly decorated interiors I've ever seen. You're absolutely transported to this island mansion above worldly matters. Soundtrack suffers from general weariness after hearing the same offering while you trudge across the same half dozen rooms, but tracks themselves are very fitting. Plenty of piano pieces.
Final Thoughts and Rating?
This marriage of convenience between point & click adventure and RPG ended up more favorably in my books than it perhaps deserves or would to other people primarily because it was what I yearned for. Story centered on mystery about a young man looking for his mother as she goes missing during an island conference quickly turns into a plot to change the world as we know it in a long play for power. Character skills influencing what Louis can and cannot do are the biggest draw in this dialog-centric game where you end up trading repartee with historical figures the likes of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. Uneven vision in both the narrative with last two episodes and gameplay hampers what could have been an outstanding game down into merely a decent one.
The Dragon Never Sleeps ( Science Fiction – 1988 – 440 pages ) + GOOD READS
Not a first for Glen Cook, but it's always interesting to see an author branch out beyond their comfort zone. The Dragon Never Sleeps is not necessarily a stellar [heh] space opera and I'll get into why yet I would also state upfront it's still signature Cook with all the hallmarks you either love or hate depending on what kind of writing style you fancy.
In Canon space Guardships have been the law for millennia. So much so they've become the bogeyman, an out-of-time force no one really understands anymore that manages to keep this universe in check with sheer technological and information superiority despite complete self-sufficiency. When you take into account power hierarchy is one of volatile variety with Great Houses, various Presidencies and their Capitola Primagenia, with Outside's powers constantly looming over the edge you learn to appreciate the fine distinction people have bestowed upon the Guardships - they don't defend Canon, they exterminate Canon's enemies. This mindset has lead to many, many attempts in subverting the established order of things and each of them has utterly failed at the hands of Guardships... conveniently numbered and dubbed after Roman legions of old no one remembers anymore. That's not to say current events, involving some of the most outstanding individuals on both sides of space and even an ancient enemy considered long vanquished, don't threaten to condemn the Guardships to history where many believe they rightfully belong as people should be left to govern themselves...
What makes this premise interesting is you could argue the two sides we focus on could play BOTH the roles of antagonist and protagonist. Which is what they often do to each other and the rest of space. VII Gemina gives us distinct insight into what Guardships are all about and is arguably one of the more balanced ships out there where active crew, Dictat leadership and ship itself exist harmoniously. Inner ship politics notwithstanding. In the opposite corner is House Tregesser doing their own long term con with ever fluid leadership and questionable characters all-around held together by genius Provik as their second-in-command spymaster. Depending on your POV and absentee "let me bash you over the head with morality lessons" you could argue each is doing something worthwhile for different reasons. Hell, primary hero candidate in the novel doesn't take center stage for a good while and even then he's only doing what he was made for. Characters in general have a note they're assigned and they play to it because, as befitting the genre, it's more about the big picture and immersing you in this alien universe that whatever this week's character drama is.
Reading The Dragon Never Sleeps was quite an uneven experience. First you have a "what the hell is going on?" phase because you're jumping between characters without knowing who or what they are, then the middle section where you finally have a grasp on things follow by the final third or so where, in my opinion, book's tendency to have too much going on backfires. What do I mean by that? Well, throughout the book everyone has plans-within-plans and reader operates on a lot of need-to-know basis. Towards the end this escalates so far with some newly introduced players that I frankly lost track exactly what the plan WAS beyond the broadest of strokes. You could say it's the double-edged sword of Cook's writing - that straight-to-the-point, terse style of his works wonders in quickly establishing the narrative via fragmented world building and rapid storytelling, which surprisingly gels together in a science fiction story of this scale, but with information overload it implodes on itself with finer details getting lost. At some point "we came, we saw, we won" cannot substitute a paragraph or two of laying things out, and that pains me to say as someone who is very much inclined toward Cook's particular flair. In fact, I would almost say had someone else written The Dragon Never Sleeps the page count would've likely doubled and as a result there's a whole lot riding on per-page basis.
Overall? I expected more, but as pages ran out I didn't get it. Ending also kinda came out of nowhere in a sense it was rather abrupt yet hopeful. In retrospective all the parts were introduced earlier throughout the book. Solid read if you want some standalone military SF.
Thank you for the thorough review of The Council. It’s been on my alt’s wishlist since release, but I don’t know that I’ll pick it up until if gets bundled, if it ever does. I was hoping it would be a bit better than it seems it was, but I’d still like to play it some day. I guess I could play Episode 1 and see how much I like it.
Glad you enjoyed it. I’d be shocked if the game doesn’t pop up as part of Humble Choice at some point to promote developers’ new game, Swansong. You should give the free episode a try if only to see whether gameplay it has works for you. It’s a whole lot of chatting.