Game Review--Call Of Cthulhu (Switch)

"Better madness than ignorance."

--Edward Pierce, Call of Cthulhu

"I am the one men named 'Leviathan.'  Not because of the scale of my terrestrial form, but as a reminder of the immensity of my knowledge."

--Leviathan, Call of Cthulhu

Perhaps the most familiar of Lovecraft's cosmic horror stories to mainstream audiences is The Call of Cthulhu, the titular creature having achieved significant recognition in popular culture.  The video game of the same name tackles the idea of a cult actively working to summon an alien figure submerged deep in an ocean and that communicates with, or "calls to," people in dreams or visions.  As a cosmic horror game, Call of Cthulhu contains many integral parts of the subgenre's atmosphere and storytelling.  It is the gameplay that does not reach its potential.  Call of Cthulhu gives players far more to do than the extremely limited game mechanics of fellow first-person cosmic horror game Lust for Darkness [1] allows, but it falls short of providing more refined, thoroughly integrated mechanics like its closer sibling The Sinking City (another Lovecraftian game about Cthulhu) does.

Production Values

One thing that quickly becomes apparent is that the load times, apart from reloads of recent checkpoints upon player deaths, take far longer than many other Switch games need.  Once an area does load, the textures and colors are similarly not as defined as those of many other Switch games, even though Cthulhu himself is one of the most unique characters when he is actually seen--and the extent to which he is seen might depend on choices made throughout the game.  Cutscenes that deviate from the game's primary graphical style are the height of the visuals thanks to clearer character models and environments.  Even though the graphics are not at their best on the Switch platform, the Switch is perfectly capable of running audio from ported PS4 and Xbox One games like Call of Cthulhu.  The voice acting adds to the cryptic nature of the worldbuilding, with many characters having mandatory or optional speaking roles, from protagonist Edward Pierce to the maliciously violent Cat to Cthulhu, also called the Leviathan.

Gameplay

With only small parts of the game focusing on any sort of combat or stealth, most sections emphasize investigation.  A reconstruction mechanic that lets Pierce or several other surprise playable characters see heightened details of past events very much resembles the similar feature in The Sinking City--not that one of the game's teams intentionally copied the other, as thematically related works of entertainment can be made without cross-inspiration.  Reconstruction is only activated at very specific times, so the majority of the exploration and observation has more to do with finding people to speak to, manipulating items in the environment, or solving puzzles.

Combat only becomes a serious option very late in the game when you play as two characters who both have pistols.  As different as these sequences are from what comes before, you cannot see how many bullets you have left, and enemies that cannot be overpowered can be escaped very easily if they are foes of the human kind.  The stealth mechanics are some of the most undeveloped I have ever seen in a game of this type.  An RPG-like stat system does provide more gameplay depth, as points obtained from normal game progression or found from operational items (for example, medical books grant medical information that improves the Medicine skill) make favorable outcomes more probable when something like psychological insight, familiarity with the occult, or physical strength are needed.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A private investigator (Edward Pierce) tormented by dreams of what turns out to be a future event in his life accepts a case about the death of Sally Hawkins, a painter known for her macabre paintings.  Upon visiting the estate of her and her husband, who is said to have died in a fire, Pierce suspects something happened that went beyond an accidental fire.  He finds evidence that resident upon resident of the nearby town of Darkwater takes sleeping pills to combat insomnia, and he also discovers a cult hoping to release the extraterrestrial Cthulhu upon the world.  Pierce himself is visited by a mystical figure that calls itself the Leviathan and claims to offer him knowledge of things as they truly are.  Darkwater's inhabitants begin succumbing to the Leviathan's influence more overtly as the time of its potential release nears.

Intellectual Content

A mind with abilities beyond that of human consciousness--such as the telepathy and thought projection used by Cthulhu in the game--could certainly plunge humans into a state of frantic madness by direct mind control, but there is nothing about an encounter with a vastly different being that makes "insanity" unavoidable (not that insanity is anything other than irrationality, and a person without direct control of their thoughts and behaviors is not irrational in the truest sense).  At most, there are things which could exist that are beyond human epistemological limitations, meaning that they cannot be proven to exist even if they are part of reality.  There is no concept or physical object that by logical necessity causes everyone who thinks about it or looks upon it to descend into utter confusion.  Concepts and truths cannot erase someone's rationality and free will; only direct causal input from another mind or some physical chain of events could do this.  Looking at even an exotic, alien being like Cthulhu is not logically bound to reduce a person to a crazed state, as it is entirely possible to understand the nature of Cthulhu as yet another thing governed by the necessary truths of logic.

Conclusion

The general atmosphere of Call of Cthulhu fits right in with other examples of Lovecraftian cosmic horror, but the gameplay is trapped in between the bare mechanics of other cosmic horror games and the more sophisticated mechanics of something like The Sinking City.  Call of Cthulhu's varied elements of stealth, dialogue choices, limited combat, and puzzles are not equally prominent or developed, with some (the combat in particular) not even showing up until very close to the end of the game.  Fans of philosophical horror might very well still enjoy the experience, if for no other reason, simply because it provides another approach to Lovecraftian games with the classic fixtures of RPG attributes and multiple endings.  Even the most undeveloped parts of Call of Cthulhu do not extinguish the successes of its best aspects, after all.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Non-graphic assaults and shootings are shown.  Even the death animations involving the inter-dimensional Shambler do not feature gore.

 2.  Profanity:  Infrequent uses of profanity include "fuck," "shit," "damn," and "bitch."

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2020/05/game-review-lust-for-darkness-dawn.html