In Crisol: Theater of Idols, you hearth bullets of your personal blood at frenzied wood puppets whereas exploring an island saturated with disagreeable Spanish folklore. As elevator pitches go, I just like the immediacy of this one’s trade-offs. Blood? However I want that stuff inside my physique to convey oxygen and important vitamins to my set off fingers. Certainly there are different fluids I can fill the bullets with. I get that it might immediate the much less horny form of revulsion, however Norman Reedus did get away with lobbing cannisters of piss and dribble in Death Stranding.
Crisol has a demo on Steam as a part of this week’s Steam Nexus Festering. Being a fan of hideous marionettes and foetid folkliquorice, I used to be about to obtain it. However then my highly effective journalistic mind kicked into gear, and I realised that I might already tried Crisol at this 12 months’s Summer time Sport Fest. My belated verdict from again then: the doomy circus setting and scarlet-gold aesthetics are appetising, however the controls are tanky in a manner that’s typically extra annoying than thrilling. It is also a bit creaky and compelled when it comes to state of affairs design.
Right here is one such state of affairs, which additionally seems within the under trailer: at one level I needed to go by way of a tumbledown excessive road space patrolled by a colossal and unkillable jugger-puppet. This goal noticed me alternating between crouch-walking by way of the mud and ducking into retailers alongside the path to scoop up some consumables. Then I got here to a gate I needed to increase by laboriously turning a crank for a second or two. Doing this locked me in place, unable to keep watch over the road behind. You get the thought.
It took me three makes an attempt, with the jugger-puppet chasing me again indoors every time. Whereas hiding inside retailers, I had the pleasure of staring absently on the creature’s crotch whereas it bellowed hoarse threats by way of home windows that have been absolutely massive sufficient to confess its body. After 20 seconds of this, the roided-up Guignol would return to its patrol. I suppose this type of ponderous scripting is sensible while you’re really held collectively by strings.
Cristol’s general tone veers a bit uncertainly between Guillermo del Torrid art-housiness and Home of the Useless. Nonetheless, I fairly just like the wincing restraint imposed by the literal plasma gun gimmick, and the related strain to delve round within the crannies for sources of blood in addition to your self. I just like the webbed and brassy lustre of the vampiric weapons, particularly the shotgun, with its double-barrelled syringes. And I fairly benefit from the puppets, despite the fact that they’re functionally Resident Evil 4‘s villagers of their plodding relentlessness and susceptibility to limbshots. Find the demo here.
