The Council — [PC] Review
Visuals: 6/10 Some people may find the visuals appealing, but I was put off by the leathery look of the skin and clothes. The visuals are also demanding, and even if you meet the minimum requirements you’ll have a hard time rendering them.
Soundtrack/voice over: 8/10 Most of the voice acting is pretty good, though inconsistent. Louis is French but has no accent, whereas other French characters you encounter do. The music is wonderful and atmospheric and really contributed to the overall experience.
Control/Movement: 5/10 It feels like you’re running waist deep through water. You also can’t skip any dialog even if you’ve heard it before.
Difficulty: 8/10 Some of the puzzles were very entertaining, while others were tedious.
Replayability: 10/10 Decisions, no matter how small, matter. You will want to play through the story several times to achieve different endings.
Average Score: 7.4/10
“This is probably a work of fiction.”
Publisher Big Bad Wolf would like you to suspend your current working knowledge of world history in order to enjoy their episodic adventure/murder mystery, The Council. Taking place in the year 1793, you take on the role of Frenchman and apparent secret society member Louis de Richet. Occultism is a major theme in The Council, something I didn’t realize until halfway through the first episode.
Unfortunately, my first few minutes of gameplay were jarring to say the least. The scene opened with Louis and his mother tied up together back to back in an opulate room with an important-looking man jeering at them. It’s a grave scene with permanent consequences, but all I could think about was just how terrible the voice acting was. This wasn’t the only bad first impression I received. Graphical textures loaded in slowly, which resulted in a man’s entire epidermis suddenly appearing on his face mid-scene. It was a solid ten minutes before I could relax and focus on the gameplay.
If you’re not a fan of episodic, dialog-heavy games you may wish to withhold judgement for now, as The Council does have a few tricks up its sleeves. The Council is dialog-heavy, yes, but it also implements RPG elements making for a unique system I have never encountered before. You’re given the choice early on which “class” you’d like to start putting your skill points into: Diplomacy, Occultism, and Detective. For my first playthrough I chose the Diplomacy tree.
Your choices in the skill tree directly impact what sorts of choices you may be given in the story, so choose wisely! On the other hand, should you not get the kind of ending you wanted, the game encourages you to try again. Replay value is one of The Council’s biggest shining points. Depending on what kind of game you enjoy, the puzzles may either be a boon or a detraction. Puzzle-solving involved breaking into chests via secret codes, finding clues left behind by your mother, and others that are reminiscent of the point-and-click genre.
During the first hour of the story you bump into a large cast of characters including George Washington, president of the United States,himself. While the dialog is snappy and tightly written, I wish I could say the same of the game’s homemade engine. Graphical glitches were common, which included jagged and delayed rendering issues. I really wanted to pay close attention to what was happening between certain sets of characters, but when the wall looked like it was blinking faster than a strobe light at a rave, it was a little difficult to concentrate.
I can’t say too much about the story itself without spoiling it, but what I will say is that all the episodes tend to flow in the same manner: a very slow start and middle punctuated by an exhilarating ending. If cliffhangers leave a bad taste in your mouth, this may not be your game. Consider yourself warned. You find yourself invited to a mysterious island inhabited by a wealthy aristocrat, a la Great Gatsby meets Agatha Christie.The overarching plot centered entirely around Louis trying to find his missing mother — a theme that quickly overstayed its welcome before the first episode was even over.
The Council prides itself in being historically accurate all the way down to minute details. I found some oddly-shaped candies in a dish and when I touched them, Louis taught me everything there was to know about the cocoa beans. There are Baroque paintings on every wall and you can interact with nearly every single one of them to learn more. Remember, the game wants you to believe that the events during The Council could have happened, which is why my encounters with Emily Hillsborrow left me feeling conflicted.
As a Duchess in the 1700s, there’s no reason she should be wearing a low-back corset as outerwear, especially not at the dining table with her peers! What’s more, there’s even an opportunity to sleep with her almost immediately after I listened to her tirade about how she couldn’t trust me because she didn’t know me. The writing choices here were completely out of left field. And It wasn’t just the Duchess that had me side-eyeing things. Hearing the men say “see you later!” in the 18th-century is just plain weird, not to mention completely immersion breaking. This is a game that takes itself seriously, so it would have been nice if they had done a little bit more research into the time period to really clinch those details.
Now, let’s talk about the bugs. These aren’t to be mistaken with the graphical issues I had during gameplay. While those were annoying, the bugs were harder to ignore. There were a few instances where I had to close out of the client completely and restart it because events weren’t triggering. Music tracks would overlap with one another and would result in a mess coming out of my speakers. I loved the music in the game and it was a shame when it would do this. Louis would sometimes walk into the wall by himself. Subtitles didn’t always match up with the spoken dialog. Characters would speak without their mouths moving. These are just a few of the bugs I encountered during gameplay.
As much as I loved the main story, I found myself wishing Big Bad Wolf had skipped out on the RPG elements entirely for the sake of narrative flow. Investigating areas was fun at first but soon became tedious, especially in Mortimer’s study which became total sensory overload for me. There’s a lot of game here though, and the value per dollar is high when you consider how many times you might want to replay for different endings and encounters. Still, The Council lacks the polish it needs to get a solid recommendation out of me for now.
The Council’s third episode came out July 24th and is available on PC, XBOX ONE, and PS4.
The Council was provided to me on behalf of GirlStreamers Inc for the purpose of this review.
