The Council: Complete Season (Steam/PC) - My Impressions:
I've been playing The Council on the PC (over on Steam) lately. I certainly have some thoughts on it, as I'm currently on Episode 4 (out of 5).
So far, it has been ranging somewhere b/t really good to great. Namely, Episodes 1-3 were great; and Episode 4 at a certain point has taken a turn...and I'm not sure where it belongs yet, as it has hit a really shocking moment that sets quite bit of a change in both story elements & your skills; and I'm not sure how fleshed-out this will get, as it happens late in Episode 4 and the fact that there's only one Episode left.
Speaking of skills, this adventure game has some actual RPG elements. You pick your class and skills - and then go from there, once the game starts. These skills can focus on certain things, such as Agility (i.e. movement in QTE's/dialogue); Occult knowledge; Investigation skills; etc etc. This also sets up different decision-making options that you may (or may not take), based on your skills & stats with constant skill & stat checks; and/or more extra info or knowledge your character might have certain knowledge to make puzzles and/or riddles easier (or even he might know the answer, ahead of time).
This adventure game with RPG elements, making this new adventure/RPG hybrid here is really interesting & well done, feeling like this could be the next evolution & future of adventure games, by taking the interactive-movie/adventure-game thing that say Quantic Dream games and Telltale Games been both pioneering & championing to the next level by adding RPG elements to it.
Just about anything you do in-game (make decisions and what you say in dialogue) and find (such as Lore & items), will do something effecting stats and skills. You can find items that make you skip next turn of using points when in a dialogue for making special choices; items that restore your bar of points to spend on special choices/dialogue options; find Lore in the game-world that can give you boosts to specific skills (which you can often read at the beginning of a new Sections of an Episode and at the beginning of a new Episode); etc etc. It feels like, in this game, everything you do can really shape the actual journey of the story, at least - though, since I ain't done replays yet, I can't speak on how different the game's final outcomes can and will be (or won't be).
This game has nothing but shocking moments, twists, revelations, and whatnot throughout these episodes; especially when an Episode ends. Often, it's a true moment of "What the heck?" and/or other explicit language from out of the mouth will be flying in the sky. Then you really want to go play the next episode, to see what happens next.
So, the basic premise is this: you play a character named Louis, who is going to a meeting of numerous Secret Society Members & World Leaders, not that long after the formation of the United States, in the very late 1700's. Your mother went missing and you believe she's there somewhere, even though she can't be find. So, you're out to find her - and that really isn't even the tip of the iceberg here, as this begins the on-going Domino effect that goes throughout this Season. This game is more than just your mom's disappearance here, as that's really just the set-up for all kinds of other events & madness, as all kinds of other madness happens, which I don't really want to tread into Spoiler Turf here. I should note: the storytelling, writing, dialogue, and voice-acting here is really good here, so far - and this is definitely one of the main reasons to play this game.
This game on the PC looks great, for the most part. The environments, game-world, and character models looks fantastic. So, the immersion factor is differently there, setting-up this time period and setting really well. One complaint though: oddly enough, this game doesn't have any AA settings internally in the actual in-game options, so you can and will get jaggies unfortunately. This is odd, as most games these days even have some AA support, even if it isn't MSAA or higher-end AA solutions. To solve this lack of AA support problem, though - one should go to your NVidia Control Panel software or your AMD equivalent software and crank up any AA settings (such as MSAA) as far as you can go, to kill the jaggies...and that should make the game look amazing & as great as it really should look.
So, I'm 19.2 hours into this, according to Steam - and I'm really enjoying this, deep into Episode 4. Once I get through Ep. 4, I'll have one episode left...and I'm going to plug away and try to finish this up. So far, at the very least, this one's really good.
ADDENDUM = 5:33pm EST:
And after 22.3 hours, this one's in the books. The last part of Episode 4 and most of Chapter 5 goes way off the rails, gets quite a bit bizarre, and into all kinds of different realms. Even in doing this, these last 2 Episodes are nothing really as interesting and as great as Episodes 1-3; and also b/c part of later parts of Episode 4 & all of Episode 5 feel rather rushed, get quite bizarre, and also feel like they need more explanation & depth to them. What's there is intriguing & interesting - yes, both from gameplay and story standpoints, without going into Spoiler Turf here - but doesn't remain as tight, complete, and as great as Episodes 1-3.
Like other adventure games such as Life Is Strange: Season One and Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy), it goes both off the rails story-wise and doesn't really stick the landing in especially the last episode. Episodes 1-3 are great; part of Episode 4 is really good; and when the big twist happens in Episode 4 happens & the madness continues in Episode 5, it all goes off the rails. Regardless, Episodes 1-3 are great; and the Final 2 Episodes are decent, but they ain't great, as they lack polish and feel entirely rushed.
It's still a good journey and definitely worth taking for the most part, but really fails to stick the landing and ending(s) here in the Final Episode.
When it's all said & done, The Council: Complete Season is quite good, but just still misses greatness.
