Crisol: Theater of Idols PC Review

 

Sometimes, you come across to some games, that right from the start look cool.

I came across Crisol and read a bit about this game, on my local forum.

Twisted Spanish setting of the world, immediately reminded me of a Blasphemous.

"Oh, this is 3D Blasphemous, survival game on steroids!", I thought to myself.

But there is just one problem with that. I typically don't play and don't like survival horror games.

Just recently have I played Resident Evil 4 Remake, and liked the game to the core.

Yes, this game has a lot of going on, and one of the games it was inspired by is definitely Resident Evil.

From the yellow painted stairs, to points of interests and ladders.

The way you push a shelf to discover a hidden door, the same.

Part of area map turns blue, once you collected all the goodies there, exactly the same as in RE Village.

Enemies are slow dolls like, that remind me of villagers from RE 4.

You can shoot their limbs, they will fall down.

Another influence that is very clear, is magnificent Bioshock.

Speaking of the enemies, most of the enemies are puppets, from the festival.

After in the game you have some variations and flying cupidons.

I played the game on standard difficulty and it took me ~12-13h.

Played it with mouse and keyboard, but I guess people playing on controller would have much harder time. It makes your life much easier if you are able to aim correctly.

Having said that, controls are precise and tight.

Enemies can get lost in the wall, especially flying ones. You need to hold R to reload your guns, then your movement will be limited. Sometimes it wouldn't register my inputs.

One of the main mechanics is that, instead of bullets, you are using your own blood as ammo.

Blood ammo, lowers your health with every reload.

At first I was skeptical about that, but it turned out that the game is pretty much generous with blood syringes (that act as heal potions) and you can consume specific animals to replenish your health.

You have several weapons, but to me, only pistol was viable, because of the decent damage and low impact on health when reloaded.

One game mechanic that pissed me off and was killing the flow for me is one giant unkillable enemy that follows you through the game to kill you.

Sort of like Mr.X, Nemesis, Lady Dimitrescu in RE games.

Luckily it wasn't so much pain, because it doesn't follow you all the time.

Crouch/sneak is very weird and he hears you all the time.

Not a big deal.

As for the story. Story is good, and how you deal with giant enemy and impact it has on the game, you will have to play this game.

Trust me, it is worth it. No spoilers.

Graphics is awesome, Aesthetics of the game are absolutely brilliant.

From the world design, interconnected map, animations, stuff that you can just look and admire, wow.

Brilliant job Vermila Studios!!

It is their first game, and I cannot commend them enough.

As I had said it previously, I played it on PC, and the game has some optimization issues.

One day in, game updated and it was slightly fixed.

Game has only one upscaler, XESS. Had to tweak settings around on my entry level PC, but overall it helped on 1080p. Nothing game breaking.

I suppose they use UE5, and even on XESS quality the game looked nice.

Can't help but to think that games with another engines looked great 10 years ago, if not even better, but we have to deal with upscalers and stupid UE5. OK, OK, I'll stop.

I encountered couple of bugs with saves and one time whole area was not loaded correctly.

Music in the game is also good. There are some cool Spanish tunes.

Pros ✅ :

• Great AA game, slow pace survival with a twist at the end
• Game knows how to make atmosphere, shooting action is great, precise
• Pacing of the game is brilliant, shooting, some puzzles, map interconnectivity the way I like it (Not OG Dark Souls brilliance but fine) 
  
• Aesthetics of the game, animations, story
  
• This game is less than 20$ 

Cons ❌ :

• Game optimization could be better
  
• Knife parrying is useless and its repair mechanics is just weird
• Some puzzles can be really infuriating, at least that is how it was with me

Crisol: Theater of Idols is a fantastic game.
Disclaimer, I played it on PC and I cannot recommend it enough.
Game is less than 20$, so no brainer.
Pick it up, enjoy it. Support Vermila Studios team, they did extraordinary job with this one.

8/10