5 days ago
11
Yes, you bash get a Cthulhu statue arsenic an inventory item
Cthulhu games are a dime a twelve these days, with everything from JRPG parodies to well-meaning but flawed efforts that carnivore the authoritative Call of Cthulhu license. But determination aren't galore constituent and click adventures showcasing H.P. Lovecraft's sanity-twisting mythos. Two precise dated Infogrames efforts successful the aboriginal 90s travel to mind, but if you haven't played 1993's Shadow of the Comet and 1995's Prisoner of Ice, you're not missing much.
The Dark Rites of Arkham, by indie developer Postmodern Adventures, rectifies this with a well-rounded effort filled with odes to each of Lovecraft's champion stories. It has the prime of a Call of Cthulhu tabletop run assembled by a well-read fan.
As a palmy cognition cheque volition archer you, this crippled takes spot successful the metropolis of Arkham, which is described by the pb - detective Jack Foster - arsenic a ultimate hellhole. It's 1933, Prohibition is astir to end, FDR is president, and Jack starts retired investigating mayoral corruption lone to find himself witnesser to a execution with arcane symbology and a dismembered limb scattered crossed the ground.
To lick this murder, Jack indispensable abide by '90s escapade crippled mechanics, completing puzzles by collecting inventory items and utilizing them connected things until thing happens. The puzzles are each decent, though a fewer borderline connected filler territory. (At 1 point, Jack gets a serum and is astir to usage it. Like a bozo, helium past drops said serum into a grate and has to usage a turkey baster to suck it up. I accidental this does mimic the enactment of getting a captious neglect successful the Call of Cthulhu tabletop game.)
Thankfully, dissimilar astir Lovecraftian protagonists (whose brains thin to liquify aft witnessing sights beyond comprehension) Jack tin ne'er die, and his caput volition besides ne'er beryllium shattered by the infamous constituent and click "dead antheral walking" scenario, wherever you mightiness advancement hours into the communicative lone to realise that you missed a captious point mode backmost successful the beginning. So this is simply a precise forgiving crippled by design, and portion specified an ethos mightiness beryllium somewhat astatine likelihood with the Cthulhu Mythos, The Dark Rites of Arkham is simply a precise relaxing crippled that you tin beryllium and play successful furniture connected a Steam Deck for the wholly of its 7 hr runtime, letting yourself beryllium swept distant by the narrative.
And that crippled is simply a bully one. Foster isn't the astir archetypal protagonist, though helium does person a full "I haven't drunk astir capable java to woody with this shit" schtick that is endearing. He teams up with a straight-laced chap detective named Harvey Whitman, and the duo person a amusive buddy bull vibe arsenic they gallivant astir Arkham. Their meanderings pb to the way of 3 witches who person someway stuck astir since the Salem Witch Trials of the 1600s, and they'll yet brushwood monsters successful the woods, cultists, a dash of Yog-Sothoth, and world-ending damnation.
Jack and Harvey task from the streets and sights of Arkham to the surrounding woods...and immoderate precise far-flung alien locales indeed.
It each feels similar H.P. Lovecraft's top hits, with add-ons from August Derleth and different Mythos writers tossed into the mix. As a fan, I was close astatine home, amused to find references to everything from the Great Race of Yith (from The Shadow retired of Time) to a descended-from-Dagon fishman who runs an antiques store and rants astir however the feds busted his radical (from The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a communicative immoderate whitethorn person lone experienced via the incredibly janky 2005 crippled Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth). There's adjacent a large eleventh hr twist starring a well-known Lovecraftian quality that I won't spoil - I'll conscionable accidental that adjacent erstwhile I thought the crippled had exhausted its repertoire of references, it pulled retired a genuinely amusive one.
Postmodern Adventures adjacent worldly respective of these Easter Eggs into an in-game accumulation (dubbed the Arkham Museum of the Unusual) that Jack and Harvey tin peruse astatine their leisure. This is nary astonishment if you've played erstwhile games by this one-man Spanish developer, whose existent sanction is José María Meléndez. Beginning with 2020's Urban Witch Story, a superb escaped itch.io crippled that looks similar Sierra's Police Quest but is simply a 100 times better, each Postmodern Adventures efforts person featured dense amounts of well-researched supernatural geekery, from ghosts to haunted video cassettes to The Dark Rites of Arkham's eldritch lore. And there's usually immoderate benignant of depository with a curator who'll conscionable speech store with you astir what is intelligibly the developer's peculiar interest.
This leads maine to my lone large critique of The Dark Rites of Arkham - successful ocular benignant and code it feels precise akin to Postmodern Adventures' different games, particularly An English Haunting, which made my 2024 enactment box. There's thing incorrect with this successful theory, and since this reappraisal marks the lone lawsuit that RPS has covered Postmodern Adventures' enactment extracurricular of a fewer Alice B posts connected An English Haunting, galore of you whitethorn beryllium unaware that Meléndez has been making a treasure trove of indie adventures for the past respective years.
But for those of america who person been enjoying his endeavours for a while, The Dark Rites of Arkham cannot beryllium successful a vacuum. It indispensable beryllium compared to past works, due to the fact that astir of Meléndez's games carnivore graphical and thematic similarities. And amongst its peers, it surpasses An English Haunting (which had a mildly flavourless main quality and a draggy mediate stretch) but doesn't rather unrecorded up to Urban Witch Story oregon what I see is the top Postmodern Adventures crippled - 2022's Nightmare Frames, which is astir apt 1 of the champion fearfulness adventures I've ever played.
Jack Foster and Harvey Whitman's communicative arcs conscionable can't comparison to the improvement of Alan Goldberg, the asshole screenwriter pb of Nightmare Frames who learns to go a amended idiosyncratic aft he's tasked with uncovering a haunted videotape. Despite being released 4 years ago, bits of Nightmare Frames besides consciousness similar they person much accumulation value, specified arsenic elaborate quality portraits. The Dark Rites of Arkham does diagnostic close-up quality interrogation scenes, to beryllium fair, but they're somewhat inconsistent - a fewer NPCs person them, portion galore bash not.
Finally, Cthulhu fans similar myself are the ones who are going to get the astir retired of The Dark Rites of Arkham. Those who don't cognize a Shoggoth from a spread successful the crushed are astir apt going to find this communicative overmuch little compelling. And to a definite extent, I privation that Postmodern Adventures had pushed the enactment harder erstwhile tackling the racism that permeates Lovecraft's work. There are radical of colour successful the game, and mentions of the atrocious contention relations that permeated 1930s (and let's beryllium real, modern day) beingness successful the United States, but speech from a puzzle involving a Black pistillate connected a bus, these aspects are inheritance dressing. Considering that Urban Witch Story confronted akin issues head-on by starring a Black bull during the 1992 Rodney King riots successful Los Angeles, there's untapped imaginable present to excavation deeper.
Of course, if the lone critique I person astir an indie crippled is "it's precise good, but the developer's different works mightiness beryllium better," past we're successful a bully position. The Dark Rites of Arkham is Call of Cthulhu successful swell constituent and click form, and it's a coagulated play play for immoderate instrumentality of weird fiction. But possibly for Postmodern Adventures' adjacent effort, we tin propulsion the envelope farther. A tweaked engine, a antithetic graphical style, a non-Eurocentric setting, possibly adjacent a pistillate protagonist? C'mon, let's marque aged Howard Phillips rotation successful his grave!
This reappraisal is based connected a reappraisal physique of the crippled provided by the developer.
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