The Sinking City

I first tried this game a couple years ago during a spooky season not knowing what I was getting into and thinking it would be another linear survival horror game but once I realized it was open world and saw how big the map is, I stopped as I wanted to give the game the proper time to play as there was a new game coming out that would force me to either stop this one or rush through it.  Now with seeing the new game coming out and having time before the next game I was waiting for, I thought this would be the perfect time to give this open world horror game a try.  And ironically the new game would be exactly what I was originally thinking this one was when I first played it years ago.  But this one became so much more.

The beginning of The Sinking City took a while to hook me with feeling out the detective case mechanics but once the first case is done, the game opens up in all its glory and becomes truly addictive.  I'm usually not one of the people who complains about games marking your map with where to go next for quests and levels but I really enjoyed how this game had such a detailed map with street names and districts so you would be given cross streets in a district and then you would place markers on the map to figure out where to go.  For me it wasn't anything about hand holding or not but just fun in figuring out where to go and made the experience so much more immersive.  And so with this it made me just really appreciate the unique gameplay loop offered in this game where you get a case, look on the map with the directions given to pinpoint where to go or look for who or whatever you are looking for, finding the crime scene, usually with a battle ensuing whether small or large, investigate and then research in the different archive locations in the game to find where you're going next and so on to solving cases and finding more out as you uncover the story.

This game was interesting with its surreal nature, which is right in place with a Lovecraftian story but this one had random modern IP references like a Big Lebowski reference which I feel I might have only seen in one other game before.  There were other random things that added to the surreal nature like a librarian who has her mouth sewn mostly shut but still barely able to speak as a punishment ritual that is tradition in the city.  Or like the two main families who appear to be a blend of humans and animals, one of them having an ape-like appearance and the other having a fish-like appearance.  Of course one of the biggest examples of the surrealism in this game is the sanity aspect.  You have a sanity meter in which weird things start to happen as it gets lower.  Nothing crazy at the level of games like Eternal Darkness or Amnesia the Dark Descent, but still had interesting moments nonetheless.  Most of these being visual elements like the protagonist seeing his death or the images of monsters or insane people coming at him as if to attack him.

Now the main criticism I have with the game is that there is the typical open world jank I've come to expect from Elder Scrolls games but this also extends to the combat which I got a hang of eventually.  Thankfully the game is very respectful of time so if you kill some enemies in encounters, even if you die the game still saves that you killed who you did so picking up a fight again doesn't have you retreading much if any ground.  The other criticism I have is with the endings as they felt pretty underwhelming.  They felt more like this big world and story was made and the devs didn't know how to end it so they just thought of some basic ideas and just gave you the choice for how you wanted to end it with nothing much to it.  But the game was still very enjoyable and is one that I still want to go back to play more of the side cases as just the process of finding where to go and investigating is worth it to me.  But by the time I finished the main story, the second Sinking City game was released and I was more than ready to play that.  But I would recommend this one, not just to horror fans but gamers who like something that's different from your normal offerings in this industry.  This one certainly has a lot of soul and personality with its sense of humor and how it ties together with the horror elements along with its influences.