The Sinking City Reviews

If you love investigation games and Lovecraft lore, you will definitely enjoy Sinking City ! Very gritty and dark ambience with some nice sanity mechanics. Resources are scarse and sometimes you feel like you could be missing out on ammo, but the game is generally easy. You play this game for the story, the mood and the universe.

All the major Lovecraftian themes and memes in one game, wrapped in light investigative mechanics, a bit of casual combat and a whole lot of dead fish.

Ive been having the game for a while and just recently played it to get all the achievements and it was a fun run!

I saw a longplay of this on YouTube and thought it looked fun. But after playing it I realize this is really not that good, nor is it very Lovecraftian. It's just a mediocre detective game with some RPG-like elements and some misused ideas from the Cthulhu Mythos. Hybrids are not "average, decent people" and even seeing flashes of the Old Gods should drive the protagonist insane.

First, let's straight some expectations. This is a detective game first. Yes, there's an open world, but it's bare bones. Yes, there's survival horror combat, but it's a bit off and definitely not the focus. We good? The main draw of the game is the plot and the detective work. For fans of Lovecraft's work this is full of references and they're not limited to the most famous stories of the mythos. I like that you have some choice in how to present a case: not necessarily tell the truth, but present the version that serves your agenda. Most of the time the 'consequences' will be just be a text here and there, but there's some variation (and multiple endings). I, for example, played as a lying asshole, pocketing bribes and then delivering those that gave them to the authorities. The game can be very non-linear, but I suggest you stick to the main plot for a while. That's because new weapons are tied to it and if you go doing side content from the start you'll soon find enemies you're not equipped to deal with. At first you'll feel very poor, which isn't helped by the combat being clunky. There's not a lot of consequence for dying, but you'll bleed resources, which are scarce in the beginning. I just set combat to easy and it got satisfying, especially once you get shotguns and grenades. Final thoughts: this game actually surprised me! The plot had lots of twists and plenty of schemes and manipulation, so you keep wondering who to trust and whether you're being a puppet or not. Some voice acting is quite good and despite overall the quality of the models being ugly, some characters have a nice design. The game offers a couple striking images, but graphical fidelity isn't the focus. A very solid choice for anyone wanting some detective light RPG - I know I wanna check out their other games (Sherlock Holmes - The Awakaned is another lovecraftian title) PS: If you enjoy reading books, consider 'Joe Golem and the Drowining City' by Mike Mignola. Same concept done years prior to this game.

First, I don't want to knock the game completely. There are some potential really good bones here for TSC2. For the things I enjoyed, the Lovecraft setting, the city itself was interesting, and the story was...fine, but could have been better. But the things that I feel like could be improved for TSC2: Better combat, specifically a dodge mechanic, combat felt really unfair in some instances, the fact that Reed one-handed all the pistols is just unrealistic too. The boat was neat at first, but controlling it became a pain when turning, on that, all the crap in the water wasn't really necessary and caused issues. I get that the city flooded, but that many physics objects just "there" was excessive. I get that it isn't an RPG, but the upgrade trees felt underwhelming. You're telling me I need to upgrade a whole skill just to carry four more bullets? I could carry literally hundreds of 9mm in a small backpack IRL. The writing for some missions seemed weak, as in the choices presented weren't very logical, wish I had an example for this one. While I don't recommend this game, I do have hopes for TSC2 and look forward to playing it when it eventually drops.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this game. The strange mix of 3rd person action and detective work (akin to Frogwares previous Sherlock Holmes games) isn't fully realised, and for that reason some may find it off-putting. However, the level of detail and care that has gone into fleshing out this games setting and story is very well done. It's clear the developers had a lot of fun with this game and are big fans of the source material, and it really shows. Despite it's shortcomings, this game is a passion project that is a must have for any Lovecraft fans.

I enjoyed this game. All the horror elements were on point, being a detective was fun and trying to get things right as well. One thing that I found always pulling me out of the world was the world building. Some things seemed to absurd. Like the shanty towns, or entire streets being submerged suddenly. I hope that the sequel will correct those shortcomings and the devs focus on building a city that feels real with the Lovecraft elements within. A realistic city with Lovecraftian elements not so much an imaginary city with lovecraftina elements. As the game is called the sinking city, a big focus of it is on the city. When you look at a flooded street you want to look at it and see it make seance, "oh yeah this street is downhill in a revenue/flood plain so it makes seance that that however many levels are below water. Oh this is a smaller city in Massachusetts, maybe it will have a few taller buildings in the downtown, not the whole thing." They can learn a thing or two from the world built by the devs of Vampir. Hopefully the next one will be less goofy in that regard, and they just won't throw random crap all over the city like giant fishing boats in the middle of the flooded streets with the hull somehow submerged in a few feet of water.

Pretty good lovecraft game, atmosphere is great, the lovecraftian weirdness is on point, here and there a little janky and lacks some polish but nothing you can't get over if you want some crazy outer gods stuff

i don't wanna totally knock this game but while it had some really cool and promising mechanics i overall wasn't terribly impressed. i really liked the way the game forces you to think for yourself and make connections between evidence and information you find and research around them in a way that makes sense, and that there are no quest markers on the map; you must figure out where you have to go for yourself. but after the 50th time of searching the point where two roads meet on the map and fast travelling and slugging Reed over there, it got a bit dry. I hated any quest where I had to go underwater; the experience was neither scary or interesting and was simply a slowed-down version of the rest of the game but where i can't fight anything back adequately or really see where i am going. the combat is clunky and repetitive and it was a bit frustrating to be so limited by inventory space when it would be realistically so easy to fill my pockets with bullets and springs. i hated missing out on valuable ammo rewards because my ammo inv was full, only to be desperate for it 5 minutes later during another quest. i also didnt really feel the game gained anything by the sanity bar. i had 0 desire or need to ever upgrade my sanity skills in the skill tree and never wanted for the sanity healing kits or their crafting components - it was just a pointless secondary healthbar that didn't even kill me. the visual camera wobblies and random visions of Reed hanging himself that i am shown as a result of losing my sanity also stopped being interesting the second or third time they happened. some of the characters and plot points were very cool but under-utilized - mr monkey man and his wack monkey hybrid race is such a cool original addition to lovecraft's universe that fits in perfectly with the rest of the setting, but he kind of stops being relevant after the first quest and you forget all about him by the end. i also loved the King in Yellow character (even if his gang and the references were often far too on-the-nose for a game that otherwise often relies on subtlety and reading between the lines) but again his role ultimately was kind of unclear. the ending(s) in particular were quite lackluster and didn't deliver the impact i was expecting from the buildup over the game. overall very few of the stories went far enough or deep enough to particularly resonate or frighten me, or creep me out, and a couple left me a bit confused (was the random mayan vampire character necessary????) tl;dr has some crumbs of a delicious pie but ultimately a bit disappointing