The Council: Narrative Adventure at Its Finest
Absolutely fantanstic experience. This, guys, is story-driven game at its best so far in my opinion. It plays like a Telltale game or other narrative RPGs like Life is Strange, etc., but this one is like an improved version of them, with deeper and more sophisticated gameplay mechanics, more intense and better organized narrative, and, as an icing on the cake, triple-A level graphics.
The story revolves around you meddling in an European high society at the time of the French Revolution, conspirating and participating in all sorts of shenanigans, all of these then deeply intertwined with your perosnal history and your family's past. It's a truly fascinating story although I can't say much without spoiling it, but if you are into early modern history, politics, alternate history, and things like that then you will definitely love it. Besides, just by playing the game you learn a great deal about European paintings, sculptures, biblical history, Graeco-roman mythology, and maybe even refresh a little bit your Latin/Italian/German/French, because the game's setting and many of its puzzles are based upon these cultural themes. And needless to say, choices matter tremendously in this game, from whether you get to spend a night with a lady to the life or death of crucial characters, or even the direction of the history.
Gameplay has been improved a lot compared with other narrative games. Your interactions with the story are not just confined to picking dialogue options, but instead we have new mechanics like a limited amount of 'effort points', which you will consume when choosing certain responses, and the 'vulnerability' and 'immunity' system which gives each character a unique personality that you have take into consideration when dealing business with them. Other innovations include potion-like items that can grant you buffs and debuffs in dialogues, and also special dialogue scenarios like the 'confrontation', and, guess what, a skill-tree which allows your more dialogue options and other perks. But don't be scared of all these new gameplay mechanics, in its core The Council still maintains the simplicity of a narrative RPG; all these things are very simple and light-weighted and in no way negatively affects the story-driven experience.
Of course there are also a few things that I would like to see implemented better. For example, the story moved a bit too slow in chapter to my taste, and at some points in the game one might feel a bit lost because there are so many narrative lines and they are not really explicitly connected. Occasionally the reactions of the characters are not very natural, e.g. seeing me approaching with one of my hands cut off and full of blood Mr. George Washington doesn't seem to care or even notice that as he makes no remark of my wound, but nothing particularly game- or immersion-breaking. There are a few factual mistakes in the many books, artworks, and historical events mentioned in the game, e.g. Plutarch is not in the '10-11 century' period but rather he's a first century writer, and also some Latin inscriptions in the game use a capital 'U' distinct from 'V', which is very rare in real life.
Finally, on the technical sides, the graphics is beautiful and in some scenes you would think you are playing a triple-A title. It runs well, and I experienced no glitches whatsoever. The only complaint I have would be the lack of a FOV slider, but this is not too big a problem.
So, overall this is definitely one of the best, if not the best narrative game out there, and I highly recommend it, while waiting for the release of the final episode in the next few days, hyped and stoked :)
[UPDATE] Episode 5 is great.
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