The Council (2018)

The Council (2018), developed by The Big Bad Wolf, published by Focus Home Interactive

As far as adventure/RPG hybrids go, The Council is one of the more ambitious, albeit flawed, attempts in trying to marry together the genres. Whenever this particular hybrid genre springs up, it often evokes memories in me of something like the now ancient Quest For Glory series the Cole's developed under Sierra's banner. This originator of the genre mixed combat, character class specific puzzles, adventure gaming and character progression.  The modern iteration of the genre is commonly more of a story-driven game like The Council, where instead of combat skills, you progress your detection, discussion and investigative skills.

As we all are aware, the world has been run for centuries by a secret cabal of men and women who know better than everyone else. They know better how people should act, behave and believe. They know better how to keep humanity running on its course and make the people believe they have some say on what happens in the world around them, when in fact it all is just smoke and mirrors meant to keep the ignorant masses at bay. The Council is a tale set during one of these meetings held by those who govern the world and decide where history takes us.

In 1793, Louis de Richet sets foot on the island, home of a mysterious lord Mortimer, who is the host of a meeting of world leaders and potential influencers, ranging from Washington to Napoleon Bonaparte. The reason, de Richet attends the meeting, is his mother, who has gone missing on the same island. He intends to find out what happened to her there. Also, he is supposed to replace his mother in the council if she's not to be found.

The Council has an ambitious take on story-driven, multi-branching adventure games. The core of the system is de Richet's skills, which allow him to tackle the people and the situations in different ways. Depending on the starting skills chosen, he might be more versed in political rather than, say religious approach, which allows him to notice political intrigue but miss the effects of religion. This affects how you can approach people and solve the problems you encounter. Depending on your insight, you receive additional clues more easily on some problems and be left more in the dark in others. 

Loius de Richet has a pool of skill points that can be used to crack problems. The skill points needed to solve the issues depend greatly on how high you've levelled the skill needed and what is the difficulty level of the problem itself. At times, the needed points cost might be higher than what de Richet has. This might mean either leaving the problem for a later or trying to solve it by drinking the potions that enhance Loius' skills or make one choice completely free. These potions are, obviously limited and might have some side effects if taken too often. The skill points can be revived by taking potions, but again, you can't drink multiple potions in a row, as you might get a handicap that you need to remove by drinking a specific potion. So, moderation is the key here.

During the game, you learn about the people present. This information can help you in making more educated choices with those whom you discuss with. For example, someone might be suspicious of a too direct approach and some might instantly see if you try to brownnose them. The awareness of these traits can help, when navigating through dialogue options.

Each episode, there's 5 in total, is divided into 3 chapters. After completing a chapter, the actions of Louis are ranked and if he did well enough, he can level up. This in turn allows dividing more points to the skills you think will help his quest the most. Additionally, you can assign several books to his education. These books can be found from the mansion and its surroundings and will add points to the skills. Louis can also open traits by completing certain actions throughout his journey. These can provide additional boosts or handicaps. 

The game is definitely ambitious. Not only does it have a lot of skills you can utilize, but it also asks you to pay attention to what is going on with the people and their relations and what is happening in the story. There's also curveballs based on what you've done earlier or if you've managed to alienate people attending the meeting. You can try to a tightrope in an attempt of keeping everyone on your side, but at some point, that might become an impossible task. 

Like many ambitious games, the Council doesn't quite manage to nail everything it is trying to do, but it does manage to do most things well enough to be a captivating narrative to the end. The base system it has does work well enough, but one big drawback is, that the game isn't quite as open as it pretends to be. Often it blocks the paths you can take, steering you rather heavy-handedly in the right direction, which probably is a direct fault of it being an episodic game. I do believe, this is exactly the kind of game that would benefit if the player was given more freedom, hence a non-episodic format could have been a better choice here.

Graphically The Council is a bit of an odd beast. The mansion and its surroundings look very nice, but the characters have an odd mixture of cartoonish proportions and realism, which is somewhat offputting. To me at least, the people on the island seem to mix the worst aspects of realistic and cartoonish elements. 

Voice acting varies heavily, probably because the dialogue can be, at times, borderline silly. Still, everyone is trying to enact it with sincerity, which is at times a bit of a task. It is, mostly at least, serviceable, albeit quite forgettable, which is a bit of an issue in a game the does rely heavily on speaking to people. 

The Council is an ambitious attempt, but not quite a slamdunk. That's how I would describe it. It's not a bad game, as such, but it also is a game, that could have been better with some additional finetuning. In any case, it would be interesting to see a sequel to it, as it does tease one. But this time around, if it was set in an environment that provides more freedom and more choice, it could be something truly fascinating.