The Sinking City Remastered

The Sinking City definitely comes from a good place. The atmosphere is strong, the world is interesting, and you can tell there’s a lot of love behind the concept. But honestly, I never really got fully engaged. The game didn’t explain clearly what I should be doing or how, and I often felt lost rather than intrigued. The controls also felt pretty clunky, which made it harder to get into the flow. It’s not a bad game — just one I personally struggled to connect with. I might give it another try later and maybe change this review if it finally clicks. But right now, this is how I feel.

I don't do reviews often, so sorry if this appears rushed or poorly worded. I would supplement this review with those from other people to be better informed before buying this game. That being said, as it stands I currently cannot recommend this game to others, even if on a sale (I purchased it for $3). This game felt like one, big, grandiose, walking simulator with hints of mediocre combat, minimal horror (the only time I was truly scared was due to a bug, ironically), and a story with so much potential that just falls flat. I went into this game expecting a small, dense open world with interesting npcs, a connected story with detailed investigation mechanics, and good gunplay. What I got instead was a bland, monotonous city with little to no content between each point of interest, other than the average infested zone (which, I never once visited to collect resources). I literally felt no pull throughout this game to go and explore because A. exploring is relatively tedious with an oversized map and difficult foot navigation due to the canals B. there was little to no variety in any of the locations, nor were there any meaningful interactions with npcs. [u] This game would have benefitted SO MUCH from either a smaller and more content-rich open world, or a set selection of linear locations like in Call of Cthulhu. [/u] Not once throughout this game was I ever scared, uneasy, or otherwise affected by Oakmont's atmosphere. The game was presented to me as a horror game, but not once did it ever scare me like it should have. The story felt like a set of independent stories rather than one, continuous story. Sure, there was the whole "find out the source of your madness" overarching plot, but not once did it ever feel like much of the characters or groups introduced interacted as they should on an island city. Characters like, for example, Robert Throgmorton, were utilized for their individual missions, and then tossed aside after. The only exception to this (that I can think of) are the Carpenters. Furthermore, it felt like none of the choices I made throughout the game had an effect on the overall ending. The player characters could have been the worst person on Oakmont, and I still had the option to go for the good ending. My point is this: [u] The game does not introduce true, tangible repercussions or benefits to your actions throughout the story, other than a few notes on a board in the "hub" of the game (the Devil's Reef Hotel.). The endings to the game were incredibly lackluster, and honestly not worth my time. And don't get me started on the combat, the combat is terrible. I cannot put into words just how horrible I find the gunplay in this game, which is only bolstered by bullet sponge enemies. Frankly, somebody can better word the actual issues with the gunplay than I can, so I'll just focus on ammo/grenade/medkit acquisition instead. The only way to restock your ammunition/grenades/medkits is to either craft them using materials earned throughout the game (there is no merchant system), do so through the horrible side quests of the game, or loot them in extremely specific locations. This may not be an issue to some people, but god it was horrible in my playthrough. I honestly do not have any complaints about the investigation system, it was fun if not a bit too linear in it's approach. The sanity system, on the other hand, was HORRIBLE. Essentially, if you look at any horrific sight or Lovecraftian object/creature for too long, your sanity will start to drain. If it drops too low, apparitions will start to appear to kill you. Never once in my playthrough was I killed by one of these apparitions, because my sanity never dropped below around halfway for most of the game. Instead of scaring me, this system only gave me headaches every time the distorted overlay appeared on my screen. I used the antipsychotics you can find in the game to avoid a headache, not the apparitions as it should have been. Lastly, the side quests in this game are terrible. I tried three side quests, and the rest sat in the game's quest log untouched. Why? because the ones I played were nothing but fetch quests, and the others were (to my knowledge) designed similarly. I tried to like the story, I really did. It has the makings of a great game, but The Sinking City's mechanics, map, and story just falls flat completely for me. I will be purchasing The Sinking City 2 because it does look as though my issues with this game are resolved in the next, but I just cannot recommend anyone buy this game unless on sale or to support the Ukranian developers.

Im not going to sit here and write someting after playing this game for 70 hours, but it was amazing,

Das Spiel macht es einem wirklich nicht leicht. Wiederum ist es aber auch nicht soo schlecht. Was man dem Spiel sofort anmerkt, ist ein geringes Budget und zwar an allen Ecken und Kanten. Einwohner laufen im Himmel, dashen durch die Gegend und bewegen ihre Lippen ohne Sprache. Da kann man jedoch sehr leicht drüber hinweg sehen. Ich habe nun ca. 16h gespielt und werde es nicht zu Ende spielen. Also die Stimmung ist wirklich toll und die Fälle interessant aber das Pacing ist echt mies und das Spiel ist mir einfach zu langatmig. Dem Spiel merkt man auch deutlich an, dass es ein Spiel der Sherlock Holmes Entwickler ist. Sehr viele Elemente sind hier eingeflossen und machen auch einen Großteil des Games aus. Die Open World, die durchgängig ist, hätte man hier nicht gebraucht. Zwischendurch könnt ihr überflutete Stellen der Welt nur zu Boot überqueren. Das Backtracking finde ich ebenfalls sehr nervig und verstärkt das Gefühl der Langatmigkeit. Was wirklich klasse ist, dass dieses Game einem nichts in die Hand legt. Die grundlegenden Mechaniken werden erklärt, und das war es. Ihr müsst hier wirklich nachdenken und selbst drauf kommen, was die nächsten Schritte sind. Marker könnt ihr euch selbst setzen, als Anhaltspunkte, nachdem ihr neue Infos bekommen habt, aber das war es auch schon. Die Grafik ist völlig ok und das Spiel lief auf meinem System in der gesamten Spielzeit flüssig und ohne Abstürze. Die Steuerung ist recht einfach gehalten, aber die Shootouts sind nicht gut und die Monster teilweise zu stark, für die knappen Ressourcen. Ihr habt zwar Skillbäume, mit denen ihr gewisse Fertigkeiten und Fähigkeiten verbessern könnt, jedoch fallen diese kaum ins Gewicht. Naja, mein Fazit ist einfach: Wer kein Problem einem üblen Pacing und einem sehr entschleunigtem Spiel hat, kann hier nichts falsch machen. Ich bin nach den 16h gerade mal im ersten Drittel. Wer langsames spielen mit Backtracking nicht mag, sollte echt die Finger weg lassen und auf den kommenden 2-Teil warten, der wohl um einiges Action reicher wird. 5.8/10 und somit gerade noch im Daumen nach oben Bereich.

★★★☆☆ 整體偏向福爾摩斯類 此作玩起來物資匱乏，劇情冗長，嚴重跑圖 玩到後面偏乏力 喜歡偵探解謎類的可以玩，對這類沒興趣的不太推

The gameplay can be factored into three separate categories here: the exploration, followed by the Investigation and then the combat aspect. I’m going to start the exploration aspect by stating that I found the open-world exploration elements for the most part to be fine. As it is an open world, it’s relatively easy to travel to all of the main districts (on foot or by Reed’s boat “The Cyclops II” as attempting to swim will have “man-eating eels” kill you when you’re in the water for too long) before you start on most cases to find several different locations like the Asylum, City Hall, the Police Station and more just so you can unlock fast travel phone booths near them so that you won’t have to travel all around the city by foot to figure out where you’re going. Is the open world justified for the exploration portion of the game? I don’t see how the game could work without the immersion and the work that it takes to investigate the various crimes without it, but the truth is that if you’re expecting anything more than giant open areas with walking civilians and strange animation loops than you won’t really have much there to entertain you beyond the one-off side quests and the main story to keep you entertained. You’ll have several different boarded off areas around the city of Oakmont which of course contain monster infested alley ways so I suppose if you wanted to kill some enemies then you could but on the one hand that drains resources. You start shooting people in public and your sanity/health will go all the way down if you kill two people (well more so health in half and all sanity), no matter how innocent you were when a cop (or anyone with a gun as a matter of fact) starts shooting at you through some strange bug or combat encounter error. Another issue I could add is that sometimes you can get stuck on various bits of geometry while attempting to move around in the same copy + paste building layouts (i.e. trying to climb out of a window requires you to go over a very small bit of gravel, but sometimes you’ll need to circle around it just to jump out). Again sometimes exploring can be kind of useless sometimes because certain buildings won’t have anything to it until it’s used much later for a case. It’s a strange feeling for me because despite it feeling empty and kind of boring in a way, I feel that it mixes very well with the “do-it-yourself” investigation route that it asks you to pull off in a way that makes it very comfortable and honestly pretty cool. So what does investigation consist of? Well investigating a crime scene requires you to scour over any and all evidence that you can possibly find, sometimes with the use of Reed’s “Mind-Eye” ability. This does everything from allowing Reed to watch playbacks of crime scene events that no one could’ve known about, following distinct trails, watching visions through certain items, opening hidden pathways by finding specific symbols and looking out for other glowing symbols that could represent certain game mechanics. After finding all of the main clues, you can construct the crime scene with your mind and figure out the specific order in which said events happened, though there’s no punishment for getting them wrong as it just makes you do them again for trial and error. Beyond that you’ll need to interrogate witnesses, suspects or anyone that could help you and after being given information, you’ll need to look up on your map where specific addresses are with absolutely no help whatsoever. Sometimes it’s a matter of the game saying “Hey the crime scene is at “so and so” street in the district of “So and So” but sometimes it can be a bit complicated in it’s instruction. Of course sometimes they won’t give you that information at all (except where you should go to to look it up in the Cases menu area) so you’ll need to travel to a hospital for example and look it up by clicking on various terms like “After the Flood”, “Civilians” and “Blunt Weapon” for example. Doing so together whilst choosing the evidence paired up will give you the answers you’ll need and I feel like the game is very blunt in general on where to go and how to do it. I genuinely enjoyed this side of the game and felt like the investigation aspects gave depth to the story as well as the open world that otherwise would kind of feel middling. Some of the side quests that you’ll be investigating are straight up mysteries which require some thinking (albeit in a comfortable and less intensive way) whilst some are just random collectible missions (i.e. the brain jars or the Letters from Oakmont, which fun fact is apparently a specific event where they had players write their own letters and sent them to the developers to be included in a side quest) meant to give you an absurd amount of XP, the amount of which I had maxed out my skills by the time I hit halfway through the campaign. The main quests however are where the last aspect of the investigation comes in with the form of the “Mind Palace”. What this is is that throughout each of the cases, you’ll learn of specific things that allow you to make deductions based on what you’ve seen and possibly believe with sometimes the answer being the obvious blunt one or sometimes an unsure multiple choice ones (of which you can complete the train of thought and won’t be punished at all for deviating and choosing something else. You won’t be punished if you combine the wrong deductions as it just tells you it’s not compatible, and despite stating in an interview that it won’t tell you if a crime scene has any sort of evidence left to pick up, that’s wrong as it’ll tell you in the Map Screen if a scene has all the main evidence picked up (Yellow) followed by a banner that says “All Evidence Collected” with some extra XP that section telling you that it’s finished (Green). The leveling up with XP and Skill Points again are usually easy and pretty simple, and any quest rewards you might get involve combat parts or ammunition as they’re the only real form of currency around here aside from maybe unlocking some outfits throughout the course of the game. How about combat? Well you’ll have your one and only melee weapon, the shovel, to hit one of many creature of human enemy types in order to save up on bullets and/or craftable traps/bombs or health/sanity syringes. The melee gets better the more you upgrade specific skills, enough to where you can hit certain enemies into a loop without them being able to hit you once. You can pick up ammo, traps (i.e. bear traps) or throwables by themselves or crafting by looting various containers to be able to combine them into individual bullets or bombs, of which you can do multiple up to a certain point. Whilst the combing for crafting parts can be difficult or at least feel difficult, most of the time it’s actually pretty simple due to the fact that a lot of containers will replenish themselves or give you an over-abundance of materials to work with. If you have the DLC then of course you’ll even unlock the Tommy Gun early, which allows you to make quick work of enemies despite having a full magazine cost most of your materials grabbing it. I’ll say that my general opinion on the combat is that it can feel a bit stiff and frustrating for some people, though it does add to a semi-survival horror feel despite it not being truly scary due to the fact that it gives you a lot to work with in spite of it being “survival horror”. Maybe you could if you weren’t thorough but there wasn’t any time where the threat was big enough to where I ever ran out or anything. As Todd Howard once said though, it just works. It just feels immersive, it feels solid even when the ground is sometimes shaky, it feels comfortable and easy to access when technically Lovecraftian works shouldn’t be either. Does that mean the game is a great horror game? Maybe not but it was a cozy. Links: For most of the review/links: https://backloggd.com/u/gamemast15r/review/4814488/

I've ultimately landed on a negative review, and that split on the performance that ruined my enjoyment. I was already on the fence about the game. It's not bad, but I didn't find it particularly fun. It feels like most of my time is spent traveling from place to place, then searching for clues that often seem arbitrary, all for a brief 30-second payoff when a case finally comes together. On top of that, I couldn't stop noticing the constant reuse of the same assets throughout the world, and the combat is simply not enjoyable, and the sanity mechanic is obtuse and annoying. That said, there are things I liked. Digging through newspapers and police records to find information is a great mechanic and adds some satisfying detective work. What finally pushed me toward a negative review was the technical side. No matter what graphics settings I change or how many online guides I follow, I can't stop the lighting from frequently flashing between so dark I can't see anything to bright (normal?). It's a well-known issue, and it's incredibly distracting. To make matters worse, DLSS and frame gen still haven't been fixed since the remaster launched. I was genuinely excited to play this game. When the remaster was announced, I decided to wait so I could experience the best version. Instead, I ended up with a game that I can't bring myself to play because the technical issues get in the way of everything else, and the game is not enough fun to make me overlook it.

Even though this game was clearly made with constraints, I just find it really fun and interesting. The core gameplay loop of tracking down clues and carrying out investigations is fun even if the combat and overall presentation leaves some things to be desired. I think anyone interested in Lovecraftian settings and plots should pick this up on sale.

игра отличная и очень хорошо описывает мир по автору Лавкрафту. хороший сюжет, интересная концепция с улицами и в принципе интересные механики игры. прошел со всеми доп квестами тоже. я поставил бы игре спокойно все 10/10 ведь всё понравилось и тематика очень любимая - ужасы Лавкрафта, но ♥♥♥♥♥, перемещение по городу это какой-то отдельный круг ада. нету точек перемещения, ну хотя бы просто в главные локи (полиция, гостиница, больница, ратуша, психушка и т.д.). ты просто должен брать и хуярить на блядской лодке и пешком. из более чем 80 часов, ну часов 40-45 это чисто передвижение по блядской карте. я жду вторую часть и буду её покупать и очень сильно надеюсь, что там этого бреда не будет и хотя бы базовые точки тп добавят

І ось я пройшов гру. Я готовий грі пробачити всі недоліки наприклад постійно крафтити патрони, та шукати на мапі координати вулиці де тобі самому потрібно шукати район та перетин двох вулиць, за ручку водити вас не будуть читай уважно куди йти і що робити, шкода що в грі всього чотири різновиди монстрів. Хто хоче спробувати гру, рекомендую починати гру на найлегшому рівні складності буде простіше знаходити підказки в меню, будуть з“являтися додатково символи наприклад що потрібно піти в архів поліції і шукати там. Мені дуже сподобала у грі атмосфера, постійно йде дощ, постійно туман, не передати словами дуже гарно намальовано, аж подих перехоплює, також дуже комфортно грати на геймпаді коли недалеко є якісь квестові речі геймпад вібрує і підказує що дивись уважніше по сторонам. По сюжету цікаво грати, побічні квести одноманітні зроблені для розтягування гри. В загальному чудовий детектив плюс жахастик.