I saw the box at my local store and got intrigued by it.
Searched the YouTube, like we all do nowadays, and got not that good reviews...like in Vampyr case I got cold feet and didn't buy it right away.
But then I got to think...as in Vampyr example I saw not so good reviews but I eventually got the game and it turned out to be my favourite so far in PS4, so why not risk here as well and get Sinking City and don't care about the reviews!?
And so I did just that.
I just started the game so I just played the tutorial part of it that works as the first case we get to investigate in Oakmont with our PI Charles Reed.
The title sinking city to which you travel in order to find what is happening with you and all the weird visions you get lately of freak monsters and the ocean swallowing you up.
Yep this is one of those games you have a huge map (which is offered as a poster with the Day One Edition I got) that makes you jog a lot to go from place to place. Just like I did in Vampyr, but here at least we get little help with the fast travel system (but that takes you to load screen which takes more time than those in Bloodborne...).
And the map will be one of your best friend because the cases and side quests are not quite marked there and showing in the HUD like in other games automatically...you have to pin the evidences and the places you should go on the map by yourself.
The clue states an address and you have to find it in the map. Some may say this gets boring, but since I like the Wally books I don't mind, it actually plays like a little game inside the game. And it also makes you start to know the huge map by doing so.
The world you get into is just like this...octopus and other sea creatures all around you.
The world is mesmerizing. And I simply just get lost in details.
But as the world is very interesting with parts of the city already sank where you can only go by boat and others where the NPCs still can live their tortuous lifes, there are some problems, mainly decisions made by the dev team, for sure, where you can travel the city from west to east or north to south and you will investigate buildings that inside are just the same as the others you visited before on the other side of the city.
They re-utilised too many textures...I got confused just now when I travelled to an other part of the city I've never been before (I just started playing the game!) and when I entered the house I thought I was Reed on one of those trips and was seeing the first house I visited just before...but nops...it was an other one but exactly the same textures inside...
Not the perfect thing to do in an open world, which is so reach from the outside. It seems the dev team only got time to make the city outsides and the rest used the same textures to cut time.
But I can live with this. Even if it gets you confused sometimes.
But the combat system is a pain...you get to shoot monsters (yep...they truly exist outside Reed's visions) but you get a couple of guns at the start which have no effect on monsters you get to find right at the beginning. And that's because you get to craft your own bullets (the coin in the city) from stuff you find around the world, but you can only carry a couple of them.
So, if the bullets are scarce and not quite effective against the monsters it's almost certain you kinda get stuck like I am right at the beginning on some side quests, because I still have to find the shotguns and stuff.
It might feel easier in the PC because...mouse! But in a PS4 controller is quite off...
The lucky thing is that the difficult level in this game separates the investigation level from the combat level. So you can set the investigation part for hard and combat for easy.
Sorry...but that's what I'm doing...
Besides this dev decisions about the gameplay, the most pain I find is the load screens which take too much time for what we are used nowadays.
That and the fact that opening the map, an action you do the most throughout the game, kinda freezes for a a bit the game and won't load immediately the map menu.
But since the game came out just now, hope there will be a patch to fix some of these problems in the near future. That's what happens with almost every single game in modern times...
But don't think after reading last paragraphs the game sucks and wonder why I still said to start off that I like the game. Because I do like it!
There is something about the game that pulls you in and makes you want to wonder the city as Reed and find about all the cases and side quests you get to investigate.
The mechanics make you go the day wishing you can return to Oakmont and see what the world has more to show you. More of Reed's visions and more looking for clues and try to make some sense of them and try that way to find the answer to the crimes and visions.
See you in Oakmont.
