Horror games are in their stride as of late. Resurgent household name series including Silent Hill and Resident Evil are delivering high quality releases persistently, whereas new entries to the genre including Cronos: The New Dawn are breaking through to huge appeal.
At the turn of the 360 / PS3 to Xbox One / PlayStation 4 era, horror games had turned up the action and glossed over the survival elements which made the genre iconic. We’ve now gone full circle. Limited resources, overpowering enemies and confined spaces are back and thus the genre has thrived.
As a survival horror shooter and an immersive action adventure, Vermila Studios’ new horror FPS finds itself somewhere in the middle of these times. If you can imagine what Resident Evil 7/8 and BioShock’s offspring, coated with a Lies of P Krat inspired city, would look like, you’d be close to understanding what Crisol presents itself as. With tentacles of influence from modern greats, can the macabre, blood-soaked Theater of Idols stir exceptional inspiration into a tasty Bloody Mary? Our review.
Story
Theater of Idols’ story pits players as Captain Gabriel Escuadero, a soldier who has been overtaken with a sense of religious duty from The Sun. The Sun sends Gabriel to the twisted version of Spain, Hispania. There, Gabriel is mentally enslaved into taking down enemies of his mysterious, sinister Lord.
Upon reaching Tormentosa, the game’s diverse island location, we meet Mediodia and her cult who save us from a demonic robot/statue-like adversary and main antagonist, Dolores. Medioda dispatches Gabriel to take out evil members of the island including the despicable Padre Arroyo.
Despite there being a few slightly hollow tales, there is some great world building in Crisol. Genuinely interesting and additive journals to read, memory silhouettes give engaging backstory to the places we visit and Dolores stands as Gabriel’s sinister shadow throughout.
Gabriel’s performance is accomplished, as a very vocal character I did feel connected to him and his plights, despite being a largely faceless soldier. There too are many twists and turns in the well-written story, including a late-game twist I hope you’ll enjoy as much as me.
Gameplay
As mentioned in the introduction, Crisol brings together elements of recent Resident Evils and BioShock to a create an immersive FPS action adventure. Satisfying gunplay, exploration and puzzle solving are how you’ll spend your 10-15 hours with the game.
That said, Crisol does have many of its own ideas. The most unique mechanic in Crisol is its approach to managing blood, which is both your health bar and your ammunition. To reload, Gabriel will transfuse blood from has right hand into the chamber using animations that you’d expect to pay a microtransaction fee for in Call of Duty. My favourite weapon, the pistol spits out tiny needles into Gabriel’s palm to draw blood to the red and gold hand cannon. It was as cool at the end, as it was 30-minutes in.
Shooting in Crisol is slow, methodical and precise. Every bullet counts, because if you miss then you may need to dip into your health bar to resupply your ammunition. The game is semi-linear too, so often you will need to take out those in your way to proceed. As you progress, you will be able to purchase weapon upgrades – which make you feel incredibly powerful by late game – and perks that enable you to save blood by tackling enemy encounters in particular ways.
I do need to address the low point of the game, however. Many of Crisol’s puzzles were simple enough to solve, though there were two in Chapter One that were overly complicated for a game in this genre. I also encountered a progress preventing bug related to one of these already complicated puzzles, that hindered my time with the game for far too many hours. I appreciate puzzles in the horror genre, though there was no need for these to be so convoluted.
With many items to find, multiple difficulty levels and challenges including 3-hour speed runs, Theater of Idols offers a wealth of replayability for its impressively low price of admission.
Presentation and Performance
The true star of the Crisol show is it’s tremendous world. Set on the grim island of Tormentosa, the exploration, discovery and design of the game was comfortably my favourite part. Across three different open zone areas, one in each of the three main chapters, all locations felt truly distinct and purposefully crafted with the story in mind. The town, industrial area and riverside rural location all meticulously created.
They too share minimal assets, showing clear endeavour from the developers to make Tormentosa feel special. Each building, street and late-game boat cruise are full of variety. As intended by the developers, it too, feels very Spain.
With map design that shamelessly steals from Resident Evil, I felt compelled to fully discover every item, collectible or place of interest that I could find. Missing a few collectibles from my first playthrough means I have the privilege of visiting Hispania once more to ensure the map turns fully blue, just like in my beloved Resi.
Despite there being slightly limited enemy variety, their design never got tiring over the 13 hours I spent with Crisol. Statue-like weapon wielding foes are the most common, and they are sincerely eerie, particularly when you’re in areas of limited lighting. Dolores, the game’s main nemesis – who you can see in the game’s key art – is something Lovecraftian and when she gets up in your face it’ll make you feel incredibly intimidated.
Meanwhile, the guns of Crisol look incredibly stylish. Every time you find a new firearm it will be coated in blood, then spat back out looking like something Van Helsing would wield. As a big shooter player, this was glorious.
Conclusion
Don’t be fooled into thinking that launching at $18 USD / £15 Crisol is a poor man’s Resident Evil Village-like. Yes, there’s a little less polish here, but for a breakout title with a fraction of the budget, Vermila have delivered.
Accomplished storytelling intertwined with satisfying gunplay and a truly tremendous island to explore, Crisol stands tall as an excellent AA horror title in a year where the genre will see some big hitters. Aside from a couple of over complicated, puzzles I sincerely hope this isn’t the last horror shooter we see from Vermila.
Crisol: Theater of Idols is now available on Xbox Series, PlayStation 5 and PC.
GSC would like to thank developer, Vermila Studios and publisher, Blumhouse Games for a code provided for review. The review was played on Xbox Series X.
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