Tag: Sinking City

Completed Sinking City.
There’s a funny pice of self-awareness in the dialog with the police officer that explains why he dislikes the protagonist:

In most games, “choices” are about either being an alright guy or a complete asshole. In Sinking City, they are sometimes more subtle, and I like it.
At one point we need to choose between a necromancer that resurrects the dead to torture them and a Mayan vampire. Torturing dead people – bad. Eating people at night – also bad.

In another quest, you can either give away the real killer, a decent guy who committed a crime only because his family was held hostage, or frame a politician that plans to poison his mother. I see clear Witcher influence here.
Speaking of choices, though, what you did throughout the game doesn’t affect the ending. You just pick one of the three available, and that’s it. I’m glad the were some bossfights in the middle of the game:

Something I wish the game would make more fuss about are the weapons. They’re given to you during some key sequences, but you don’t actually get to see the process. A character would say “here’s something”, and you need to go to your inventory to discover that you’ve been awarded a Tommy Gun.
Also, what slightly ruined the experience for me is that all the investigations are basically the same. You find the clues. You recreate the sequence of events, which is almost never challenging. You unlock that secret wall. I wish the “puzzle solving” would somehow ramp up. But it never does.

Early in the game you meet a librarian with her mouth sewn. Later, there’s an interesting sidequest related to her, where you need to hunt the witch that did that to her. There’s even a boss fight and a video sequence leading to this, which is not something I’d expect from a sidequest. Leaves an impression.

There are infested areas, where you encounter more monsters and supposed to find more loot. But the mechanics work in such a way that you usually waste more ammo that gain. So I just tend to keep away from those areas.
For half of the game we’re looking for that antropologist that would help us understand the visions. And a few minutes after we find her, she just… drowns. What a disappointment.

I know it would be a delight. And it really is.
The name is an obvious reference to the Sunken City. And the game is full to the brim with those references, not just Lovecraft, but also Poe (of course), Heinlein, and others.

But the actual city is also half flooded with water. So, sometimes we travel on foot, other times – on a boat. Luckily the boat spawns near every harbor.

Interesting part is that you have a map, but no automarkers. Instead, you’re given description of places, and you need to guess where are the point of interests on the map.

Bullets act also as currency. I think that was the same for the first Metro.
As a private eye, a most of our time we spend on investigations. Investigations are usually split into two parts. First, you find all the clues in the area. Then you need to recreate the sequence of events. Which isn’t really hard, to be honest, not close to Obra Dinn, as there are usually just 3-4 events. Again, you usually aren’t told where to go. You need to search different archives for clues: police, newspaper, asylum, and others. It’s another minigame, where this time you need to find an article or a profile based on a couple of hints.