I’ve never felt stuck in my 6 hour run time. But, there are also some great, gory murder scenes, good characters, solid puzzles that don’t overstay their welcome or break the flow, intuitive environmental clues, no needless inventory items or fiddling, no pixel hunting, very simple controls, interactive points highlighting, lots of references to Lovecraft’s other works and characters and just a general feeling of smoothness and gentle nudging of where you need to go next. There are some abrupt character switches, a slightly underwhelming feeling of dread, some loss of focus, a few overly long cutscenes and a few tries at some light humour, which I think doesn’t sit well with Mountains of Madness. Without any spoilers, the story intertwines Lone’s search for answers to his condition after being touched by too many tentacles from the Beyond, investigations of grisly ritual murders and the original plot of the Mountains of Madness, but with less geological surveys and science talk. The game also occasionally switches control to different characters, including Abdul Alhazred, author of the fabled Necronomicon and even H.P. The story follows Lone Carter, a private investigator that looks, speaks and acts like he got pulled straight out of a comic noir into the Miskatonic County by forces unknown. The worst offender visually are, no spoilers, some scene transitions that occur on a blank, beige screen with text and voice overs. The problem is, for a rather short game, there’s a bit too much player downtime.
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As is the norm for adventure games, a lot of exposition is done through in-game conversations where the player doesn’t have any control and these are not skippable, except the dialogue in some cases. The best ones come in the form of animated comic-like panels and these are very nicely done. Who would’ve thought that went well with Lovecraft?
The soundtrack fared much better, producing some nice pieces and even doing some, almost industrial metal vibes. Like they were recorded on a poor microphone or edited badly. They’re not terrible and the main character’s voice is really well done, but a lot of them are kind of spotty and have this grating, mechanical feeling to them. I’m less impressed with the character voices. Great pixel art, well animated characters and scenery, some really impressive areas and backgrounds and a very snazzy map of Arkham. Just comparing the visuals to the first one, it’s obvious how much of a facelift’s been done here. It’s set 10 years before the first game, but it’s not necessary to know the story of the original to enjoy this one. Coming from Italian developers PsychoDev and made in Adventure Game Studio, it’s a point and click throwback to the glory days of adventure games from the 80s and 90s and a prequel to the Chronicle of Innsmouth from 2017.
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