Crisol: Theater of Idols is a game with a lot of midtones, but is filled with a staggering amount of content that you would usual only expect out of the biggest players in the survival horror genre.

If you’ve seen the trailers for this game, then you know about the Blood system that they’re pushing as the big unique selling point. There are zero ammo drops throughout the entire experience and the only way you refill your weapons is by draining your health. While the idea is novel, I don’t think this system really worked as well as it could have. While you do need to occasionally be mindful of how much ammo you’re replenishing to make sure that you’re not putting yourself in harms way, the fact that there’s only really one combat resource that you’re collecting means that you’re going to have a ton of it and it really trivializes the entire game. I had a full set of blood syringes on me for about 90% of my playthrough, which meant that I could just reload all of my guns, top of my health to full and then get into the next encounter unscathed. Even with my capacity fully upgraded, I wound always run into blood fountains, animals to drain, or more synergies that I just simply didn’t need and I knew that I could just blow all of my ammo in a single encounter because I could get myself back to full afterwards with no downside. I could see this working a bit better on higher difficulties where enemies hit harder and take more shots, but playing through this game on the recommended standard difficulty was kind of a joke.

There was also a big emphasis on using the knife in this game and I think I used it a total of 5 times throughout my playthrough. It was cool to learn during the tutorials that you could use it to parry enemy attacks, but I was nearly always fully stacked with ammo so most enemies never made it even close to me before they were dealt with.

While there are some glaring issues with the combat system, overall I thought it was totally serviceable. While a bit more challenge would have been nice, I also enjoyed being able to clear rooms dependably while just having to worry about if there was a jumpscare that was about to get me around the next corner. And while the final run through enemies at the end of the game isn’t difficult, they do set it up in a way that makes your victory lap towards the credits a really fun time. I won’t spoil it here, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re interested.

I also want to call out that the weapon reload animations in this game are sick as hell. Since you’re sacrificing blood to them, each weapon has a unique way that your character has to maim himself to collect it. It was a great way of really emphasizing the unique mechanic that the game is so proud of.

The puzzles here were a mixed bag, but most of them skewed towards being tedious time sinks that felt a bit too demanding for a survival horror game of this type. It really kills your forward momentum when you need to fiddle around with putting weights on scales to get them all to be the same level or run back and forth between a giant wheel and some dominoes to figure out how to crack the code. In the back half of the game, I nearly always just went straight to a guide to breakdown the answer so that I didn’t waste a ton of time through trial and error to get the solutions myself.

I was hoping for an interesting story here and what’s there was perfectly serviceable if not a bit too straightforward and predictable. What really got under my skin though were the main characters. The MC is very awkward and uncharismatic and the sidekick is very grating. Topped with VO performances that are pretty sub par, I found myself skipping through some story beats where it was just them talking to each other on walkie-talkies because they would go on for so long and not add a whole lot to the plot. There are also a ton of “echoes of the past” events that pop up in every chapter and none of the them were particularly interesting, so I would basically just blitz through areas to try to cut them off as soon as I could.

While the game definitely has its share of shortcomings, I can’t deny that this is some AAA ambition and effort on display for a game that costs a fraction of what the big developers are charging. For $18, I was expecting a super short and super linear experience that had a few neat ideas that I could get through in a single sitting. What I got was a 10 hour playthrough that featured:

• A full map of each area riddled with icons to help follow objectives and trackers that tell you exactly which optional items still need to be collected along with color coded areas that show which have yet to be fully explored
• A full weapon upgrade system and perk system that lets you customize your play style
• Carnival games that give you tokens to use on a slew of upgrades and cosmetic items
• Interconnected levels with tons of optional areas to explore and shortcuts to unlock
• Hidden crows, hidden statues, chest emblems, currencies, max health upgrades, vinyl records, and codex entries that all make exploring the large maps a rewarding experience

Honestly, I’d say that Crisol would be a steal at $30 and the fact that they’re charging close to half of that is wild. You just don’t really see it happen much these days, especially for a game that has a proper publisher behind it. Big shoutout to Vermila Studios and Blumhouse Games for making this such a approachable title.

If you’re in the mood for a first person survival horror game akin to Resident Evil 7 or 8 then this is an easy recommend that won’t burn a whole through your wallet.

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