Crisol: Theater of Idols Review (PS5)
El Mar never forgets
Publisher: Blumhouse Games
It didn’t dawn on me until like right now, as I’m writing this review, that I didn’t really know that much about this game before playing. All I knew is that this game looks amazing, it’s a horror game, and you use your blood as ammo (which I thought was pretty cool, especially with how you reload your weapon). I think I only watched part of one of the trailers for this game and then just enough of a demo playthrough to try and gauge whether I would like the gameplay or not. I really need to get in the habit of researching games more. It doesn’t help that I find some really great games this way, even if it also causes me to pick up games I end up not enjoying. Well, let’s get into Crisol: Theater of Idols and whether it was a hit or a miss.
Oh, and I also want to mention that when I say The Sun or The Sea, I mean the Gods not the actual sun and sea. I’ll also capitalize their pronouns so it’s easy to know when I’m referring to the gods or our protagonist.
Crisol: Theater of Idols opens in a way that definitely catches your attention as our protagonist receives a message from The Sun. You jump into the shoes of a man named Gabriel Escudero who is not only a devout follower of The Sun, but also one of His faithful warriors. The Sun has chosen Gabriel to carry out His will to stop a threat before it gets too powerful. Another god, The Sea, was imprisoned many, many years ago and he is now trying to break free. The Sun, sensing this and knowing His presence isn’t welcomed there, sends Gabriel in His stead to the cursed island of Tormentosa. However, it’s going to be easier said than done.
The Sun wastes no time in sending out His Chosen One as the next time Gabriel wakes up it’s on the shore of Tormentosa. After getting a brief vision to remind him of his mission, he starts his trek to the Cathedral of The Sea which serves as a prison for said god. At first, things seem, well, not exactly normal but I guess uneventful as the streets of Tormentosa are strangely empty and bring memories of a battlefield despite only animal corpses being around. However, things take a turn for the worse once Gabriel actually finds someone roaming around, follows them into a church after they run away, and only finds a puddle of blood and their walkie talkie. Strange. Well, it’s going to get even stranger as the culprit reveals itself to be a saint statue that was just innocently standing there. Even though these statues are pretty noisy, it seems their animation didn’t change the fact that they’re made of stone and thus are very hardy against normal weaponry. And Gabriel would have died here…if it wasn’t for The Sun giving him another chance and blessing him with His blood. Letting Gabriel use his blood, now blessed by The Sun, as a way to actually deal damage and defeat them. Not only does he have to deal with statues coming after him, but once he makes his way to the Cathedral of The Sea he finds that the seal keeping The Sea imprisoned hasn’t been properly maintained. Which explains why The Sea is able to break free now, but also why it’s taking Him a while. Oh, and that’s not all as a particular monstrous being that seems to be an amalgamation of statue, metal, and flesh named Dolores has made it her personal mission to hunt Gabriel down. Who is Dolores you ask and why is she particularly named? Well, she was (is?) the wife of The Sun. She’s The Dolores, not just a statue made in her image.
There is a lot going against Gabriel here, and it makes sense considering he’s a follower of The Sun in the domain of The Sea. It also seems that the majority of Tormentosa’s residents have been killed before he arrived or before he gets to them. Luckily, Gabriel doesn’t find himself as the only Sun worshipper on Tormentosa as there is a pretty sizable group of Sun worshippers that managed to hide amongst The Sea worshippers. They reach out to give Gabriel a helping hand, as after all why would they turn away The Sun’s Chosen One, in the form of saving him from his first encounter with Dolores and showing them their hideout. Plus, a member named Mediodia helps push Gabriel in the right direction and tries to befriend him throughout the game even if he’s pretty resistant to both.
It turns out that Gabriel needs to redo the seal that’s keeping The Sea imprisoned and to do that he needs the blood from the four most devoted followers of The Sun back when He descended and lived among humans. And since that was hundreds of years ago, that means he must hunt down their descendants. Good thing it doesn’t matter if the descendants are also Sun followers. Of course, it’s not going to be easy to get them to give up their blood or to get close enough to them to retrieve it. And on top of the statues and Dolores you also have Padre Arroyo, who calls himself The Sea’s messenger, who will also occasionally chime in to taunt Gabriel.
Will Gabriel be The Sun’s Chosen One who stops a tyrant god from bringing the Dark Times? Or will Gabriel be The Witness to The Sun’s fall into the waves? Will his faith stay strong or will it waver as he learns the dark truth that the church hides from its followers?
I enjoyed the story of Crisol. I can’t really speak on the possible historical events or folklore that the game took inspiration from, but I did see in one of the interviews that I found while I was trying to do some quick research that the goal was so you didn’t have to know said events or folklore (honestly, I didn’t know this was from Spanish developers until I started playing which shows how little I looked into this game haha). Which, I’d say they did a great job in doing as I found the game’s story was pretty easy to follow and catch any implied implications. Like how The Sea must be the one animating the statues and how the fact they’re killing even those that worship The Sea reflects on said god. There’s only two characters that stay pretty mysterious that I feel are either connected to a piece of folklore or they have something more going on that the game doesn’t touch on. I also ended up surprisingly liking the religious tones of Crisol, which I think is due to the perfect balance that the game achieves in how it tells its story. It was pretty interesting learning about The Sun, The Sea, and the religions that spawned from them as the game progressed; as well as learning about what Tormentosa was like through memory snippets. The memories are recent, but they do give you a feel on how it was like living there and it was interesting seeing the different circumstances everyone was in, the way religion played a part, and how it wasn’t all calm, peaceful seas there. Even among The Sea worshippers. Not to mention the secret Sun worshippers. You learn exactly why they had to hide, I love where they decided to hide out at, and I especially love how they have dialogue when you pass by them. It really does give you a picture on this group without necessarily focusing on them and it’s helped more since the majority of their dialogue updates as you progress. Like how they’re skeptical of you starting out, but once you prove yourself and get closer to your goal they get hopeful.
I guess what I’m saying is that Crisol does a good job in balancing all of its elements that make up its story. The main goal is to seal up The Sea again, but the lore of Tormentosa really fleshes everything out. It also does a great job in telling you the lore as you go along, some which Gabriel already knows and some that he learns when you do, without making you feel that you’re missing that info. I found it all to be interesting and I did honestly look forward to hearing more about what was going on in Tormentosa, the true story of The Sun, and wanted to find out what was going to happen next as Gabriel continues on his mission.
Talking about Gabriel, I really liked his character. He is definitely the type of character that you envision when you think of a devout follower that doesn’t really know a life outside of his religion. It was interesting hearing bits and pieces of Gabriel’s backstory and seeing the way that he grows throughout the game. It’s pretty subtle, but you can see the chink in his armor. He was a wonderful protagonist, the subtle growth he has fits well with his character, and I surprisingly didn’t find him annoying despite talking quite a bit to himself. I also liked Mediodia a lot as well. She does feel a bit out of place and annoying at first, but she quickly grew on me. She saw that Gabriel was too serious and just wanted him to loosen up. Plus the whole situation going on is pretty dark and she’s trying to lighten up the mood. Though, don’t think that means she’ll just let you insult her. It was nice seeing Gabriel slowly soften up to Mediodia.
Also, the ending is absolutely crazy. The whole tailend of the game was such a surprise that I was not expecting at all, was amazing, and was a great ending to the game. I’m not too sure how a certain elements are explained with the reveal that happens, but
Now onto the gameplay! While the first descendant you need blood from to create the seals is easy to come by, the other three really make you work for it. Each of the three remaining descendants are holed up in their respective area in Tormentosa: Mermaid District, Ram District, and Anchor District. Yeah, one of these seems not like the other, but doing some quick research makes it make a whole lot of sense. Anyway, you’ll be going through all three Districts and each of them are unique with the theme each District is centered around, how the areas are structured, and the main centerpiece of the District which the descendant has locked themselves in. Of course, your main goal is to figure out how to get to them and, well, to do that you’ll basically need to explore the whole District. Which isn’t going to be easy as well considering the current state of Tormentosa means there is a lot of debris due to all the destruction that happened (and in some cases will happen) or just blocked paths that you need to find the right tool for. There are also puzzles that you’ll have to do, which uses a combination of environmental and logic elements, as well as the usual moving interactable objects to open up a path. I do suggest having something to jot things down.
However, you’re not alone while exploring Tormentosa as there are many saint statues around that are just waiting for someone to come their way. They can hide pretty well, but luckily they are pretty noisy being statues and all. Which cuts down on you being surprise attacked, but that doesn’t make these guys any less scary or deadly. There are various different statue enemies that you’ll go up against and you can tell what weapon they use (and I’m pretty sure how hardy they are) based on how they look. So, how do you combat these statues? Well, with your blood of course! After being blessed with The Sun’s blood, your blood not only gains the property to damage these statues, but also changes your weapons. They get a really cool visual change and a functional one to account for the unorthodox ammo that Gabriel now wields. Which means that every time you need to reload, you’re actually using your own health as Gabriel’s reload animation is him drawing his blood out. It’s pretty brutal, but also pretty cool. And even though the knife doesn’t use your blood, The Sun was nice enough to give it a visual upgrade as well so it matches your other arsenal. Though, don’t think you don’t have to maintain your knife as well as it has its own durability meter. It does let you damage the statues without using up blood, but at the same time each swipe will lower its sharpness and once it’s not sharp anymore the damage output is low until you sharpen it again. The knife will also let you parry enemy attacks if you attack at the right time when the enemy is, but I could never get the timing right. You start out with the classic pistol and knife combo and as you progress, you’ll find other guns to use like a shotgun or a sniper rifle. All the guns have their own unique design, reload animation, and pros and cons to them. Like, for example, the shotgun deals a lot of damage but it also takes a lot of blood to reload it and it takes longer to reload.
This unique mechanic of using your own blood makes up the survival horror aspect of Crisol as it combines the management of limited health and ammo together in a way that works. It makes you think about every shot that you do, what weapon is best for the situation or if you can risk using it, and encourages you to be more careful. It makes combat encounters more tense than other games as managing your health is everything here. Heck, even though combat encounters here are a bit more slow paced than in other games to account for this, it is still tense and you can still freak out as you’re trying to keep your distance.
Don’t worry though, you don’t have to be perfect. It is a bit rough in the beginning as you start with nothing, but as you progress you’ll see that the game does allow for some recklessness. In addition, you do have ways to recover your health. You can find syringes filled with Plasmarine as you explore Tormentosa. Gabriel can hold a few of them at a time and you can use these at any time during or after combat as a little health pick-me-up. Just be careful during combat as it does have a healing animation to go along with it (reloading does as well, which you can actually cancel at the end for a quick weapon change or stop it early if you’re in a bit of a hurry during combat). You can also use specific animal corpses to heal yourself as well by absorbing their blood. These are more spread out and you can’t carry it with you, but you get health in relation to what animal it is. Like, chickens recover the least amount of health which can help offset reloading; while a horse recovers a lot of health which can be helpful after a tough encounter…or before one.
Oh, man, I totally forgot to mention damaging the statues. Well, since I couldn’t fit it in a good spot I’ll just put it here! The enemies here may be hardy statues, but that doesn’t mean they don’t react to your blood bullets! Enemies will actually recoil after they take a certain amount of damage, which can be helpful in setting an enemy back for when you want to hit them all with an explosion or for long range enemies to disrupt their attack. In addition, parts of their body can also be destroyed which also affects the way they move and attack you. Though, as you’d hopefully guess, aiming for the head isn’t lethal considering they’re statues and all. You can aim for their arms or legs to make them stumble in their assault and even make them switch out their weapon. You can also destroy their legs, reducing them to a crawling torso trying to getcha, or destroy all but their legs so they can only kick at you. I’m pretty sure a combination of damage and where you’re shooting determines if parts of their body breaks and, in addition, it also does reduce the damage they cause to you. Plus, it can be used to help crowd control as it does reduce their speed as well. Just make sure you remember you didn’t fully defeat them. On that, you don’t have to worry about whether you did defeat them or not as they do burst in a pillar of light and you get essence when you do. It’s pretty obvious once you’re in the game and I never had a moment where I thought I defeated an enemy, but didn’t.
However, the animated saint statues aren’t the only thing you have to worry about as Crisol also has a stalker enemy in the form of Dolores. She is a hulking enemy that the only thing you can do is to try and not get caught by her. She’ll come at unexpected times to patrol an area, which of course is the very area you need to do things in. You just need to make sure she doesn’t spot you and you don’t do anything that she can hear (which is running, setting off an environmental hazard, or shooting a gun) as she will grab you like a Barbie doll and throw you around. You can duck under things or inside buildings that she’s too tall to get through, but be careful as she can also grab you and throw you out if you’re too close to the entrance. Dolores is pretty intimidating and scary, especially since she taunts you as well, and man, does she make a good obstacle to overcome. Not to mention her role later on in the game. I love her even if she wants to kill me.
As you’re exploring Tormentosa’s Districts, you’ll also come across various collectibles. A lot of them do end up helping you out, while some are purely to collect them. Starting out with the ones that help you, as you’re exploring around you’ll mostly find Silver Bulls, which is Tormentosa’s currency, and gas canisters, which you use at sharpener’s motorcycles to sharpen your knife, as they’ll just be laying around. The others, while some are on the main path, will mostly require you to explore more and do optional puzzles. There are Crow Relics, Holy Blood which will increase your max health, Solari brooches which you get when you absorb the dead bodies of those that are a part of the secret Sun worshipper group, and Crows themselves. Hear the sound of a crow, er, crowing and panicked flapping? Well, there’s a trapped Crow somewhere in the vicinity and you just need to find and shoot the cage to set it free. I’ll go into how everything else other than Holy Blood helps you out soon. Other than that, there are these small statue idols called Ulises idols that the game doesn’t tell you about, but does have a hidden count of. These can be pretty hidden at times, though in your face in others, and destroying them will grant you some essence. I didn’t put these in the helpful category as you’ll get enough from defeating enemies. There are also memories that’ll play out when you get into the area or room that they happened in. These also have a hidden count and while you will see most of them just by going through the main path, there are some that are in optional areas. There are Maremanto Pages and Vinyl Records, which are counted towards the map progress. You can access these while you’re in-game, but you can in the main menu when going into Extras. Collecting the Vinyl Records will allow you to listen to that track without needing to go to the spot in the game that it plays at. Maremanto Pages are part of the game’s lore and I’m pretty sure it’s the teachings that those that worship The Sea are taught by the church.
Most of these collectibles do show up on the map and the map will even tell you whether or not you found and picked up everything in that room or area of the map. You’ll also see how many of each collectible is in that District and how many you already collected. However, health pickups do count towards whether an area is fully explored and chests will hide what’s inside until you open them. Not to mention that certain collectibles, like Crows, aren’t counted towards an area being completely explored. So, I suggest just keeping an eye and ear out and you’ll be fine. Not counting the Ulises idols, I found most of the collectibles here. I only missed three crows (funnily enough one in each District) and a Holy Blood since I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to return (which bummed me out quite a bit).
When you’re in between Districts, you’ll be at the game’s hub area. Tormentosa’s Fair, which also doubles as the hideout for the secret Sun worshipers, is the hub that connects to all three Districts that you’ll be going into. This serves as a good respite before and after you go back into the fray to deal with the animated statues, Dolores, and whatever else the District has in store for you. I love how the hub is the island’s fair and it really becomes a nice sight to see. Aside from running around to hear updated dialogue from the NPCs standing around, there are also carnival games that you can play. Three of them, in fact, and winning at them will give you tickets which you can then redeem for some collectibles. There are also Solari chests, each adorned with a number and a slot, which you’ll be able to open with a corresponding Solari brooch. These chests will give you Silver Bulls and perhaps even a Crow Relic depending on which one it is. And finally, there’s La Planidera which acts as this game’s shopkeeper and their crystal ball serves as a manual save point. You’ll use the Silver Bulls to upgrade your weaponry. The upgrades are staggeredly unlocked to help facilitate the difficulty curve (I don’t think you can make a weapon too powerful too fast here) and each Crow you save will also give you a 1% discount. Yep, the trapped Crows are actually La Planidera’s pets! Essence and Crow Relics are both used to unlock skills which are pretty useful and can change how you play. For example, there’s a skill that grants you a small chance of not consuming a bullet if it hits an enemy.
You can also find La Planidera in the safe rooms/areas within the Districts where you’ll be able to buy upgrades, sharpen your knife, save your game, heal up with the blood fountain, and be safe until you decide to continue on your mission. Of course, there are also sharpener’s motorcycles and crystal balls sparsely placed as well outside of the safe room/area.
Now, for buying upgrades and skills the game is a lot more strict with it. There is little to no leeway as you do need to collect everything if you want to be fully upgraded. You still need to carefully choose which skill and upgrade you want and feel will be most helpful to you as you progress either way, but you have to be even more careful if you’re going in not wanting to find all the collectibles.
I was honestly a bit worried about whether I would enjoy the gameplay here, especially after hearing the thoughts those that played the demo had. In reality, I had nothing to worry about as I loved playing through Crisol: Theater of Idols. The feel of the gameplay felt really nice and I really liked the feedback that you get with the guns and the knife. I also didn’t mind the more slow-paced nature of the combat. Not to mention that I loved the unique mechanic of using your blood as ammo and that the enemies you’re going up against are saint statues animated by a god. It also does a neat twist on how the head isn’t a lethal hit for the enemies as of course it wouldn’t for these statues. They’re stone, they don’t have brains. I also liked Dolores and found that she was a good stalker enemy. She can be a bit annoying, I admit, but I loved her and how she unexpectedly comes in to be a terrifying threat as she taunts Gabriel. This is also where stealth comes in and I found it to be pretty good here. It is easy to know whether Dolores will be able to see you and it definitely helps that you can walk normally (no slow crouch walking while she’s patrolling!) and you can duck into spaces she can’t get to if she does spot or hear you. There is one section that I have a hard time finding anyone being able to get through it without being shot a lot, but the game does put one of the big animals you can absorb at the end so you can heal back up. So I don’t hold that section against the game.
In terms of how fair the game is, I played on Penitent difficulty (aka Normal difficulty) the whole game and I found it to be pretty fair. The difficulty did indeed feel balanced as the difficulty was just right. Not too difficult, but also not too easy. The game does a wonderful job with its difficulty curve and while there were spots where I was low on blood, I never felt that there was a sharp spike. The game raises the difficulty in a way that you almost don’t really notice it as it slowly ramps up enemy encounters when you would have upgraded your weapons or gained a skill. You’ll go from stressing over one or two enemies coming at you to dealing with a handful of varied enemies at once by the end of the game. I also did find that the game puts plenty of opportunities to heal. You can really tell the developers took care and playtested the game as you’ll find animal corpses you can absorb at times when you would really need it and there are definitely plenty of Plasmarine syringes around. Too much, in fact, especially towards the late game, but I feel that’s more due to how much blood reloading the other guns cost and the developers perhaps expecting you to get more reckless as you get more powerful. Being more reckless after a while is a bit hard to learn as the beginning of the game does have you be more careful, but once I realized the way areas were structured it was easier for me to take out my shotty and sniper rifle those annoying flying baby dolls (…it makes more sense once you run into them in-game).
Oh, and puzzles! I enjoyed the puzzles here as well. All the puzzles were great and I loved how it was a mix of environmental and logic elements to them. They were a perfect balance of being easy enough that it can still take a bit to figure out or gather the information, but not too hard that you’ll get stuck. In fact, the only time I got stuck on a puzzle was when I didn’t notice a note was actually multiple pages. I also did like how the game does have a button to go to the note that gives you the hint of what you need to do. So, yeah, the puzzles here are great and fit within the area that they appear in.
Lastly, to end my thoughts on Crisol’s gameplay, I really want to mention how it just sucks you in. Every time I played, I thought I was only in the game for an hour only to realize I was in it for five. Crisol is definitely a game that the time just flies by as you’re playing and I’m sure it’s thanks to the atmosphere of the game. Not only is Tormentosa masterfully crafted, but the atmosphere is so tense (which is partially thanks to the blood mechanic) that it just keeps you pulled in and fully engaged at all times. I found myself on edge whenever I was exploring, keeping an ear out for the tell tale sign sound of an animated statue and even second guessing myself as I wonder if that’s just the rain hitting the various objects or a statue lying in wait. Or when Dolores is patrolling and I know that she can just reach in and throw me out if I’m too close to the entrance of a hiding spot or how she is so large that you’re like a doll to her. Even when I was sure I could just run past her and outrun her there was still that small fear that she could still get me. Dolores’ design is just terrifying and how relentless she is in trying to get Gabriel.
Oh and the tense atmosphere even helps the horror aspect of the game. I don’t know how the game does it, but it simultaneously keeps you tense while also lulling you in thinking that nothing is going to happen. Which ended up making the appearances of Dolores and the various scares this game has get me. I jumped so much and even had a few moments where I couldn’t help but say “oh my god” out loud as I was playing. And there’s one, maybe two, instances where it was a jumpscare. I’m pretty sure there were some things that scared me that probably weren’t supposed to as well. The Fair and the safe room/areas did have me relax, but I quickly went back to being tense once I exited them. So yeah, Crisol also nails the horror half of its survival horror genre.
In terms of negatives, there are some. These didn’t affect my enjoyment for the most part, just a little brief bit of annoyance, and most of them can easily be fixed with a patch. There were some enemies that annoyed me, but that’s honestly par for the course with a game that has enemy variety. Plus, I did find myself not minding them once I got further in and upgraded my weapons more. I did also feel knife durability was too low in the beginning, especially since gas canisters and sharpener’s motorcycles are more rare, but the upgrades do help, I ended up not using the knife as much, and I was drowning in gas canisters by the time I was halfway through the last District. Though, I could not get the timing for the parry down. I was able to parry a handful of times, but I never did figure it out and by the time I had enough resources to, I was leaning more into using guns more loosely since I had said resources to (and by resources I mean blood haha). The map can be a bit confusing when you’re trying to trace your way back to a previous area, like a locked room, especially since blockages that happen due to the story or slopes don’t get updated on the map. While there are obvious point-of-no-returns, there are some that aren’t so obvious. There is at least one that I ran into because I wanted to go back for a collectible I missed after finding a guide on how to access it. It bummed me out quite a bit and I don’t think it helps that there are some soft no-return jumps or beats in the game. I do appreciate the soft no-returns as you just need to take a detour to go back to that area of the map, but man it really makes those hard no-return jumps unexpected.
I don’t think I actually mentioned this when I was going into the gameplay, but you also can’t return to a District once you finish it. Which is fair considering other games do that too. So, I suggest trying to explore and get everything as you go along just in case you run into a surprise hard no-return jump.
As for things that bugged out that could be fixed in a future patch, I did have two instances where a part of an area and a whole room didn’t load in all the assets. Though, strangely enough, it kept the hitboxes for the player character but not for your bullets which did make the room that didn’t load in everything correctly easier than it would have been to clear out. The switches to turn something on were also set to on before I interacted with them instead of being set to off (luckily, that doesn’t affect progression). After I upgraded the pistol’s max ammo capacity, it also just reverted to the default capacity whenever I loaded up a save. The game remembers and fixes itself after a while or after switching between another gun, but it still did make me lose more health to reload it back to max. There are also some elements of the map that doesn’t properly update, like there was one area that said it was completed but there were still Silver Bulls I didn’t pick up yet, marked locked doors when they weren’t locked, and a certain locked icon doesn’t go away after you use the tool to unlock it and open up the area. I think that may be due to it also being classified as an interactable which doesn’t get taken off the map once you move it. Lastly, I did find the menu UI to stick at times or not go to the proper selection. Like after a certain point, pressing the button to view the transcript of a Memory won’t automatically put the select on it and it may cause it to stick to that submenu instead of going to the map that the game normally defaults to. It can also stick to a certain tab in that submenu as well to a lesser extent.
The sound design and visuals are absolutely amazing in Crisol: Theater of Idols. While most of the time you’ll be listening to the ambience of Tormentosa as you’re exploring so you can hear threats coming (and it also helps make the atmosphere tense), the music tracks that we do get are wonderful. The track for the safe room/area and the Fair definitely gets you all relaxed and you can tell that they took inspiration from Resident Evil’s safe room tracks. The other tracks also really come out kicking, making sure they have an impact when they come in. Though, my favorite track is definitely the game’s Main Theme (I honestly sat on the main menu just to listen to it) and the End Credits song which I let the credits roll just to listen to it (and it is honestly a great song to put at the tail end of this game). The sound effects for everything are so effective as well. There are two sound effects that just annoyed me (the buzzing of electricity and the gas leak sound effect), but other than that I loved the sound that the animated statues make, how impactful your hits on them sound, and how satisfying it is to defeat them. The rain is also pleasant, which is pretty important considering it rains the whole game.
I also really liked the voice acting here. I played the game with English voice acting and while there are some lines that could have been done better, I’d say everyone did a great job. They especially casted the perfect voice for Gabriel as his voice is perfect for his character. He could have easily been annoying, but I could honestly listen to Gabriel all day. Mediodia is a bit annoying when she first talks, but she grew on me and the voice for The Sea does seem like a weird one until you learn the truth. Also, Dolores’ voice is perfect. Love her. Apart from the few times where the voice lines sound a bit flat, you can feel the emotion that they put into their lines.
I did switch to the original Spanish voice acting a couple times just to see how it was and the English casting matches pretty well too which I wasn’t expecting. I can’t really say which one is best, but I do feel the Spanish voice acting for Padre Arroyo is better than the English voice acting at the very least (specifically when you meet him as he sounded fine when he was talking to you through the walkie-talkie).
Well, I thought I wouldn’t have much to say about the sound design here, but look at me gushing about it. Well onto the visuals. I know Tormentosa is kind of in a wreck, but man does it look beautiful. It really made me wish I could see it before everything went down the drain as there are so many beautiful areas that you’ll come across as you explore. And on that note, Tormentosa is so masterfully crafted and you can tell that this island revolves around a religion that focuses on the sea. Everything visually points to the sea or religious symbolism. Also, I wanted to write this ever since I started the game, but it is so smart that Tormentosa uses anchors as their crosses. That is so smart and I feel it also doubles as a way to show just how intertwined the actual sea and their religion are. I also love how they are also frequently paired with pretty and delicate blue flowers which brings to mind water. I loved the way all the various saint statues looked, how they were animated, and how they had to break themselves so they can walk around (which also goes into why they make so much noise). Also oh my gosh Dolores. The mask of her saint statue looks hauntingly beautiful and then you just look at the rest of her and she is terrifying. I don’t want to spoil what happens at the end of the game, but they went so hard on Dolores’ design and it paid off. I also like how when you absorb a human body, you see the item tied to them be recreated and I like how the people you see when memories play out have a blood-like texture to them.
Not to mention the designs for all the guns (and the knife). I especially loved the guns as they look so good and I love how blood was incorporated into the design. I loved the unique reloading animations and I love how you can just see not only the blood dripping from Gabriel’s wound, but also see the guns fill up with blood. And while you can’t see it most of the time, your ammo count also reflects on how much blood the gun is holding. It’s all very cool.
Oh, also the game does a good job with the lighting. There are only a few points in the game where Gabriel will use a flashlight and aside from those moments, the rest of the game is lit well. There are a few spots that are too dark, which two did have a collectible hidden in it, but I found that the lighting here was perfect. Especially if you’re like me playing this with the lights off at night and possibly with a candle lit as extra mood lighting. And while we’re on this, I will also say the game does a good job at overall guiding the player through the game
Once you finish the game, you also unlock the art and model gallery so you can check out concept art and the various models for characters and enemies. You do need to unlock them with points you get from completing achievements (Crisol has an in-game achievement tracker) and it’s a shame you never see Gabriel at any point in the game cause he is too cute.
As for performance, I found that the game plays beautifully on the PS5. Maybe there were some small hitches here and there, but they’re so small that the only reason why I noticed them was that I thought I got hit whenever I defeated an enemy with the knife.
Verdict
I am so glad I played Crisol: Theater of Idols as I absolutely loved it. This game does so many things right that it easily outweighs the few flaws that it has and really just needs to be polished up more to get rid of lingering bugs and glitches. The story and lore of Tormentosa was interesting, I looked forward to finding out what was going to happen next, the game looks and sounds absolutely amazing, and the game feels great to play. Not to mention the unique mechanic of using your blood as ammo against animated saint statues that make up your enemies. Pairing that with how the enemies are handled and taking a more slow-paced approach to combat, this ended up working really well here and brings along a great twist to the survival horror genre. The game also absolutely nails the atmosphere and immersion. Crisol: Theater of Idols is an amazing game, and dare I say it’s a nearly perfect one, that is a must play for survival horror fans.
Also, the price is an absolute steal for Crisol. I was honestly surprised when the price was announced as I thought it would cost more just based on the trailer. Now that I played Crisol I am even more surprised. This is an amazing debut game for the studio and I’ll definitely be looking forward to any future games from them.
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