Cyanide offers us with Werewolf: The Apocalypse an action game with role-playing dyes in which it highlights the three forms of its lycanthrope protagonist.
Cyanide Studios’ career has many points in common with that of its fellow Gauls from Spiders, and so does their work. This is made up of a good handful of sports simulators of disciplines not as popular as football or basketball –cycling, rugby- and adventures that, even far from reaching the highest levels, have been enjoyable titles, such as Of Orcs and Men and his spin-offs starring Styx. We are talking about games with very good ideas embodied in a way that is not entirely correct due to, probably, a budget that is not at all close to that of large productions, with which we could speak without fear of being wrong about an ambition above its possibilities. However, Cyanide needed to make that leap in quality that Spiders guessed with The Technomancer, and ended up finding Greedfall, to position itself as one of the European studios to take into account for the next few years. Has he managed to find Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood?
Its plot premise is quite attractive, forming part of the role-playing game universe World of Darkness, which also includes the classic Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Masquerade 2, which will be released in a few months. Meanwhile, here we are in a relatively near future in which man is ending up devastating the planet, here represented by Gaia, to which, to top it all, corporations like Endron are driving the nails into his coffin. These corporations are but servants of a more powerful force, the Wyrm, once a balancing force but today unleashed and corrupted. To avoid the debacle, as we can imagine, our protagonist, Cahal, will be in charge, who has a peculiarity that leads to what is undoubtedly the great attraction of Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood: he is a werewolf.
Thus, in the construction and design of their world we are faced with the first negative point, and that is that it is difficult to understand how the Tumulus – the refuge of Cahal and his group, which suffers an attack at the beginning of the game – to various facilities Endron is only a few meters away. In some ways, it is as if said refuge is completely surrounded along its limits by the enemy, something that could have been easily solved with a kind of quick trip instead of a short walk until we reach the destination point of our mission.
This decision would be relatively salvageable if once in said enemy facilities, they had a varied design and an outstanding level of detail, but this is not the case, and we will walk through corridors and rooms throughout the dozen hours that it will take us to complete it, which they will practically feel like a copy and paste of each other. We can say something similar about the enemies, which will be repeated and little will come out of the model private soldier, heavy soldier and mecha, which is not that it can be said that they act as mini-boss, but they are the ones that are sure to put in more of a bind.
Before we talked about the Tumulus. This does the work of resting place that we have seen in many other titles and that it serves for other purposes, although in this case we are going to do little more than start conversations. This is one of the characteristics of the human aspect of Cahal, and in this place there are dialogues with other colleagues who in addition to entrusting us with the missions that the game consists of can offer us some chatter, but with very limited possibilities, with few options to choose, and giving the feeling that we choose the one we choose, the consequences will be the same, or if they are different, they are completely irrelevant in the future of history.
These last aspects of which we have spoken lead to that there is almost no R in ARPG, to which must be added a shallow skill tree that hardly gives rise to experimentation, because within a few hours we will realize that which are the most useful skills and in which it is worth investing spiritual points, which are the ones that allow you to improve each of them. That said, and since there is no R … is the A convincing?
Cahal can take three different forms, which translate into three different ways of playing too, it must be said, and this is a good idea from Cyanide. As a human we have already seen that the possibilities in the Tumulus are scarce, although luckily once we get into action these are greater, although not excessively varied. First of all, it must be made clear that stealth is always the best option, since combat can be demanding at times, both due to the difficulty of the game itself and other not so positive aspects. But let’s go back to the art of going unnoticed, and for this the most appropriate thing is to do it in the form of Lupus (wolf), since we are obviously shorter, and it is also possible to go through ventilation ducts, in a mechanism that already we know more than enough in this type of games. Lupus can approach enemies and knock them down, although to do so he will temporarily take the human form of Cahal, who can also use a crossbow to account for a distracted enemy at a distance.
When we enter a specific room, it is necessary to stop to take a look: the hiding possibilities, the doors that we can sabotage so that reinforcements do not arrive in case things get ugly, the routines of the enemies, use the Umbral Vision to detect any that may have escaped us … However, once we act, it gives the feeling that there is only one correct way to reach our destination, and that we will achieve success based on attempts and that trial and error it is what prevails, more than the freedom of the player and improvisation.
That said, it is not difficult for the thing to end in slaughter, in fact, it is most likely. It is then that Cahal takes the form of Crinos, the lycanthropic beast, and unleashes his fierceness that his most common enemies will be irretrievably victims. These will be little more than ants to trample for this form of our protagonist, although you will have to dig a little deeper if you want to defeat other more complicated rivals, such as those modified humans or the mecha.
For this we can make use of both attack buttons -light and strong-, link combos, and what is more important, vary between the two forms of Crinos, Agile and Mole. As we can imagine, the first is useful when the number of enemies on the screen is high -and they are not especially powerful-, allowing us to kill them quickly and then move on to Mole, in which Crinos is slower but also stronger, perfect to leave the strongest rivals in the end. There is also the possibility of activating the Frenzy, a state in which Crinos goes into absolute rage and becomes a killing machine, although it is obviously very limited in time.
In short, the combat feels agile in general, but we will often suffer, in many ways, from problems with the camera, something that does not remedy, unfortunately, being able to fix the enemies. In short, it is surely, without being perfect at all, the most satisfactory playable section of the entire adventure, since despite its limitations at a technical level, it does not have them at the design level, something that does not happen for example with the stealth or role elements.
A technical section … of what generation exactly?
And this height, as we have seen, is not too high. It is difficult to digest, in the middle of the year 2021 and with consoles such as PS5 and Xbox Series X already on the market, a technical section, especially visual, such as Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood. There are things that we have already talked about, such as the little detail of the settings, which are also transferred to the characters and to some facial expressions -if they have them- of some of them in certain moments of conversation, in addition to really poor textures. Fortunately, there are salvageable aspects, and it is that Cahal’s model in any of its three forms is well detailed, with a surprising performance in the hair of its animal forms – Lupus and Crinos – for the general line of the game. Apart from this, at a sound level it does not stand out for bad or much less, and to an acceptable soundtrack we must also add some interpretations in the voices that, being evident that they are not in charge of real professionals or stars of the sector, are worthy enough. so as not to attract negative attention.
Nacon Spain has provided us with a press copy of the game for the development of this Reviews.
CONCLUSION
With this, the jump in quality of Cyanide will still have to wait, and it does not seem that they are going to find it with a game that wants to cover so many aspects, but with another with more specific characteristics such as Styx: Master of Shadows. sequel. Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood wants to cover too many suits and hit too few without being a bad game, least of all one that cannot be enjoyed. As is usual for this French study, good ideas are glimpsed, but perhaps the appropriate thing would be to translate them little by little instead of all at once in a single video game and stay half in all. As we have told in the text, the technical section is poor at this point, but salvageable, the playable one could say more of the same, and at the narrative level it can start from an interesting base: the problem is not the game itself, but the quantity of titles on the market that do similar things, but better. Depending on the case, much better.
THE BEST
- Argumentally tells a story that can be interesting.
- The three forms of the protagonist give rise to a certain playable variety.
- Combat can be satisfying, even though it is far from perfect.
WORST
- Technically it does not seem from this year, rather from the beginning of the last generation (PS4, Xbox One).
- Stealth leaves a feeling of being more trial and error than skill and improvisation of the player.
- Any role-playing aspect is relegated to ostracism: very little depth in this sense.
- Incomprehensible, incoherent world design.
Right
It is not the latest or the most original, it does not have the best execution either, but it can be fun if you like the genre. Good, but room for improvement.
