Call of the Elder Gods, an intriguing puzzle sequel - Review
A few years later, the sequel to Call of the Sea is ready to open an even more "lovecraftian" door.
It's been a while since we embarked on that search mission as Norah, in what effectively set the tone for an appetizing, puzzle-filled series, the kind that will literally make your head spin. Call of the Elder Gods is, in fact, the direct sequel to Call of the Sea, a title that allowed us to investigate the secrets of a paradisiacal island that concealed unsolved mysteries. In an overall simplistic (in a good way) formula, Out of the Blue Games' video game proved to be a delightful experience, capable of telling a story based on H.P. Lovecraft's works in a completely original way.
And these excellent premises find fertile ground in this official sequel that improves some features, while also transforming the narrative in a dual way, with two protagonists who must investigate a strange artifact discovered a decade ago and linked to something mystical. The developers were clear about what they wanted from Call of the Elder Gods: to continue the story that ended in Call of the Sea's post-credits and embrace new players with a narrative system that would also encourage newcomers.
Our advice remains to play Call of the Sea before delving into this puzzle adventure, especially since the price of the package remains very accessible for what it offers. That said, all that's left is to immerse ourselves in this experience characterized by memory loss, black goo (with a precise meaning), and puzzles that will, at times, make you regret underestimating them… and that is extremely positive.
A Mystery to Solve Around the Globe
Call of the Elder Gods will cast us as a girl who had strange and unsettling dreams, set in an ancient stone city in the middle of the jungle that seems not to be on Earth. Her name is Evangeline Drayton, a student tormented by recurring dreams related to an ancient artifact discovered about ten years ago. A determined woman who seeks the support of Professor Harry Everhart (a key character from Call of the Sea) who, in turn, tries to ignore the shadows that are always before his eyes.
But the truth is there, around the corner, ready to be discovered by these two unlikely allies, while simultaneously confronting beings of unknown nature that go beyond all human comprehension. To all this, there will be a cult with unsavory characters who will try to glean every piece of information from our "heroes." It is an interesting tale, with supernatural traits and inspired by "The Shadow Out of Time", belonging to the evergreen Cthulhu cycle that fans will know well.
The choice of two protagonists, even if at times the changes seemed a bit forced, allows us to explore the game world more deeply and discover their peculiar character traits in detail. The relationship at the beginning is a bit troubled, but as the adventure progresses, our heroes will find the right cohesion and will manage (?) to untangle the knot, and understand what lies behind that black substance.
The events, therefore, across the six chapters that compose them, will be a crescendo of mystery, novelty, and moments where you will always want to know more. And from a gameplay perspective, exploring different locations compared to the island of the first game allows Call of the Elder Gods to evolve creatively, with lost radio stations, secret military bases, and technologies never seen in the 1950s. Not to mention the puzzles, the real challenge that every puzzle game lover would want to experience at least once.
Puzzles Not for Beginners
If you have already ventured into the mysteries of Call of the Sea, then you will know perfectly what kind of experience awaits you. For everyone else, Call of the Elder Gods is a puzzle game where the difficulty curve will tend to rise as you progress through the adventure, making you think, strategize, try and retry, until you are completely satisfied with having managed to open that stone door that had been waiting for that moment for centuries. Of course, in every puzzle game, the difficulty level is absolutely subjective: you might solve everything in about ten minutes or spend hours trying to figure out what to do without ever succeeding.
For our part, we can tell you that you will still get a lot of satisfaction, also because the developers have wisely included some tools to customize the difficulty. But let's proceed step by step: Call of the Elder Gods focuses entirely on the exploration (albeit quite linear) of the various areas. Our task will be to observe every nook and cranny with extreme meticulousness to find clues, jot them down in the diary, and reread them at the right moment to solve the various riddles.
Every clue will enlighten our minds, activate our neurons, and give us the right knowledge to be the best paranormal Sherlock Holmes. However, if at first the various mysteries are within everyone's reach, as the investigation progresses, we will encounter problems related to the Egyptian calendar, various hieroglyphs, and the interpretation of languages that do not belong to the human world. This aspect might initially discourage newcomers but, as we anticipated, the development team has provided us with a hint menu that will not penalize the player in any way.
In simple terms, if we remain stuck on a puzzle for too long, the game will sequentially give us some tips to help us proceed, until it reveals the complete solution. Obviously, our advice is to resort to these aids only after having completely given up, otherwise you risk compromising the gameplay quality of the experience. In any case, we appreciated this feature that guarantees less frustration for the player.
Call of the Elder Gods addresses very important themes based on emotional pain, mental health, and family. And everything is told so smoothly and with such delicacy that it deserves our praise. On the other hand, despite a soft and almost painterly graphic style, some scenarios did not seem so detailed to us, although, let's face it, an excellent job has been done on Nintendo Switch 2. We did not experience any notable problems and were truly satisfied with the overall fluidity. A convincing voice acting (in English with Italian subtitles) closes the circle and further immerses you in the mystery to be solved.