The Council

★★★★☆
Despite a few things that bothered me a bit, The Council is a fine example of an investigation game done right.
⠀First, I really enjoyed the setting. Taking place on a secluded island at the end of the eighteenth century, you very quickly get the feeling of walking into a trap. Wandering about the manor, I often stopped to look at the detailed furniture, statues and various paintings. The inclusion of historical characters is definitely a good idea (and a necessary one for the story) and Bonaparte's voice acting is a delight to listen to. I also really enjoyed the weight of the choices knowing you must live with the consequences. The inclusion of RPG mechanics was very welcome, giving the game even more replayability.
⠀The story was great until episode 4 where a major plot twist left me a bit underwhelmed and that feeling lasted until the end (I got a good ending though). On a technical level, performance was uneven, the animations are sometimes stiff and the characters tend to have difficulties focusing on each other's eyes.

The Council is a very entertaining singleplayer game that successfully mixes elements of point and click story games and RPGs. You have incredible control over the protagonist, Louis de Richet's, actions. You choose what he says and how he acts, this really allows the player to get immersed in the story and invested in his struggles. This game is very heavy on dialogue on that is it's greatest strength. It's entire cast of characters is very well developed with many layers. You must be attentive to details as the developers packed them into the plot and leave it up to you to accomplish the mission. Not a single character or section of the story is wasted, everything contributes to the greater mystery and conflict. The music and art style does wonders for the atmosphere as you explore the island, discovering clues. The finale of the story is full of drama and is very well written. I was very satisfied with this game. It is highly ambitious and in my opinion, it achieves it's goals in creating an intriguing mystery for the player to get wrapped up in.

Such is the way of conspiracy...
I didn't think I'd like the game at first simply from the premise, I don't really care for stuff about secret societies or the Illuminati — quite a trite concept in my estimation — And I don't particularly care for history. But after playing the free initial episode, I really enjoyed it.
Premise: You'll embody Louis de Richet as the main character, a member of the Golden Order. Responding to an invitation to a manor by one Lord Mortimer for a conference. There are a number of sub-plots you might pick up on. However, in Episode 4 there is a very large shift in tone and theme. It's a polarizing theme twist for certain.
How to lose friends & alienate people — Gameplay:
The Council is essentially a modern take on the point and click adventure. You might say TellTale-esque. In essence, the entire game is a succession of dialogue trees.
Possible influences: LA Noire, Detroit Become Human (Quantic Dream in general) Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter. TellTale. I got a little bit of a Vampyr vibe, though that came out at a similar time and this doesn't have any combat.
The Council further “modernizes” the genre by adding RPG elements.
You'll level into skills by performing tasks set before you. How you level dictates further dialogue options or choices to be made later on. Traits and talents are acquired through actions taken within the game. But you need to level into things to take some actions in the first place or have dialogue open up in that direction.
Chosen class simply makes skills within that tree cost less to obtain.
The way you level will make more difficult actions cost less. Provided they're within that skill-house. Even some outside of dialogue, such as subterfuge to open boxes around the manor.
Confrontations require action. You're only allowed so many “blunders” as the game calls them. They remind me anecdotally of the dialogue challenges from Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Failing confrontations is possible, sometimes resulting in new traits. Having implications such as skill choices requiring more effort.
Finally! A game that realistically depicts talking with people! —
When met with obstinate people regarding some subjects, Louis will become exhausted or discontent. Much like in real life! In game, these act as status effects that either make certain decisions cost more effort points or remove the visibility of the reaction timer, for example.
Every character has their own personality traits. It'd prove prudent to find out immunities and vulnerabilities as doing so can reduce the cost of actions that use effort points. Because as I experienced early on without saying the instance specifically, I had leveled into psychology which reduced one action from 3 to only 1 effort point, but it turns out the subject was immune to the trait, so they just got really angry. This resulted in my character becoming “exhausted” which decreased the maximum number of available effort points I could hold.
This will matter later on when puzzles become more obscure.
Exploring the manor will let you both find clues as well as pick-ups such as Royal Jelly that refills effort points. There are 3 other active use items you can find; carmelite water, which gives you one free use of a skill choice, Golden Elixer, which removes all negative effect currently held and Devil's Thorn, an item that allows you to temporarily see vulnerabilities and immunities. You're able to use any of items, provided you have them, during dialogue. So you don't have to preemptively consume them in case of unforeseen altercations. You're also able to interrupt dialogue and check your journal for these immunities and vulnerabilities. Do mind consuming too many, wouldn't want to become intoxicated.
“All time is time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.”
— Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
The Council is published by both Focus Home Interactive and Cyanide studios. Cyanide is actually a subsidiary of Nacon, formally Big Ben Interactive, they also own “Spiders” — the devs behind games like Greedfall and Mars: War Logs. Focus Home and Nacon seem to have some sort of loose relationship with each other. That is isn't really relevant, but Cyanide studios also develops “Styx: Master of Shadows”, a series that uses “Amber” as magic. In “The Council”, you can collect amber fragments to increase your effort point gauge. I thought this was a very nice homage; though I doubt the worlds are connected.
Grievances:
You cannot skip dialogue making some puzzles slightly obnoxious after trying repeated solutions and needing to hear the character's preamble into the puzzle. Another issue that because the dialogue is so skill check heavy, it makes you want to choose those options when they aren't always the best or even suited towards how you actually might want to react. It'd be interesting to be able to remove extra information from the dialogue choices. But the actual options in-game are very limited.
Skill check options sometimes only make puzzles slightly easier. Where Louis typically voices a part of the solution. A few of the puzzles use Religious imagery and Bible verses. So, be wary if you're into sort of thing and it might affront your sensibilities. I found those puzzles specifically very convoluted, I gave them a few shots. But I've no shame in admitting I simply looked up the solution.
Putting what this game is actually is about upfront I feel would have served it better in the end. If a sequel is ever to come, I'd imagine the plot twist would be revealed in the title or discovered in just a cursory glance.
It's got a whimsical soundtrack, slightly jovial. Doesn't always seem to fit the semi-serious nature of the game. Perhaps to create dissonance or suggest dubious endeavors.
The Gist:
It's a really interesting take on the genre, though I find the twist near the end to be... well, expected given the nature of the theme. Fairly natural extension if I may be so bold.
I'd like to see more adventure games employ this sort of role-playing system. Rather than be the illusory sorts of affairs the genre has come to be known for. I can recommend to adventure or RPG fans of any level. But I'd wait for a sale, personally. As the last 2 episodes are kind of... well they're quite honestly dumb. The first 3 episodes are really good, though. The plot twist is a point of contention for many.
If you've read this far, consider following my curation — Station Argus
I do enjoy the art, it's not hyper-realistic but mildly stylized. Gives the world a bit of a surreal tone. (This will also age better.)

ORIGINAL POST = 08-08-2021 at 11:51 AM EST:
I've been playing The Council on the PC (over on Steam) lately. I certainly have some thoughts on it, as I'm currently on Episode 4 (out of 5).
So far, it has been ranging somewhere b/t really good to great. Namely, Episodes 1-3 were great; and Episode 4 at a certain point has taken a turn...and I'm not sure where it belongs yet, as it has hit a really shocking moment that sets quite bit of a change in both story elements & your skills; and I'm not sure how fleshed-out this will get, as it happens late in Episode 4 and the fact that there's only one Episode left.
Speaking of skills, this adventure game has some actual RPG elements. You pick your class and skills - and then go from there, once the game starts. These skills can focus on certain things, such as Agility (i.e. movement in QTE's/dialogue); Occult knowledge; Investigation skills; etc etc. This also sets up different decision-making options that you may (or may not take), based on your skills & stats with constant skill & stat checks; and/or more extra info or knowledge your character might have certain knowledge to make puzzles and/or riddles easier (or even he might know the answer, ahead of time).
This adventure game with RPG elements, making this new adventure/RPG hybrid here is really interesting & well done, feeling like this could be the next evolution & future of adventure games, by taking the interactive-movie/adventure-game thing that say Quantic Dream games and Telltale Games been both pioneering & championing to the next level by adding RPG elements to it.
Just about anything you do in-game (make decisions and what you say in dialogue) and find (such as Lore & items), will do something effecting stats and skills. You can find items that make you skip next turn of using points when in a dialogue for making special choices; items that restore your bar of points to spend on special choices/dialogue options; find Lore in the game-world that can give you boosts to specific skills (which you can often read at the beginning of a new Sections of an Episode and at the beginning of a new Episode); etc etc. It feels like, in this game, everything you do can really shape the actual journey of the story, at least - though, since I ain't done replays yet, I can't speak on how different the game's final outcomes can and will be (or won't be).
This game has nothing but shocking moments, twists, revelations, and whatnot throughout these episodes; especially when an Episode ends. Often, it's a true moment of "What the heck?" and/or other explicit language from out of the mouth will be flying in the sky. Then you really want to go play the next episode, to see what happens next.
So, the basic premise is this: you play a character named Louis, who is going to a meeting of numerous Secret Society Members & World Leaders, not that long after the formation of the United States, in the very late 1700's. Your mother went missing and you believe she's there somewhere, even though she can't be find. So, you're out to find her - and that really isn't even the tip of the iceberg here, as this begins the on-going Domino effect that goes throughout this Season. This game is more than just your mom's disappearance here, as that's really just the set-up for all kinds of other events & madness, as all kinds of other madness happens, which I don't really want to tread into Spoiler Turf here. I should note: the storytelling, writing, dialogue, and voice-acting here is really good here, so far - and this is definitely one of the main reasons to play this game.
This game on the PC looks great, for the most part. The environments, game-world, and character models looks fantastic. So, the immersion factor is differently there, setting-up this time period and setting really well. One complaint though: oddly enough, this game doesn't have any AA settings internally in the actual in-game options, so you can and will get jaggies unfortunately. This is odd, as most games these days even have some AA support, even if it isn't MSAA or higher-end AA solutions. To solve this lack of AA support problem, though - one should go to your NVidia Control Panel software or your AMD equivalent software and crank up any AA settings (such as MSAA) as far as you can go, to kill the jaggies...and that should make the game look amazing & as great as it really should look.
So, I'm 19.2 hours into this, according to Steam - and I'm really enjoying this, deep into Episode 4. Once I get through Ep. 4, I'll have one episode left...and I'm going to plug away and try to finish this up. So far, at the very least, this one's really good.
ADDENDUM = 5:33pm EST:
And after 22.3 hours, this one's in the books. The last part of Episode 4 and most of Chapter 5 goes way off the rails, gets quite a bit bizarre, and into all kinds of different realms. Even in doing this, these last 2 Episodes are nothing really as interesting and as great as Episodes 1-3; and also b/c part of later parts of Episode 4 & all of Episode 5 feel rather rushed, get quite bizarre, and also feel like they need more explanation & depth to them. What's there is intriguing & interesting - yes, both from gameplay and story standpoints, without going into Spoiler Turf here - but doesn't remain as tight, complete, and as great as Episodes 1-3.
Like other adventure games such as Life Is Strange: Season One and Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy), it goes both off the rails story-wise and doesn't really stick the landing in especially the last episode. Episodes 1-3 are great; part of Episode 4 is really good; and when the big twist happens in Episode 4 & the madness continues in Episode 5, it all goes off the rails. Regardless, Episodes 1-3 are great; and the Final 2 Episodes are decent, but they ain't great, as they lack polish and feel entirely rushed.
It's still a good journey and definitely worth taking for the most part, but really fails to stick the landing and ending(s) here in the Final Episode.
When it's all said & done, The Council: Complete Season is quite good, but just still misses greatness.

tl;dr
This marriage of convenience between point & click adventure and RPG ended up more favorably in my books than it perhaps deserves or would to other people primarily because it was what I yearned for. Story centered on mystery about a young man looking for his mother as she goes missing during an island conference quickly turns into a plot to change the world as we know it in a long play for power. Character skills influencing what Louis can and cannot do are the biggest draw in this dialog-centric game where you end up trading repartee with historical figures the likes of George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. Uneven vision in both the narrative with last two episodes and gameplay hampers what could have been an outstanding game down into merely a decent one.
Full Review
Being my favorite genres I've waxed nostalgic for, one of the points that's nagged at me was always “how come adventure games and RPGs never had a closer relationship?” and appropriate answers failed to materialize. I'm talking about your Quest for Glory variety where character building has an impact on point & click adventure side of things. One glance at The Council and you may think it's a Telltale copycat, but I'm pleased to report game is more along the lines of what I wanted. Some production caveats notwithstanding.
Premise we're working with is an ingenious one that seems rather obvious initially, but the more you think about the setup the more you realize how well it all feeds in synergistic fashion where narrative and mechanics reinforce each other. Babbling aside – nearing the end of the 18th century Louis and his mother Sarah de Richet, Golden Dawn members who just dealt with the crisis of a certain occult tome, find themselves invited to Lord Mortimer's mysterious island where fate of the world seems to be decided every so often by some of the most prominent figures. Or should I say Sarah is invited, promptly goes missing not long after arrival and so her son receives an invitation in follow-up. Not necessarily to get involved in the talks themselves but to just find out what happened to his spry mother while putting some investigative skills to good use. There's more to the island than meets the eyes, though.
Historical figures game makes use of liberally were probably the biggest draw for me because while their fates are set in stone to follow actual history they're certainly flavored in particular fashion. This also means the whodunit story is somewhat compromised by character limitations, but made up figures balance out that package. Amusingly, George Washington's tooth aches even made it in. The Council is working with limited cast, and some have more screen time due to immediate introductions, so you better not end up disliking many of them.
While I'm on the narrative side of things, which is an overwhelming part of the draw in a game like this, it would only be fair to mention what I perceived as noticeable drop in direction and quality starting with episode four. I'm not sure what went wrong there to make the writers stray from established ideas and regular politicking, but their decision to upset the game board to such a degree made me audibly react when the non-existent TWEEST was revealed. It is truly Shyamalan worthy and it pains I can't discuss it due to spoilers. Penultimate and ultimate episodes were overall much shorter and more focused, something I won't hold against them because The Council made the exact opposite mistake in earlier ones due to non-narrative reasons. Which leads me to...
Gameplay, where you might be pressed to say something along the lines of “it's a point & click adventure game, what GAMEPLAY is there to be had beyond clicking on hotspots?” and surprisingly enough you'd be wrong.
Doing away with classical pixel hunting, substituted to a degree by collectible coin hunting if that's your thing, majority of The Council is spent mastering the game's dialog system and when to use your considerable skills vs limited resources Louis has access to. Entire game is presented in third-person, but there are very few classical puzzles you may be lead to expect considering the genre. That's not to say there aren't other obstacles in the way.
While we're on the subject of dialog and given its importance I should point out how some systems work in the game. At the very start you get to choose some starting skills fitting into one of the three archetypes: Diplomat, Occultist or Detective. No worries because you can pick and choose from all three as you level up throughout the game on per-chapter basis and depending on how many things you managed to accomplish (find items, discovers information about characters, make choices, etc). In an interesting turnaround all of fifteen skills have foremost dialog uses on top of your regular interactions. Game commonly has alternate routes and solutions to accommodate freedom in character building. For example, something like Linguistics can be used to straight up translate an ancient text and to converse about languages. With so many skills I'd be hard pressed to single out any that felt shafted or downplayed, and that is to game's credit. Skill rank also matters because it lowers the Effort cost required to use said skills and if you're spread out too much Effort becomes the bane of your existence since you're tempted to do everything while slowly nipping away at your reserves. Fortunately this is why The Council has restorative items meant to sustain yourself with, make the next skill use free, detect character' weaknesses to make better skill calls, etc.
I got my ending and settled for it, but looking things up after the fact does reveal developers don't subscribe to Telltale school of smoke and mirrors. There ARE tangible choices to be made and I can't allow my letdown closure to tarnish what's being offered. Just keep something in mind – play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Problem seems to be more along the lines of developers' inability to commit to that initial story hook so certain episodes bring very little of long term consequence in terms of choices. Peak action comes in the form of dialog Confrontations that could've been better realized had they not boiled down “reference my journal for character traits = exploit”.
Earlier I hinted at some non-narrative issues game has in earlier episodes. I was referring to episodes two and three where developers decided to go full puzzle mode which puts these episodes at odds with the opening and remaining ones. Problem? The Council doesn't actually have many “use X on Y” puzzles and instead goes for cross-referencing and information gathering to make your own calls. With no manual saving and one save per file this ended up being infuriating and I would not be at all surprised if you just decided to look how to open up a certain circular door starved for hands, for example. My point is where later episodes jumped the shark narratively these two episodes ground the game to perfect standstill with their “puzzles”. For added effect you have to take into consideration game doesn't let you skip lines until you're replaying episodes.
If there's one aspect of the game for which I have nothing but praise it would be the presentation. Game obviously doesn't aim for realism with character models and I think it nails the slight caricature look. Levels, as limited as they are in number and exhausted by the time you're halfway through, are breathtakingly realized with some of the densest and vibrantly decorated interiors I've ever seen. You're absolutely transported to this island mansion above worldly matters. Soundtrack suffers from general weariness after hearing the same offering while you trudge across the same half dozen rooms, but tracks themselves are very fitting. Plenty of piano pieces.

100% one of the best games I have ever played. I love puzzle, and choice based games, with different outcomes, allowing you to replay and find out different paths and endings. You could play this game for weeks and still not get all scenes. The only complaint is the save process, Instead of pausing and saving wherever, you have to either continue to play out a long situation, or quit and accept you will be starting over and lose progress. Otherwise 11/10!

for me one of the best games is the one that makes the player sad when the story ends and have to part with the characters. the story, the connection to real history, and the emotional connection amazed me. sad that the story had to end and I'm the type of person who wouldn't replay a Choice Matter game. when it end, it end. i dont really care if my decision really effect the story line or not, i choose and i enjoy. farewell.
oh and the puzzles are awesome, i solved some of them by reading history on internet. crusades to be exact.