The Council

The first couple episodes are great. All the mechanics are fairly easy to use and understand. The last episode however is... not so great in my opinion, the puzzles are very abstract and doesn't seem very relevant or interesting. The story sort of peters out and completely lost my interest towards the end. Which seems counter intuitive, you spend most of the time building towards the ending and then said ending is uninteresting, i don't know how the developers managed that, but they sure did. Replaying is also a bit of a pain since there's no skipping scenes or conversation. So you have to sit through it ALL, every replay.
So even tho I ended up recommending this game, it's really only for 1 play through, and be prepared for a fairly disappointing ending.

I hesitated quite a long time before getting the Council - finally decided to acquire on sale with the Complete Season edition.
I read a lot of reviews comparing it to Telltale Games - not only is it inaccurate, but also it doesn't do justice to the very innovative & unique gameplay offered.
//// What is it: a narrative RPG:
- you get XP in the usual way by achieving goals, collecting items, using special skills,
- you do spend skill points on talents and unlock traits,
- you can choose from 3 classes - which have little to no impact on the storytelling, but give you boost on certain skills,
- there is a combat system in the shape of confrontations - it's up to you to choose the best answers to beat your enemy, you unlock better answers thanks to your skills. There are also QTEs called "opportunities" that are available depending on the unlocked talents,
- 60% interactive dialogues, 20% puzzles (brainy & challenging), 20% exploration (the map is rather small, you'll spend a lot of time visiting the same areas), 0% action (you have zero options to interact with the world outside of puzzles apart from examining, looting consumables and talking to people).
//// What to expect
This is a very chatty game built around a story of intrigues, politics, manipulation, history, esoterism, freewill.
If you enjoy battles of wits about battles of wits, this is for you. Basically you'll spend a lot of time listening to people bragging about how good they are at talking or falsely pretending they're dumb. It's up to you to make your own opinion. You have been warned.
The Council is smart enough to use the usual mechanics of similar genres, while challenging the player into questioning those along the way. It's rather a bad idea to rely on familiar codes - prepare to open your mind indeed!
It is very good at manipulating you - which is only fair and rather entertaining since this is definitely the main theme of the game.
/// Pros
- Voice acting was rather good - I particularly appreciated that some actors were able to pronounce foreign words properly.
- Best puzzles around - very satisfying to be able to use your brains,
- A lot of twists and turns along the way - certainly not predictable,
- Relies on reverse psychology which makes you doubt what you know - as a player AND as a character,
- Corneilian choices - not only or at all based on moral issues, all options seem valid at the time you need to make them,
- Quite a lot of branching from what I read here and there,
- Quest summary tells you what you have failed/missed and alternate paths you could have chosen,
- Each episode introduces something new, whether that be characters, situations, areas, but more importantly, they all have their very own flavour, almost as if playing a different game each time,
- No scanner for interactive items - you need to find that on your own, good for immersion,
- Smart skill point management that let you tailor your progression by planning that ahead along the way.
/// Cons
- Unfortunately, the ending lacks luster and flamboyance - while you do have several options to finish the game, the Council doesn't really deliver a satisfying bouquet final. Something that is usually expected in story-driven games, but all the more so here given the highly sophisticated introduction.
- Quite a few loose ends regarding main characters - either they ran out of budget or they'd like to prepare a sequel,
- Story inconsistency here and there, almost as if they wrote it along the way and had to improvise midway,
- Exploration can be very tedious & repetitive,
- No real lip-sync, too bad since the game relies so much on dialogues,
- Interactive items display a tiny blue dot on hovering - in some night scenes you get a LOT of tiny blue dots everywhere which makes exploration rather painful,
- Some clues were unexpectedly too obvious in contrast with very sophisticated puzzles - maybe they were just trolling?
All in all, it was a refreshing, surprising and entertaining experience - looking forward to seeing if they make a sequel.
Remain rational with an open mind!

A .... mixed bag of feelings.
A story heavy adventure game where your choices shape the way you go through the game.
What it has going for it are the visuals, setting, atmosphere, sound, voice acting. Aside from a few small glitches, everything that contributes to the narration and creation of atmosphere works well. Some of the places that you will see look really awesome.
The controls however ... are meant for consoles. It doesnt ruin the game, but you will feel a certain fatigue from it.
Gameplay-wise it seems to work, but cant help to feel some more balancing could have helped. Throughout the game you interact with things mostly through conversations, quick time events, solving puzzles and exploring the environment.
When interacting with someone or something you often need to spend action points and have the right skill unlocked. You can unlock and level these up. Some will be more useful then others, especially in the beginning. I wouldnt recommend taking the diplomatic route as I did. Some of the puzzles were also quite annoying to solve. I had issues with a lot of them, while some made sense later on, others I dont get even after looking up a walkthrough. You also cant skip dialogues and animations, which makes things very annoying if youre constantly checking things back and forth.
But all of this doesnt really matter if the story is crap. Is it crap? Well, that depends .... When I started the game I was looking forward to mature-themed, serious, logical, down to earth story. There were quite a few characters from history and that got me quite intrigued about what I was getting into. I made a mistake. About halfway through the game I became so tired of the stuff that was going on that I almost wanted to quit the game. Unnatural situations, weird reactions, developments that didnt make sense or werent realistic and the plot point of the beginning basically disappears towards the end. But then halfway through the game I decided Im just not going to care anymore and treat this as a silly adventure, just so I can finish the game. And I had a relatively good time with that. I stayed in the moment, took in what was good, ignored the bad, used a walkthrough where I was annoyed by the puzzles and it came out okay. (Mind you, the game does start out feeling quite mature and down to earth in the first episode, but it gets shaky during the second episode and during the third episode you realize thats when the developers said "screw this, just go with the flow". This is also indicative by the fact that there are no extra achievements outside of story progression starting with the second episode)
So should you try it? Well, if you are a serious guy whose into history or the like and expecting some mature quality storytelling - no. If you are in for the experience and are fine with some weird developments that make the ride intriguing, I can tell you that it is worth it, although not necessarily at full price. The gameplay and technical issues still undermine it somewhat.
All in all, just make sure you understand what youre getting into when getting this, because it will effect your enjoyment quite a lot.
6.5/10

This is a historically inspired fantasy game that immediately dog-piles you with questions and has you attempt to answer them.
The plot isn't great but the constant bombardment of mystery is fun and the plot suffices to guide you through them while the atmosphere makes everything seem a little bigger and better than it really is.
I have a laundry list of design flaws and gripes to air, but, I was thoroughly entertained.
The Goodies
+ It has a bit of everything when it comes to the worldbuilding; Mystery, History, Ancestry, Paranormal, Murder, Alchemy, Philosophy, Politics, Kidnapping, Suicide, Romance, Cults, and more.
+ For a "choose your own adventure" type game, I am impressed by how much you can influence the plot.
+ Beautiful environment design.
+ Things keep moving and even up to the end I wondered what the game would pull out of its ass next to amuse me.
The Badies
- Conversation triggers are not telegraphed so the moment you get near someone the game may pull a point-of-no-return without warning.
- Rubbish voice directing for the main character and his mother. I nearly refunded after hearing how bad it was at the start... I got used to it and it didn't detract from the experience too much.
- The conversations are very disjointed.
- The world isn't consistent enough to solve the mysteries logically. You're coming along for the ride it wants to take you on.
- The "talents" system only really serves to block you out of content at the beginning and later becomes a crutch to waste your time and "effort points" when you can (and should) solve problems without the help.
- The final act takes a wild left turn which makes everything we've been doing up until then feel insignificant in comparison.
- Nearly every character feels identical in presentation which leads to them being forgettable and boring. There are a couple characters which play larger roles in the plot or have had more of the plot "happen" to them but they all express it in a very similar way...
- The dialogue options you're presented with don't always clearly indicate what your character will actually say.
- The spelling errors and typos progressively get worse with each episode.
Conclusion; My Louis De Richet is the most persuasive facially scarred and one handed dopey French dork with an American accent that you'll ever meet.

BLUF: Not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely has some interesting ideas.
For our frame of reference, the closest comparison is to TellTale games. However, this game incorporates RPG elements. You pick a character class and develop your skills over time. The Agility skill governs all physical tasks, while Subterfuge allows you to pick locks and hide, but all the other skills are knowledge- and conversation-based. Some provide you with additional information when looking at a person or object, others allow you to Manipulate, Divert, or out-Logic the other characters.
The game does incorporate a number of puzzles. Most of the puzzles are intuitive enough to be challenging, but are not so frustrating as to make you want to look up the answers online. Having the proper skills will provide hints as to the answers, but all can be solved with the information available to an unskilled character.
Some reviewers have complained about graphical glitches, but I did not encounter any. The art style may not be everybody's taste, but I thought the manor and the characters looked amazing. The voice acting was a bit uneven, with some excellent performances and a few... not.
Regarding the story, without spoilers: The majority of the game is quite intriguing. The story takes a sharp turn in the third act, however, and I found the story after that both much less interesting and borderline nonsensical. You are forced to make several choices for which the character frankly has insufficient information, merely choosing between different characters demanding your allegiance without explaining why you should give it. I haven't replayed through the endgame to see if other paths make more sense, but I felt the last few hours of the game were a significant let-down after the rising action.
I enjoyed the game overall, and I appreciate the creators' willingness to introduce new game mechanics into a standard formula.
I will certainly be taking this studio's next game for a spin.

Feel free to follow my review page!
The gist of it:
The Council is a barely decent story-focused adventure game, with the main focus being choices and uncovering the secrets of an ancient society while also having to deal with pretty janky controls/mechanics.
👍 The good parts:
+Your dialogue choices seem to have quite the impact on the story.
+The overall story and lore is quite interesting if it ever gets the chance to expand on future games.
+The texture details on the environment.
👎The bad parts:
-Horrible character animations.
-Too many plot holes/things left unanswered or unexplained in the main story.
-Camera controls/distance and overall movement are quite below average.
-Very limited gameplay outside the dialogue mechanics.
Story
The Council's main focus or main attraction is the story. It puts you in the shoes of Louis who is pretty much part of a secret organization tasked with finding occult objects and your mission sends you to a mansion where important political figures hold a council to discuss the future of the world. As you go deep into things and the truth about what is going on gets uncovered things start to stop making sense and go into "what the hell" territory.
I enjoyed the start of the game as I figured it would a nice mystery/detective type of game where you investigate things but as soon as you start playing into episode 2 and onwards, you realize, everything is boringly political and while the stakes are high for the world, for you as a player, not so much since you are not really invested in to the whole behind the scenes lore, which makes the story, pointless half the time.
Without spoiling much, once the political stuff is partially out of the way, things start to get more interesting but at the same time, nonsensical. Overall I wouldn't say it was a good experience but I did enjoy the twists even if they felt forced just for the sake of making things unique and without giving the players an explanation or a good conclusion. The endings are all pretty much incomplete, maybe for the sake of future sequels or just laziness. We won't know unless we see a sequel announcement.
Story rating: 7.5/10
Gameplay
The gameplay's main core is dialogue choices and what you choose affects the story. You are given a skill tree in which you drop points that will help you in these dialogue choices I mentioned. It can vary from manipulating characters or talking about politics for example. All skills are helpful and I believe having points in all of them will help you achieve a better outcome rather than focusing on some or maybe worse. I couldn't tell you for sure, but it was nice that even placing points in the skills can have an impact on the story.
Besides the skill points, the game is pretty much a third person walking simulator with one of the slowest running characters I've played. You'll have to roam around the mansion back and forth while also backtracking a lot throughout the entire 14+ hours of the game. The walking/running around has a purpose and that is to trivially find shiny objects which are either potions or books or other objects of interest which will help you in the dialogue tree and sadly they're very important if you ever want to go deeper or progress nicely into the story.
There are several puzzle mechanics in the game as well which will force you to put your thinking cap as they can range from difficult to hard. They are very rare but it was a nice change of pace to stop, think hard and pay attention to what was given to me. These puzzles can also have a huge impact on the story and can be failed.
Gameplay rating: 7.5/10
Audio
The audio is a mixed bag sadly. Voice acting can range from decent to average. I felt no attachment to any of the characters due to mixed voice acting and this primarily being a story focused game I wished they have done a better job at acting. Now, don't get me wrong, they're not bad, I just wished they were much better.
The soundtrack is okay at best and sometimes fits with the scene and sometimes feels too cheerful despite the tone of the game. It's also not that varied sadly with only a few minor songs.
The sound effects are average as expected, nothing good or bad can be said about them though there are issues with the mixing and sometimes they can sound low quality/muffled.
Audio rating: 6.5/10
Graphics, performance and tech analysis
The best part of the game and I do have to give the artists a huge thumbs up for this, is the overall texture work. It is without a doubt quite incredible and detailed. The rooms in the mansion are filled with amazingly detailed architecture and paintings and they don't feel samey ever. Every room has their own small story to tell, especially the room of the guests which are filled with paintings that fit with their character which I thought was a nice detail and adds a plus to the overall atmosphere. Too bad the camera controls and field of view ruin them. The camera is too close to your character obscuring things for gameplay reasons which I found stupid and the way the camera moves is unoptimized as in moving up and down is faster than left and right.
The level design is sadly not that interesting but it is to be expected considering this is pretty much just a walking third-person story game. You'll get bored easily after the third episode or so when there won't be anything left to explore besides going back and forth between rooms.
The lighting, special effects, and character details are all decent but then there are the so-called character animations. They are kinda bad, to be honest, and unmissable since every scene has you looking in awe how stiff, janky and laggy they can be. It's as if I was watching cinematics from 20 years ago with modern graphics. There was absolutely no effort put into what should've been the primary concern. It pissed me off more than I could ignore.
The performance considering the game takes place in mostly, interior spaces, was fine on my high-end PC however the frames would dip to low 60's in scenes where there was nothing of detail so I wouldn't say it's well optimized but it was okay. The overall settings are weak sadly.
Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 6.5/10
Conclusion
My final thoughts on the game are, buy it on a sale or simply don't bother much with it unless you have nothing interesting to play. It's barely a thumbs up but there was a clear effort in the story and choices which I appreciated while leaving the other aspects of the game to dissapoint. If there ever is a sequel I will most likely play it due to how the game ends in all scenarios.
Final score: 7/10

A really good adventure game is a singular pleasure, an experience that can touch you emotionally and intellectually like none other. The emphasis on narrative and dialogue can give it such power, but only if done well. The Council is a very interesting approach to the genre, focusing heavily on branching paths and character development, without really compromising on the story. The story it tells is a wild ride on its own, though, and the flaws left by its budget and indie stature definitely color the experience in ways that compromise do. But it still manages that singular pleasure with how earnestly it approaches its subject, and with how much fiddling you can do with the mechanics as you progress.
Louis de Richet is a French gentleman and a member of the Golden Order, a secret, globe-spanning organization dabbling in both politics and the occult. In 1793, Louis’ mother and head of the Order goes missing on the private island of Lord William Mortimer, a reclusive but powerful aristocrat. Louis finds himself invited to a gathering at Mortimer’s estate, not only to find his mother but to participate in a conference between world leaders. His path takes him into the orbits of soldiers, dukes, duchesses, and even the newly-elected President of the United States, as the fate of the world plays out in this opulent manor. Only by navigating the halls of power will Louis find the answers he seeks, along with many more he never expected to uncover.
Originally an episodic release, The Council is split into five episodes of something like 17 chapters all told. During each chapter you’ll be following Louis’ part in the story as he hob-nobs with George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, and many other powerful figures. The course of the story is pretty well set for most of the game, which gives it the impression of a third-person RPG at times, but there are several significant decisions you can make at crucial junctures. Most of your control, though, is given within dialogues with the other characters, where you can use your skills to access special dialogue options, interrupt people, notice peculiarities, and bypass parts of puzzles. The stat system that governs these options is another RPG element, allowing you to level up 15 different skills like Conviction and Manipulation and Questioning for use in dialogues.
Using most of your options requires effort points, which are mainly restored via consumables found around the manor. There are several kinds of potions and tinctures, some of which provide free actions or reveal what skill options characters are vulnerable or immune to. Those are particularly useful during confrontations, where you have a limited number of chances to navigate tricky situations and which can have lasting effects on the story. You’ll have to do a bit of searching and skill use just to find items, as well as books you can read between chapters for additional skill points. There’s also a wealth of clues and items that can help you out in the story by granting you new dialogues or simplifying puzzles, so it’s very much worth searching areas thoroughly.
You’re also likely to stumble across additional stories while searching. At the end of each chapter, the game helpfully tells you what tasks you accomplished, which ones you failed, and what your other options were, and you may be surprised at what you can get done in each 45-minute section of gameplay. Talking to characters is the real meat of the gameplay, and each is a fully-realized and interesting individual to deal with. They have their own aims and secrets which you’ll be drawn into, and you’ll have to use everything you know about them to turn them to your causes. The dialogue is mostly sharp and engaging but there’s some definite weirdness in tone and delivery sometimes, hinting back to the studio’s indie European roots. I noticed the female members of the cast in particular have some disappointing arcs to their characters, even if they are central to the plot.
Honestly the plot is probably the main draw of The Council, because it starts out with some tasty intrigue and then just goes absolutely hog wild. For the first two episodes, you’ll be glad-handling with cardinals and royalty, squeezing what information you can from them while trying not to get caught up in their webs. There’s some genuinely good politicking and philosophizing throughout, but there is a turn towards those occult roots in the third episode that heralds the madness that takes place in the last two. For me it only made the game more engrossing, as I had to see just how much crazier things got by the conclusion. Some folks might not enjoy the twists it takes quite as much if the politics and history are the real draws, and I’ll admit to not loving the ending despite loving everything leading up to it. I should also mention there’s a decent bit of puzzling across the game, usually more than manageable but there are two big ones that are remarkably tricky and also rather high-stakes.
The graphics are sure to be a big draw on their own, given the remarkable detail afforded the characters and their environments. Each person is incredibly distinct and detailed down to the last wrinkle, and the estate is peppered with the opulent accouterments of 18th century luxury. That being said, the animations are a bit lacking and the lighting is not as impressive as the screenshots suggest, which lead to some otherwise amazing scenes looking rather stiff. Still, I don’t want to pick on The Council too much because it’s accomplished so much with its scope and budget. Not many adventures can keep me gripped for over a dozen hours, and the many twists and challenges to negotiate meant there was always more to look forward to. Between the wild story, interesting characters, and engrossing character progression, there’s plenty to keep you deep in the ancient intrigues here.
Did you enjoy this review? I certainly hope so, and I certainly hope you'll check out more of them at