Lovecraft's Untold Stories

Review

Your mentor, the respectable Inspector Legrasse, has suddenly retired from the New Orleans Police department. What surprised you is that he didn’t tell you what pushed him to make such a decision. After all these years of fruitful collaboration, it ended up with a hand shake and a horrible gorgon statue for you to keep. “Well bugger that,” you thought and left the Police Department as well to start your own detective firm! Many months had passed without a single piece of news from your friend and mentor, until the day you received a telegram from Legrasse asking for your help! Are you ready to experience the adventure of John Murphy, the first of five Lovecraft's Untold Stories!

Lovecraft’s Untold Stories is an action/adventure game with excellent pixel graphics where you’ll be playing five stories through five different characters with a view to learning about and defeating the Mythos!

As you launch your first playthrough, the only character available to you is Inspector John Murphy, but there are four other characters to unlock in this game. Then you’ll decide which of the three levels of difficulty (easy, normal or hard) to play in. 

The first aspect I like in this game is the fact that the five characters have they own weapons, abilities and story which not only give you the novelty factor when you do unlock a character, but also increase the re-playability dramatically, which is what all gamers are looking for.  As you play Murphy, you’ll meet the next character, professor Clawstone, half way through Murphy’s adventure; Murphy will need to defeat an army of enemies to liberate the professor and therefore unlock him. This sequence will happen each time you play with the latest unlocked character, until all five characters are available for selection.

Each story is divided into six chapters, which include a prologue.  Each character will start in the location in which they were liberated by the previous characters you played, with the exception of Inspector Murphy, of course. Each of the locations you’ll visit has a large number of rooms. In most rooms, you’ll be able to find items by searching the furniture that is highlighted in grey, and clues that will help you to learn about The Great Ones on the furniture highlighted in blue. Bear in mind that some of the clues are directly related to getting access to secret rooms within each of the locations. You’ll also find chests here and there, but you’ll need the right key (five types of keys) to open it. However, in some instances, as you enter the room, the door will close behind you, and several red circles will appear on them. Don’t worry; it just means that you have entered a room full of enemies and you must eliminate every single one of them before being able to move onto the next room.

As you search the room, you will find items that will help you throughout each of the character’s stories, such as medic packs, bandages, antidotes, and plenty of other items, including chocolate, which will help you to restore your sanity each time you bite off a square (now I understand why chocolate is so popular! In fact, I might just stop writing this review right now and head up to my local supermarket to by a block of chocolate so that sanity prevails!) You’ll also find money and information when searching through furniture and other objects. In each location, there are two rooms where you can purchase items, but in one of them, you’ll pay with money and the other with information. So, make sure you comb each of the rooms for coins and information.

If you die within the chapter without being able to find the room where you can save your progress (you can only save once per chapter), you’ll be restarting the entire chapter, which can be frustrating at times, but also a blessing if you use too many medic packs or antidotes. To finish a chapter, you must find the room which has the circle made of rocks with a yellow round within it and beat a boss. If you manage to solve any or all the puzzles within the chapter, you receive a book on The Great Ones. Then you’ll be teleported to a secret room where you’ll see how much evidence (books) on The Great Ones you managed to collect. You can also move items from your inventory to your save box, and if you feel like it, fight The Great Ones, but you must finish one of the stories to do so.

I really enjoy the gameplay; it is fun and fast, and each of the characters has their own style which makes it feel new every time you play with a new character. The other point is that each time you restart, either from the start or from the saving room, all items will be randomised on your next playthrough. Personally, I only unlocked one of the five characters and I can’t wait to unlock the next one.

Great pixel artwork, the gameplay is fluid and the game runs very well overall. The controls are pretty good, but I must say that the aiming is sometimes a bit off, which can be annoying, especially when attacked from all directions at once.