Crisol: Theater of Idols review

Heeding the call of the Sun God, the soldier Gabriel embarks on a divine mission into the streets of Tormentosa to assassinate the Sea God. These once devout streets lay in waste at the hands of mysterious statues that have come to life as an unending storm churns above. Forsaking his humanity, Gabriel accepts the blood of the Sun to fulfill his holy work and bring down righteous fury upon those who would stand in his way.

Centered around a conflict between two gods, Crisol places its first-person shooter narrative in a nightmarish rendition of Spain that is steeped in folklore. The city of Tormentosa is rich with stylized sea-inspired scenery alongside an occult vibe that the Sun God carries with it that makes every level absolute eye candy to take in. From the bustling bars and brothels of the Mermaid District to the somber and pious halls of the tomb of Dolores, each level will take you to a differently flavored corner of the town. Every road leads back to the Tormentosa Fair, which serves as your home base amongst other Sun God faithful. Here you can gear up, play some mini games for fair tickets, or pay a visit to La Plañidera to unlock new skills.

The main draw of Crisol is the unique mechanic surrounding blood, which is woven into both your ammunition and your health. This means that whenever you need to reload, you must sacrifice your own life force to turn your blood into holy munitions. Each gun has its own grisly way of taking its pound of flesh, and will drain more or less blood based on the stopping power of the weapon. If you're playing on harder difficulties, your vampiric weapons can even kill you if you drain yourself dry, but there are plenty of ways to keep yourself topped up.

Most of the foes you will come across are wooden statues come to life, and can be dismembered to slow them down or disarm them. Your enemies don't have any blood circulating in their veins to siphon, so you'll have to look for other sources. There are of course, more traditional methods such as blood syringes, which can give you a quick infusion on the fly, but you can also drain the blood of animals or human corpses if you're truly desperate as well. There's an interesting balancing act of keeping yourself healthy enough not to die to enemies while also ensuring you have enough ammo to kill them in kind.

The gun play can certainly feel a bit slow-paced for the first half of the game, with enemies typically only coming in pairs or less and reloads feeling near sluggish at times. Thankfully, as your arsenal of righteous armaments increases, so too does enemy density and variety, with ghastly creatures of the sea slowly becoming more prevalent as the story goes on. While you start with just a pistol, you'll also be able to wield a shotgun, sniper rifle, a submachine gun, and a fifth weapon that I won't spoil here. You will also have access to a knife, which allows you to parry attacks and desperately slash at enemies when you are dry on blood. Each of these weapon's stats can be upgraded as well, increasing their fire rate, ammo capacity, reload speed, and damage. While you're likely to stick to a main weapon of choice, it was nice to have options to deal with a variety of combat situations when opportunities presented themselves.

As you weave your way through the city streets and neighborhood canals, there are plenty of collectibles and puzzles to interact with that can reward you with a number of goodies. The puzzle variety here is also pretty solid, with a good range of difficulty and mechanics that goes beyond just finding a safe passcode on a note, although there are a few like that sprinkled in. Solving these will usually provide you with upgrade materials or Holy Blood, which increases your max health, meaning they're almost always worth seeking out. You'll also need to keep an eye out for any caged crows, as releasing them will net you a sizable discount with the local witch. These little additions made exploration much more fun and rewarding, and I was always excited to see what might be hiding around every corner.

While the visuals and environments are quite stellar, the quality of the voice acting doesn't exactly match. Most of the time, it's serviceable, but certain line deliveries can feel quite wooden. I also believe the radio companion, Mediodia, is definitely going to be polarizing. While I eventually found her to be a bit charming by the end of the game, she is certainly a little cringe worthy, and it doesn't end with just her. The Sea God especially has some terrible voice acting, but it's balanced out by some stand outs like the hulking horror Madre Dolores and the raspy Padre Arroyo. Gabriel himself is a bit of a mixed bag, but is overall solid enough for a protagonist in an indie-shooter.