The Council is yet another game with episodic content where you find yourself on a mysterious island with an all-powerful council featuring many important historical figures headed by a man with many dark secrets to his name. Interesting right? Yeah, It was for the first episode. Heck, even for the second. Yet as we got to the later episodes (3, 4 and 5), which were annoyingly short and told a very weak story, The game plummeted into a pool of nonsense and disappointment.
The first episode highlights the skill and item system for the game. You could play the game in a straightforward way, which results in a very short experience, but the game rewards you via experience for exploring every aspect of the story you can as well as every nook and cranny. The experience levels you up at the end of each quest and you can use the skill points acquired from levelling up to upgrade your skills. Books, which you can also acquire through natural exploration with certain ones available at certain times, can also be equipped at the end of each quest and before the start of the next one for an additional skill boost.
You are also given 4 different items with various efforts that really help you during conversations. Conversations make use of your skills and can either help or hurt you in certain situations. These items prove helpful and can open new paths of the story up for you. These items: Give you 2 additional energy points, Allow the next skill-based dialogue option to be free, Shows the strengths and weaknesses of the person you are talking to and the last cures you of negative ailments that affect your conversation.
And while all that seems interesting, It honestly is just thrown away by episode 3 and is virtually pointless by episode 4. Instead, You are given pretty straight-forward options that don't present any real risk, especially if you have levelled up properly throughout the game. It's kind of disappointing because it feels like you go through all that work for something that doesn't really pay off. Especially when there is very little exploration in episodes 4 and 5, It's just a simple story with virtually no challenge. You just talk to someone, Walk to another area, Talk to someone else and that's about it. You spend more time waiting for them talk through the dialogue than actually playing during these episodes and it absolutely sucks.
The cherry on top, at least for me, would be how quickly the story went from incredibly interesting to just utter nonsense that was predictable and eye-rolling. The final episode honestly just ruined the whole experience for me. It was so awfully written, It made no sense and the ending was....well, it was something that truly made me think that the writers had no idea wtf they were doing so they just kind of winged it.
Overall: 5/10
An interesting premise and solid gameplay are thrown away as the game progresses and devolves into a massive disappointment that really made me regret buying the season pass in the first place.
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