Callisto Protocol is a lot of fun.
It also does the worst possible job explaining its core mechanic! The tutorial for melee and dodging was a shitty QTE that made it seem like you actually have to time your dodges and push in specific directions based on where the attack is coming from. You actually don’t! I literally died to the first fucking enemy 6 goddamn times before giving up trying to dodge and just mashed attack to get through it. I had to sit through that minute long QTE every single fucking time along with the weirdly long loading times on PS5. Only after that did the game display a more detailed tutorial that actually explains how dodging actually works in game. I think there was also another mechanic where the game pulls the same crap.
Since I’m already on the negatives, might as well keep going. The save/checkpoint system can be absolutely terrible at times, and can lead to loss of entirely too much time if you end up dying. To explain, the game typically doesn’t save in optional/side areas. So let’s say you go through an optional room, fight some enemies, and grab the loot at the end. There’s a good chance you won’t get any sort of checkpoint. Then you go back to the main route and end up getting gangbanged by 5 assholes that suddenly crash the party. You have to do all the shit all over again. Which is even worse if you ended up upgrading your shit at the store since you’ll have to sit through those unskippable animations again.
This highlights another issue. It can be virtually impossible at times to tell which route is optional or advances story. There is no map and you don’t have the nifty Dead Space objective marker either. I often run around like a headless chicken partly advancing through multiple routes to try and figure out which one is the story route so I don’t accidentally trigger a cutscene which often locks the previous area as the game is fairly linear.
Speaking of Dead Space similarities, they’re actually fairly surface level. If anything, I wish they actually cribbed some more from it! Though I admire them trying to do their own thing for the most part. You can’t walk while the inventory is opened. You can’t listen to audio logs while walking. Weapon switching is slow as shit. Maybe I’m just a freak, but I dislike how enemy bodies are pretty much immovable and have no physics after killing them compared to DS, and stomping them doesn’t feel as satisfying. Some bodies in the environment don’t even react to stomping. I miss having a laser sight instead of a standard reticle. The GRP (telekinesis) gauge only properly appears when you’re aiming which kinda feels like a glitch. Although the the cutscene direction is decent, I miss the commitment to the mostly one-shot from the DS games. The recent GoW games and MGSV could’ve been a good inspiration on how to still get “cinematic” shots with that kind of camera work.
Despite me sounding like I’m shitting on the game, I actually really like it! Once the dodging clicked with me and and I got a few upgrades for the baton, I started to enjoy the combat. You typically shouldn’t be shooting enemies directly. Instead, you have to soften them up with melee combos until a reticle pops up on them. Once you hold the aim button you’ll quickly snap to it and do lots of damage. Very nice interplay. The level design has also been good so far, though don’t expect any puzzles. I’ve been playing in fidelity mode with headphones on and the atmosphere is insane. Story hasn’t really gone anywhere so far, but the performances have been good and I’m intrigued to see where it goes.
Although I don’t think it’s as good a game, I feel from a review perspective, this is getting low scores like The Evil Within back in the day because the reviewers suck ass at it and fundamentally don’t understand some of the core mechanics. Some of it has to do with bad tutorialization and the enemies just being too aggressive and lethal for experimentation, but I also doubt they put in the effort to try and learn it properly either.
I played until I got the space suit/armor (over 5 hours) which finally opened more inventory space than the ridiculously limited amount you had to deal with prior. Unless the game really shits the bed, I think this will end up being a horror classic for me despite all the issues I have with it.
