I’ve performed a variety of completely different RPGs throughout my forty-plus years of gaming. I’m a large fan of the style and thought I’d seen all of it. That was till I performed Circus Electrique, a sport that has an intriguing story, steam-punk art work, and unbelievable voice appearing. And did I point out that circus performers make up your workforce? Whereas it doesn’t all the time land in all features, it’s an attention-grabbing idea, and the story carries the sport.
The narrative takes place in London throughout the late Eighteen Eighties and follows a newspaper reporter named Amelia. She’s investigating one thing generally known as The Maddening, which is inflicting the individuals of London to assault each other. Amelia’s backstory is fascinating. Her mom was a circus performer who died in a horrible accident ten years earlier than the present occasions within the sport, inflicting the circus to shut. Nonetheless, her uncle, the ringmaster, not too long ago introduced the present again. Amelia doesn’t belief her uncle and suspects he’s one way or the other concerned within the current occasions. He insists she takes a gaggle of performers along with her as she digs into the story. Your complete sport is voice-acted, and the appearing is properly completed.
One other energy is the art work. For the reason that sport takes place in Victorian London, the combination of the background scenes and the steampunk vibe is vibrant and visually interesting. As well as, the circus performers in your workforce are each charming and creepy wanting, particularly the clowns. Certainly, they appear extra menacing than enemies.
Rather a lot is occurring on this sport. Whereas there’s a tutorial, a welcomed codex is accessible, which you’ll entry when you will have questions. A novel facet throughout fight is devotion, a separate meter figuring out the character’s success. The upper the devotion, the extra injury you’ll do. Totally different expertise additionally have an effect on this stat. As an example, my clown may cheer up my social gathering, growing the workforce’s total devotion. Conversely, my strongman’s intimidation skill lowered the opponent’s stats.
One other function is the Amazemeter, which solely unlocks after you beat the primary boss. Utilizing a personality’s expertise fills up the gauge and lets you unleash some highly effective assaults or heal. You’ll be able to improve the Amazemeter and experiment with it by placing talents into completely different slots.
The gameplay is a mixture of each turn-based battles and circus administration. The administration facet has you drafting and putting performers into the present. Each gig has completely different slots with the popular efficiency varieties. Every workforce member has a card indicating their finest placement within the manufacturing and a chemistry icon that exhibits with whom they work finest. The upper the chemistry, the higher the end result, assembly or exceeding the group’s expectations.
There are some things that forestall the sport from sticking the touchdown. The circus administration is neat however interrupts the sport’s total move. After every battle, you’ll must arrange one other present. Due to this, I used to be typically pulled out of the story once I simply needed to progress.
One other draw back is the print and icons for every character, that are small and exhausting to see in handheld mode. Enjoying on a big TV works however is difficult to play handheld. Nonetheless, these criticisms didn’t take away from my total enjoyment of the sport.