Ever since I was a kid, I have been fascinated with the act of representation. I always believed there was a unique magic in portraying different cultures, concepts, and types of people from all walks of life in various media. Sadly, when it comes to mythology and folklore in particular, we usually only see the same sources adapted into films, books, TV shows, and video games: namely Norse and Greek. Occasionally, we’ll get something like Japanese or Egyptian mythology, but we rarely see Hindu, Buddhist, or Latin American folklore brought to life.
However, one such game recently has sought to create an experience that brings together Spanish folklore with the horror genre, and that’s Crisol: Theater of Idols. Crisol is another release from Blumhouse‘s initiative to highlight indie developers and their horror experiences, with this game in particular being from Vermila Studios. It pulls from various influences from throughout the horror game genre, all with a story inspired by Spanish mythology. All of these elements come together to make a game that has some high highs and low lows.
A Matter of Faith
Crisol: Theater of Idols places you into the role of Captain Gabriel Escudero, a soldier loyal to the mysterious deity known as “The Sun.” The Sun sends the Captain on a mission to the island of Tormentosa, deep within the heart of the dark version of Spain, simply titled “Hispania,” to kill The Sun’s rival god, The Sea. Along the way, though, Gabriel encounters statues that have been reconfigured into deadly enemies, forcing him to call on his God for direct assistance.
The Sun provides that assistance in the form of his very blood, which Gabriel can use as ammo for the many weapons he will find on his journey. He will also need to call on the help of the Solari, an organization of devout Sun-worshippers like him. All this is in the service of his ultimate goal: to absorb the blood of The Sun’s descendants, thwart The Sea’s followers, and seal the dark god away, once and for all.
I loved this premise, as well as the broader narrative that it’s in service of. Crisol utilizes Spanish folklore to great effect, which immediately drew me in even though I knew absolutely nothing about the subject. The themes of religion are engaging enough even without context, as I quickly picked up similarities between The Sun and The Sea in what they ask of their followers and in the faithful fanaticism they inspire in Gabriel and the game’s main villain, Father Arroyo.
On the subject, I loved the game’s characters. Gabriel, due to his upbringing as a zealot and a soldier, is very muted for most of the game. However, in his reactions with Mediodía, the bubbly leader of the Solari, he begins to come out of his shell a little bit more and look beyond his faith. Mediodía in particular provides a reprieve from the game’s dark tones with her charming personality. There are also the game’s side characters, such as Herminia Espina and Lorenzo Hierro, who serve as temporary foils in Gabriel’s journey. There are a few more, however, I won’t spoil them for you as I think they’re worth experiencing for yourself.
That said, as much as I liked the characters, I wasn’t a huge fan of the game’s voice direction. A lot of the performances feel dry and lack any deeper emotion in their delivery, most notably in the case of Gabriel himself. There were a few performances I did like, such as AmaLee as Mediodía, but I was often taken out of the experience by certain characters delivering lines that felt devoid of any life, or others speaking in an accent that made no sense for the region.
As a result, though, I ended up trying to play the game with Spanish voice acting and English subtitles. While there was no indication that this was the intended way to hear the characters speak, their performances brought so much more life to the experience and immersed me further into the world of Hispania. Mario García, the voice of Gabriel in Spanish, did a phenomenal job of conveying his character as someone who starts out as a numb devotee that slowly turns into a person whose entire worldview and sense of self is turned upside down. I highly recommend playing Crisol: Theater of Idols with Spanish voice acting, as I’d argue it’s the definitive way to experience it.
The visuals are also absolutely fantastic. Each section of Tormentosa is dark and grungy as rain pours in from the sky. Every building has old posters in Spanish, and you can just faintly get the sense that people once lived on this island, but were snuffed out by the dark force invading it. I especially loved the game’s hub: The Fair. I’ve always been a fan of abandoned amusement park settings in fiction, and the atmosphere that radiates from this specific example perfectly unsettled me, even though it’s meant to serve as a place of temporary comfort for Gabriel.
That said, the game has a few issues regarding performance, at least on PlayStation 5. Before I would kill an enemy, for example, the screen would completely freeze before going back to normal. There is also some really bad input delay in the menus in particular, with there being several points where I would mash the X button over and over again to try and save my game, and it takes almost a minute before Crisol registers my inputs. While there were very few instances where these issues ruined my game, it did slightly detract from my overall enjoyment of it.
Despite these issues, I still loved the story and overall presentation of Crisol: Theater of Idols. It did a great job of bringing Spanish history and mythology to life, while creating an intriguing narrative that captivated me despite not being familiar with the subject, thanks to its great characters and world. On the flipside, though, while the gameplay does have some moments of great fun, it has just as many extremely frustrating problems.
Blood, Sweat, and Tears
It’s worth noting that one of my favorite game franchises of all time is Bioshock. I always adored its approach to worldbuilding and storytelling, but further, I also loved how it handled gameplay and exploration. Gunplay always felt fun and responsive, while navigating the world of Rapture or Columbia was thrilling thanks to the many secrets and rewards you could discover on your journey. Needless to say, then, when I found out that Crisol: Theater of Idols was directly inspired by Bioshock, I was elated.
Crisol is unapologetically similar to Bioshock. The gunplay, with each gun having a great sense of weight and impact, feels identical to the types of pistols you’d find in that game. The exploration formula, where you enter an area, have to collect several key objects, before confronting a final figure at the end, is the exact type of structure you’d see in Bioshock 1 and 2 in particular. This isn’t a bad thing, by any means, as plenty of modern games pull elements from a specific muse of the past.
That’s not to say that Crisol doesn’t do anything unique, though, as its most important mechanic is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. As previously mentioned, The Sun has directly blessed Gabriel with his blood. As such, his weapons have been modified to take a unique form of ammo: that very same blood. You don’t scrounge for ammo in crates; instead, you simply need to hold the reload button, and the gun in Gabriel’s hand will absorb his blood to make more ammo.
To balance the fact that you don’t need to hunt down ammo, health is now the most important resource in the game. Reloading drains your health, with certain guns like the shotgun and sniper taking more ammo than others. In order to regenerate health, you must find either Plasmarine, a syringe which Gabriel uses to refill his blood, or animal/human corpses to absorb. It’s a fittingly grim mechanic, but it’s easily one of my favorite parts of the entire game.
The emphasis on blood as a resource doesn’t just add to the worldbuilding; it makes the gameplay feel more tense. Even though I never had to find ammo, in between encounters with enemies, I was desperately looking for any sources of blood in order to regenerate my health. There is also a great degree to it. Let’s say you encounter a chicken corpse that you can absorb. Sure, it will regenerate your health, but it won’t help as much as the body of a bigger animal, such as a horse, pig, or even a human. Even if you use that chicken to replenish your health a bit, you’ll still need to be careful as you approach any subsequent encounter until you find something better to gain more blood.
Of course, the act of resource gathering would be meaningless if the actual combat wasn’t fun. For the most part, fighting against living statues feels pretty great. Each gun has a great sense of weight behind it, with the pistol especially being a lifesaver. You can aim at each statue’s limbs to make them weaker and slow them down, adding even more strategy to the gunplay. Additionally, you can upgrade your weapons to increase their reload speed, damage, fire rate, and ammo capacity. There’s even a knife that you can use in a pinch, but you’ll need to find gasoline in order to resharpen it, as its durability can run out pretty quickly.
Certainly, gunplay isn’t perfect. Aside from the aforementioned issues with the frame rate, aiming feels slightly off. Something about actually pointing and shooting at enemies felt clunky, and a lot of times I felt like I would be aiming directly at an enemy, and the shot would completely miss. Further, certain enemies in particular were extremely frustrating to fight, such as the strange, crawling enemies that would populate the darker areas. Even still, combat was a great time, thanks to both its similarities and differences to Crisol‘s biggest inspiration.
The exploration mechanics, though, have far more egregious issues. While each level looks beautiful, the actual gameplay sequences you go through are extremely monotonous. Every area, you do the same exact same thing: enter a section of the map, find a key item while navigating past enemies, use it to open another area, then rinse and repeat until you’re able to progress. In between these sections, you have to solve a seemingly endless number of puzzles that completely killed any of the momentum and tension that the game provided.
Take the second area of the game, for instance. You need to find Lorenzo Hierro’s four family members in order to get access to the lower depths of the mines he used to manage. Each area requires you to solve a major puzzle, such as navigating through a shadowy maze, walking past mines, and outrunning one of the Crisol‘s major antagonists, who will frequently chase you throughout the game, Dolores. You need to do this over and over again, and at a certain point, I just found myself exhausted from the sheer repetition of it all.
This is one aspect in which Crisol doesn’t reach the same heights as Bioshock. Yes, Bioshock has many areas that require you to find a major item in order to progress and confront a key figure in the story. However, Bioshock doesn’t rely as much on puzzles and repetitive gameplay encounters, and each decision you make with these key figures impacts the direction of your story. Here, the story of Crisol is very linear and has no incentive for replayability.
That is the biggest issue at the core of Crisol: Theater of Idols. Even if the issues with the frame rate, exploration, and gunplay aren’t game-breaking in a vacuum, when put together, I found myself with no desire to replay the game at any point in the future. This game pulls its DNA directly from Bioshock to the point that, if you’re a fan of the series, you will notice the similarities immediately. Due to the game’s issues, though, there were a lot of points where I found myself wishing I were playing Bioshock instead.
I had a great time when I was absorbing bodies, figuring out the best way to conserve health, fighting enemies, watching the cutscenes, and listening to the dialogue between Gabriel and Mediodía. However, I was borderline miserable when solving puzzles, wandering through the same areas of the map over and over again, fighting certain enemies in shadowy mazes, and doing these things over and over again. Even the small issues, such as the game freezing when I would defeat an enemy, would add up, and by the end, I couldn’t wait until the credits rolled.
Most of all, despite this being a horror game, I was never really scared. The moments where I was running from Dolores were tense, but that tension would go out the window when I’d have to stop to solve a puzzle, or run around to find a collectible that was key to progression. Instead, every time I’d be ambushed by an enemy out of nowhere, I wouldn’t be terrified or on edge as I tried to figure out how to fight past them; I’d simply be annoyed.
There were countless moments where I was having a great time with the gameplay of Crisol: Theater of Idols. Consequently, there were just as many points where I was deeply irritated by having to do the same frustrating tasks over and over again. This created an experience that, while fun, left me very conflicted.
A Conflicting Experience
Crisol: Theater of Idols is a deeply complicated experience. The narrative is fantastic, and conveys its themes of religious fanaticism beautifully, thanks to a great cast of characters. The visuals are absolutely beautiful, with each area of Tormentosa being rendered in beautiful detail. Further, the gunplay feels great, and strikes a great balance between pulling ideas from other games while creating others that are wholly unique. In theory, this should make for an incredible horror game, but the game’s issues are far too glaring to ignore.
Yes, the narrative is great, but the English voice acting is very lackluster. While this issue could be easily fixed by switching to Spanish voices, the same can’t be said for the stuttering frame rate. Additionally, even though the combat feels great, the actual act of exploration feels like a chore. This isn’t helped by the over-reliance on puzzles, dark mazes, and chase sequences, which made each scary moment feel more like an irritating inconvenience rather than a terrifying encounter to battle through.
Because of all these moments when Crisol is both incredibly fun and very frustrating, I found myself really conflicted when I was sent back to the menu after the credits ended. On the one hand, this is a fantastic experience that uses Spanish folklore to tell a great story, with strong mechanics and fun combat. On the other hand, the previously stated issues plague the experience and left me desperately waiting for the game to end.
At the end of the day, I’d say that Crisol: Theater of Idols is definitely a game worth playing if you’re a fan of titles like Bioshock and interested in the prospect of a great narrative inspired by Spanish mythology. However, I don’t think it’s worth replaying the game due to how prevalent those issues were. While this is an overall good showing from both Blumhouse Games and Vermila Studios, it’s definitely not without problems that prevent it from being truly great.
Disclaimer: Blumhouse Games provided a PlayStation 5 copy of Crisol: Theater of Idols for review purposes.
