Cultic is, of all the retro-fps revival going on, the one that more obviously draws it’s inspiration on Blood. That alone, makes it worth checking. I’ve seen some polarizing reactions cocerning Cultic, but of course they’re not exactly reflected on the overall score in this page. This polarization was mostly about the heavy-pixelated visual style. Personally i think the style is just great, it gives the game a lot of personality and an atmosphere of it’s own. Most of the people describe the art style as “crispy”. I personally prefer to describe it as impressionistic.

Combat wise, this is not exactly your average boomer shooter. Of course, the Blood-like combat is there in many ways: hitscanners, explosions, flames, and the typical traps whose direct comparison would definitely be that moment in Blood’s first level where you enter the chapel, where lots of hitscanners are shooting you from every side. Of course, there are many situations in Cultic like those, situations where you had to be as fast as posible but not in the typical doom-like circlestrafing combat. But also, there are other situations that, instead, will encourage you to think twice: sometimes it would be better to be stealthy and try not to alert the enemies, other times it’s going to be necessary to snipe from a distance. Gameplay is, in conclusion, pretty wide. It’s also worth mentioning that Cultic’s difficulty never gets as tough as Blood, thankfully.

Weapons are excellent. Shotgun and dynamites are a great homage to Blood. The pistol might probably be the best handgun i ever used in any fps ever, it’s incredibly good. I feel like the only let down when it comes to weapons is the machine gun, somehow not being as good as one would expect. As for the enemies (another point where i read some criticism) i think they are great. The chainsaw guy might be considered a bit bullet-spongy, but i think that’s actually an excellent decision, for the following reason: This game is clearly inspired in many ways by survival horrors, and while the game isn’t necessarily straight out scary, at times it might get pretty unnerving and tense. And i think that most of these unnerving moments are actually when you fight these chainsaw guys. You always encounter them in close spaces, they chase you around, and as soon as they come close to you, they chop your health in a matter of seconds. They are, in my opinion, the closer this game comes to give you a real horror-like experience.

As for the maps, they are just massive, but pretty intuitive. Only a few times they can get confusing (notably, maps 2 and ). You get both close spaces aswell as wide open areas. I like how they, just as Blood’s first episode, create a sense of storytelling where you’re getting from point A to B, instead of just being a collection of random maps. Not to mention those very well written diary logs you found through out the game.
In conclusion, this might easily be the best FPS of the year, and probably one of the best of the last couple years. I’m looking forward for that second episode.

Fav maps: Map 3 (The Mine Town) / Map 4 (The Mines) / Map 7 (The Asylum Grounds)

Least fav map: Map 5 (The Crypts)

There's a ton of work simulator games but not many about workers, which is a shame, cause it adds a lot to this one.

The core game play rules. It just really clicked with me. Learning the ships felt good. Trying to work too fast and getting sucked into the furnace really made me re-experience the feeling of fucking up at various jobs. I like how mistakes aren't really punished mechanically, but the context makes you feel bad anyway.

In general, I was a big fan of the writing. Lot of the specifics about the work and the characters felt real. A subtle thing I think they nailed is how there actually are people who like doing dangerous, physically demanding jobs, and people who take pride in their work, and how the company uses that earnestness to exploit them further. Also, upgrade trees suck, so it was a good joke how all the upgrades are about having to pay for proper software updates and safety measures.

The dialog gets a little hokey, and I didn't like all the performances, but whatever. The endings (both of em) were just awful. But overall a game that was extremely my shit.

"...you can make a wonderful film about nothing. Look at Fellini. The most important thing in a movie is the actor, and everything which is in front of the camera. And the decadence of the cinema, and we have a certain decadence, comes from the glorification of the director as...being not the servant of the actors, but his master...the job of the director is to discover in the actor something more than he knew he had. The job of the director is to choose what he sees. And to an extent, to create. But a great deal of what is applauded as creation is simply there. It was there, when you put the camera...that actor, that bit of scenery, that veil that hung over the river - it was there! And you're intelligent enough to shoot it...the director should be very intelligent, preferably not intellectual. Because the intellectual is the enemy of all the performing arts." - Orson Welles, 1982

More than possibly any other in history, this game was and still is more than just a game. It was and is a historical event. This game united the world during one of the darkest periods in modern history, providing an escape to a colorful world of fun characters and a simulation of normalcy, in a world that had changed overnight to something anything but the normal we had known. And even as the pandemic has winded down, the game still has dozens of hours worth of content, and several ways to play. Talk to villagers, catch insects, go fishing, grow crops, farm for bells and supplies, travel to other islands, and in the recent DLC, design vacation homes for the villagers, with several options for customization. I've played over 300 hours of this game over the nearly two years it's been out, and I haven't got bored of it. It is bottomless in its replay value, as well as the cultural impact it's made. It is not only one of my favorite games ever made, but I'd argue one of the most important video games ever made, and easily one of if not the most iconic game on the Nintendo Switch. A truly historic game that has made its mark on history for all the right reasons.

A+