Cyclopean: The Great Abyss - Overview

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PC Gamer checked out Cyclopean: The Great Abyss:

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This fascinating Lovecraftian RPG has me determined to build an army of ghoul-slaying cats-and no I haven't been driven mad by forbidden knowledge, why do you ask?

Cyclopean: The Great Abyss is a monochrome nightmare.

I am lost in a nightmarish limbo. Everywhere I turn, bizarre creatures stalk me, rending my flesh and chipping away at my sanity. There is only one hope for me in this place: talking cats.

The world of Cyclopean: The Dark Abyss is not a welcoming one. It's a monochromatic adaptation of HP Lovecraft's Dreamlands, so the bleakness is thematically appropriate, though that doesn't make dying over and over (with all progress reset) as you feel your way around any less punishing. But like a good Lovecraft story, it's uniquely strange and wonderfully atmospheric.

As you'd expect from the retro visuals, Cyclopean is a decidedly old school RPG. Out on the world map, your character (plucked from the real world 1920s to make their way in this dark fantasy realm, judging by the randomly-generated names) moves around as a tiny silhouette, controlled from a top-down perspective. Enter a dungeon, and your view shifts to first-person with grid-based movement-and chilling close-ups of the many weird creatures native to this place.

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