H.P. Lovecraft is a prolific science fiction and horroresque writer, making him a total enigma. His legacy is not really one to be messed with unless you are prepared to dig deep and deliver homage with care enough to not tarnish his name. While ‘Innesmouth 22′ by Raven Novels attempts to do such justice, I can’t help but shake the need for more attention to detail.

You play as Italian Professor Lorenzo Righi, an archaeologist of the myths and legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, invited to give a talk at a convention in Boston, USA. An avid diver, he is invited to go on a dive tour in the mysterious town of Innesmouth. Without giving too much away, since it is a heavily narrative-driven experience, poor Lorenzo is thrust 

into a town with secrets and mysteries of the ancient occult types. The back-and-forth dialogue between the characters has a very mystical air to it as it branches off from your decisions that I did appreciate, however, the story left the action too late into the third act, making for some sluggish pacing.

When the narrative hits its interesting highs, it is often ruined by bizarre design choices. Firstly, the story needed to be fine-tuned. There is a lot of fluff; stuff that could have been edited out of the story to streamline it, as it is not needed to drive the plot along. Prime examples of this are a conversation at the start with Inspector Rossi about objects seized in Tuscany, but it doesn’t really go anywhere, or even a long-winded back and forth about hiring a car with a rental attendee. Both really could have been left out without affecting the core story.

Initially, the game defaults to Italian, so firstly go into ‘Opzioni’ and change to English. There is no actual gameplay, but instead, lines of dialogue appear in front of a set scene image. A character avatar will also appear depending on whose dialogue is currently on show. You will, at times, have dialogue options that will branch the story off into another direction. Occasionally, it can be hard to just sit and read for ten minutes with a still image in the background, but more sound effects and voice acting would help alleviate this.

The imagery used throughout is beautiful, but very generic, and sometimes, just outright not quite right, and it can be jarring. I suspected it was A.I. generated, and upon further research, I discovered it was. Although the character avatars are interesting, they are very emotionless, often showing facial expressions that mismatch the emotions portrayed in the scene. Likewise, the text. Even when it does get exciting, it often misses the match with the still image, forcing you to use your imagination and sapping the energy from what you are reading.

The sound effects add a much-needed bit of suspense, but they are added very sporadically, often resulting in a jump scare in the dead silence as you are reading. More often than not, however, you will hear the same melodic tune playing in the background. It is faint and with an air of fantasy, but a few other tracks inbetween would have been nice to add to the experience.

Innesmouth 22 is interesting, but it ends as abruptly as it starts. It has the potential to be very moving, but due to some of the imagery and lacklustre sound design, it falls a tad short of being truly inspired by the allure of the sea that H.P. Lovecraft had so strongly built.

Written by: Stacey