THE CHANT Review for PlayStation 5

There have been a lot of great survival horror games this year. All with often similar takes, but perhaps have things that are just enough different that make it stand out. Personally, I have an odd fascination with cults and their downfalls. The concept of “The Chant” intrigued me from the very beginning, while throwing in some Lovecraftian creatures and psychedelic hallucinations, this is a recipe for something incredibly original. Developed by Brass Token Games, they seemed to reach for the stars to unleash a AAA quality game for seemingly a fraction of the budget. For the most part I believe they succeeded, even if my overall experience didn’t quite live up to the potentially over hyped expectations I gave it.

The story starts off in 1972 on Glory Island where we see a cult performing a ritual to open a portal to the cosmos. We see one cultist who happens to be pregnant decide to have a change of heart with what she’s doing on this island. While on the run this woman is cornered and ends up taking a leap off the edge of a cliff to her demise. We then cut to the present day where we meet our main protagonist, Jess, who has a vision of a corpse in the water. After having accepted an invitation to retreat on a luxurious island (I’m sure you can guess which one), mysteries begin to unravel even more as we learn about her past trauma and other members of the cult all seem to have had a tragic past. Jess is invited to drink some heavily drugged tea and join the rest of the cult to be part of a similar ritual we had just seen. After an issue during the ritual, a bunch of weird creatures have come through the portal wreaking havoc and causing everyone on the island to start hallucinating. Let the psychedelic horror shenanigans begin!

There are patches of gloom/fog throughout the island, divided by different colors. The overall objective in this survival horror is to have Jess collect colored crystals from other cultists and then enter the corresponding-colored gloom to face and defeat a specific cultists’ fear. The Batman villain Scarecrow would be having a field day with what these fear toxins are doing to everyone on Glory Island. Many of the cultists give into the gloom’s hallucinogenic chaos and they begin to lose their minds to horrifying degrees. Taking crystals from some of them may be more difficult than you’d hope.

While all of this sounds pretty great, there are some things I wish were executed a bit better. For its story, I wish we got to know the cultists a lot more than just brief interactions before things got crazy, that way when all hell breaks loose, and they lose their minds there are just more emotional stakes involved. There are documents scattered around the island that fill in the gaps for a lot of the story for these characters, but I was hoping it was more intricately woven in the narrative instead. Some of these cultists had some seriously tragic backstories that I think would have made for some great moments to explore further. The overall cast does a solid job with their performances, really selling each role, aside from the cult leader, which I felt was miscast and ended up being a huge, missed opportunity to have a really meaty role for a seasoned actor to play.

While most of the survival horror titles these days are in first-person, this one is actually in third person and plays like an action game, which pleasantly surprised me. You have ranged weapons/attacks as well as melee attacks that involve varying flaming plants. You can throw salt or even essential oils at your enemies; you’ll even need to get a little creative and throw some oil and then use your flaming branch melee attack to catch these creatures on fire. When you’re not killing creatures, you’re mostly just scouring the island for keys and unlocking puzzles, pretty much standard survival horror stuff here, the puzzles themselves are also fairly simple to figure out.

I’m fairly mixed on “The Chant,” while what was accomplished with such a small development team is extremely commendable, everyone a part of this game should be proud of what they were able to accomplish. But I ended my experience wishing for just a little more. This certainly isn’t perfect, but it gets a lot right, such as the amazing psychedelic score. I’m sure they learned a lot about what worked here and what didn’t and their next title will feel all-around more consistent in quality. Having said all that, “The Chant” isn’t a swing and a miss, it’s certainly a swing in a good direction. For fans of the genre, I suspect this will be a fun one to check out and I hope it slowly inherits its own cult audience.

7/10

For more information, visit: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10002823

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Nick Navarro

Gaming since I was given an original Nintendo as a kid. I love great storytelling and unique ingenuity. When both collide in a single game, I'm a happy gamer. Twitter/IG @NickNavarro87