Crisol: Theater of Idols
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Crisol: Theater of Idols
The atmosphere of the shooter is delightfully spooky, and the Spanish influences make for a narrative backdrop and lore that you want to sink your teeth into. But too often, Crisol is held back by its gameplay. The blood-for-bullets mechanic adds some fun strategic depth, but the overall experience is held back by repetitive enemy design and arena layouts. Better single-player first-person shooters can be found elsewhere.
Crisol: Theater of Idols excels as a lower budget horror with high ambitions. It's got its foibles and I can nitpick all day, but so much style and effort has been poured into it that I just have to come away impressed. Fantastic visual and audio direction does a lot of the heavy lifting, taking this from a solid little homage to something more special. Creepy, intriguing, and with enough mechanical gimmickry to feel more different than it actually is, I’m certainly very glad I played it.
A spectacular production, remarkable in every aspect, reminiscent of some great adventures of yesteryear and ideal for any survival horror fan. With Crucible: Theater of Idols, Vermila Studios sets an enviable starting point, only improvable in a few areas.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Crisol: Theater of Idols is a unique take on survival horror that has swiftly became one of my favourite games in a long while. It takes classics like Resident Evil 4 and Bioshock and fuses them into a brand new nightmare. The twisting narrative, the mix of gameplay mechanics, and the sheer visceral thrill of the game once it gets its claws into you all combine to make this perhaps my happiest gaming surprise in years. If this glowing review wasn't enough to convince you, it's even priced incredibly competitively and puts many far more expensive titles to shame. Crisol truly deserves to become more than just a cult classic and will be in the conversation for horror game of the year, even with some obvious competition on the horizon.
With clear inspirations from predecessors in the genre, Crisol: Theater of Idols is a solid debut from Vermila Studios under Blumhouse Games. While it doesn't quite reach its max potential in the end, it's absolutely worth your time for a weekend playthrough.
Crisol: Theater of Idols is a solid survival-horror adventure that is sometimes a little rough around the edges.
