The Council - Episode 1: The Mad Ones Reviews
A very promising start to a series with an intriguing story, interesting setting, and a unique spin on choice-based narratives.
The first episode of The Council is a pleasant surprise. Big Bad Wolf has succeeded in inserting a snappy roleplaying system into a historical investigative-style narrative adventure, and the implications are surprisingly original, brilliant and ambitious. There are minor flows in the script and technical wise is quite clumsy, but it's a good opening episode indeed.
Review in Italian | Read full review
A strong start for the latest in a long wave of episodic narrative adventure games, The Council sets its stall out from the beginning as something unique, inventive and deserving of your attention.
The Council successfully innovates on what has frankly become a bit of a tired genre in my opinion, but more importantly, how they have innovated works well and is enjoyable and adds value.
Episode 1 of the Council AKA The Mad Ones sets out to subvert the status quo of narrative based adventures but stumbles on some of the basics.
If the rest of the series plays out like The Council: Episode 1 – The Mad Ones, then adventure game fans are in for quite a ride. The storylines and mysteries are intriguing thus far. While there is simplicity in the puzzles, the RPG elements and deeper conversation system make the game more appealing than some other adventure titles. There's currently no timetable for future episodes of The Council, but adventure fans will enjoy this title.
The Mad Ones raises a lot of questions and leaves us on a heck of a cliffhanger, but even without that, it sets up an exciting enough premise to leave me on tenterhooks for the next episode. I can't wait to see what else Big Bad Wolf has up its sleeve.
The Mad Ones is one of the strongest openers in episodic gaming to date.
The Council, just going by the first episode, is a very good attempt to evolve the choose-your-own adventure game style, going far beyond what Telltale have attempted.
Occasionally rough around the edges, The Council's first episode is a surprisingly entertaining combination of Telltale's episodic adventure games and tabletop RPG elements.
The Council - Episode 1: The Mad Ones perfectly sets the tone for the remaining episodes, crafting an enthralling narrative with a colorful cast of characters. The inclusion of the RPG elements helps dynamically influence conversations and how you perceive other characters. Using your skills instead of focusing on win or lose quick time events is a nice change of pace for the genre. Finding manuscripts/books while you are exploring yield free skill points during each quest, rewarding players that thoroughly search the environments, not to mention pieces of amber that extends the number of available effort points. Although there were slight visual irregularities, and minor hiccups on panning camera shots, The Council performs rather well but doesn't have added support for PlayStation 4 Pro or Xbox One X.
Aside from the stilted voice acting and ugly visuals, The Council gets off to an excellent start with The Mad Ones. The over-arching plot is sufficiently intriguing, while the light RPG mechanics gives the narrative adventure genre the kick in the pants it has needed.
The Council's first episode is a promising start. The Mad Ones builds the framework for what can be a wild narrative ride, but it's not clear yet how far this game will go in terms of its branching paths, or if the narrative will remain interesting throughout. I'm excited to learn more about the deceptive world of The Council and what Louis will uncover in upcoming episodes.
The Council Episode One: The Mad Ones is an interesting interactive adventure, which bringing fresh ideas to a stagnant genre. It could've been better without plot holes and outdated character models. Still, it's a great start.
Review in Russian | Read full review
If they can deliver a worthwhile story over the remaining four episodes, The Council may go down as the new benchmark for narrative adventure games.
Though rough around the edges overall due to some performance issues, the first episode of The Council has laid a strong foundation for this intriguing story and fun gameplay to continue down the line.
The Council isn't a perfect start, but it is quite a wonderful foundation to build upon.
While missing some of the polish other games might have, The Council feels like it could be the next step in the genre thanks to branching narratives that feel much weightier than before and a mystery you can't help but be drawn into.
This first episode of The Council is a promising new twist in the genre of narrative adventure, in which your choices and the development of your character really matter.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Council – Episode 1: The Mad Ones sets up this story nicely, providing a solid edifice of characters, lore, and finally a multiple conclusion that have me interested in the next episode.