The Council - Episode 3: Ripples Reviews
Despite suffering from a gamut of technical issues, Ripples is a solid bounce-back for The Council. The plot continues to unfold in an interesting way, and the stronger focus on character interaction was a welcome development for this episode.
In the previous episode, The Council proved to be more than a one-episode wonder. Now it's shown it can even avoid the dreaded middle episode slump that so often befalls episodic games such as this. With a huge plot twist, the story is beginning to take on a whole different shape. Meanwhile, smart RPG-infused conversations and more interesting branching paths keep it all well worth another trip to the mansion.
Ripples took my every criticism of "Hide and Seek's" core experience and fixed it, focusing more on The Council's incredible dialogue system than the puzzles of the manor.
Continuing to be one of the most intriguing narrative adventure series you can buy right now, Ripples furthers the narrative in a variety of interesting ways but nonetheless shows that The Council is in dire need of some fresh locales with which to embrace.
The Council - Episode 3: Ripples gives a little more attention to dialogues and intrigues, leaving puzzles and riddles in the background. The ending, again, is not intriguing enough, but we already complained about this when reviewing previous episode.
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The Council continues to surprise and Episode 3 is without doubt the best so far.
Hopefully my complaints can be resolved in the next episode, but Ripples was not as enjoyable as I was hoping.
While it can be argued that is entertaining, it also means those moments feel glossed over. Yet Ripples does keep your attention and its actual end really does set up a showdown of words that has great potential.
After the awful showing of Episode 2, I had absolutely no expectations going into this one. But hey, I came away relatively pleased and somewhat looking forward to what is to come next. The underlying issues that have plagued every episode thus far still persist here, but at least The Council is finally utilizing its strengths in the best way possible, despite its flaws.