izigame.me

Good game? Yes. Amazing game? No.

I've been waiting for this for a long time, and only 4 months after its release did I finally have the time to play it, off-putting Dead Space's remake to play this first.
Now for starters and most importantly, this is not Dead Space. It's similar to it, it's got the some of the same creators, but not the same. So don't buy expecting the same experience. It's a whole other entertaining experience, just with some similarities.

I finished the game and its Final Transmission DLC on Maximum Security (hardest difficulty in default gamemode). What I found was an experience with many ups and also many downs, but generally more ups.
Visually, this game looks freaking gorgeous. With my old rig (Gaming laptop with Intel Core i7-7700, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 6GB) I was forced to turn all settings to low to get consistent 60 frames, but even in that form they were still amazing. Every single room has lots of details, some areas have spectacular artistic lighting and rarely does any area seem blank, empty or rushed. The beauty of the environment still lingers in my head.
Enemies are highly detailed, execute and death animations have had a lot of time and love put into them and I don't have any complaints about the visuals at all.
As for performance, most of the problems from launch, if not all, has been ironed out. I never encountered crashes, freezes, fps drops or any game breaking bugs, or any bugs at all in fact. Only bug is that for Season Pass holders, they can't use 1 of the skins.

Now, what you'll most likely want to hear about is the story, the gameplay and the atmosphere.
The story was good. I get that many people say it was weak with great gameplay, but I find both of them to be 'good but not perfect'. I enjoyed the worldbuilding, the overarching story, the characters and their interactions.
Unfortunately, while the start of the game and the second half of the game keeps you engaged with both story and gameplay advances, that middle part gets stale. During this part I stopped playing because I had gotten bored and later came back about 2 weeks later to "just finish it".
After coming back and passing that part I was gripped pretty well and enjoyed my time, but there's no denying that specified part got boring.

The atmosphere is great. Now this might be surprising to many of you as it was to me, but Calliso isn't really scary. Instead, it is tesne. Like f*cking tense at all times! Dead Space was scary, but after the first chapters, it wasn't that tense anymore as you had upgraded your whole gear and always had enough ammo. Callisto on the other hand has you tense from start to finish, and in a good way. In a way that only a horror game can and should.
So, while the atmosphere wasn't scary, it sure as hell was entertaining and memorable.

Now the combat, it's both good and bad at the same time. Combat mostly revolves around melee. You do have guns, but on higher difficulties they are mostly useful in combo with melee and if used alone, cannot progress you long.
Combat consists of hitting the enemy with melee, dodging attacks, blocking attacks for ripostes, using guns to shoot off limbs and weak spots, and using your GRP (telekinesis) to grab objects and even enemies to hurl around.

It's fun, engaging and rewards thinking out of the box. I found that a big part of the combat was utilizing the environment to your advantage. Actually, the most fun I had was with this aspect, to have sharp eyes to spot the hazards that you could use now or later, and be able to use them while under pressure. You can even throw objects around to distract enemies while in stealth, which reminds me: There is a stealth system here.
A basic stealth system exists that lets you move around quietly to bypass or execute enemies from behind. For most of the game it's an option you can ignore, but there are parts that require it. These are not stupid sections where if you're spotted, you lose, but rather parts that are much more easy and less resource-heavy compared to going in guns blazing.
There were a few times where I screwed up stealth and made it out alive, though barely lol.

However, as much as I've talked positive about the gameplay, there are also quite a lot of negatives. For starters, as tense and engaging as combat can be, at times it just gets repetitive. Most of the enemies, no matter their behavior are all taken down the same. Close the gap, beat them to death and stop further mutations. When killing 90% of the enemies just consists of the same method, it gets repetitive, and there's not really any way to change it up.
There is a miniboss that is recycled multiple times throughout the campaign, and besides the first time where it's new, it's painfully unpleasant to fight. It cannot be hit with melee and during the second encounter I didn't have enough ammo, so it took me 10 retries (if not more) to finally beat it. In the next encounters I had more ammo but it was still sh*t.
Outside combat, there are two mechanics where you either shimmy across a ledge or inside a tight crack in the wall, and crawl inside vents. Both of these are slow-@ss systems where it takes so much time for your character just to get it and even longer to actually traverse them. There are maybe 8 times throughout the whole game where they are meaningful and for the rest of the game, they just artificial lengtheners to increase your playtime. For most of the game I tolerated them but even I have my limits because at a certain point, they just get so f*cking annoying that you'd wish you could install a mod just to skip them.
Overall, the games was pretty enjoyable for a first run, but the thought of having a second playthrough sounds daunting. To have to go through all the slow sections and the fights that have already become repetitive long ago, no, I don't want to. I'm glad I played it, but I won't do it again.

Final Transmission DLC

I guess the most significant and important thing to talk about here is the story. I'll shorten it to this: This game is a horror story, and whether you enjoy that is subjective and personal. I did enjoy it.


Conclusion

Callisto has a lot of design flaws that stop it from becoming fantastic, but if you can get it at a good discount, I would recommend it. It's an experience that you can enjoy and remember.