Episode three of Big Bad Wolf’s excellent narrative driven adventure The Council had a lot to live up to. The first two episodes had set the scene perfectly while building believable relationships between the crazy cast. Thankfully episode three; Ripples continues in a positive storyline direction.
In my reviews on the previous two episodes (which you can find here; Episode 1 | Episode 2) I went out of my way to make them spoiler free but unfortunately as we get further in that becomes more difficult, so I am issuing a SPOILER WARNING right now that I will be discussing plot points.
We come into this latest episode off the cliffhanger of finding your mother in the crypt. While a strong ending to the episode I was worried about how large the mothers role would be in episode 3 given her relatively weak voice acting in episode 1. As it turns out Sarah’s voice acting has improved a little, but not enough to completely fit the scene.
The crux of the episode is the revelation that Lord Mortimer and Sir Holm are actually demons. They have been around for centuries manipulating some of the greatest minds in the world for their own personal gain. While this is a really cool twist it will be how well they follow up on it that will ultimately decide if it was a good move.
A change from episode 2 seems to be the emphasis on puzzles. As you have to retread some old routes from episode 2 Louis will recall the solution to the puzzle out loud so that you just need to enter it. The only real puzzle comes at the end of the episode and follows a similar style to the bible one in the previously. It requires some initial guess work followed by matching the clues with the opening of a door.
Many may find the puzzles easy but I am generally hopeless at this kind of thing so I felt a sense of accomplishment when working out the solution. Big Bad Wolf have done a good job of making you feel smarter than you probably are in that respect.
Now on to the negatives. Unfortunately it feels like this entry may have been slightly rushed on a technical level. For me there was nothing game breaking, but a mixture of characters mouths not moving when speaking, Louis eyes becoming more and more crossed during an encounter, one piece of Louis dialogue sounding like he has just chugged a bunch of helium and more.
As I say this doesn’t ruin the experience but it certainly takes you out of the wonderful world that has been built here. Hopefully this can be patched and in future episodes if an extra week or two of polish is needed the time will be given. Especially given that are few of the issues have meme written all over them and that’s something that could harm the games reputation and put gamers off trying the series.
Overall, technical issues aside this is another really strong episode. The setting is absolutely fantastic and the characters have real depth to them. You could lose an hour just ignoring your latest objective and going for a stroll. I still get the feeling that my decision are having a real impact on the game and that is something you don’t often get with these type of games.
-Craig ✌️
