Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

Gibbous is a Graphic Adventure is a Graphic Adventure released on PC in 2019 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2020. This game follows the story of a young librarian who finds himself in the center of a struggle by various forces to gain control of the magical Necronomicon, a book he unintentionally uses to give his cat the power to speak, an act the two of them aim to undo while also learning about the book and the forces seeking to control it.

Gibbous is very clearly inspired by the works of Ron Gilbert such as the Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion franchises. It features a similar style of gameplay and at least aims for a similar tongue-in-cheek tone in its writing and story. The fact that players start the game as the investigator Don R. Ketype gives you a clear idea of the sort of tone this game sets. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t find this game to be especially clever or funny, and it definitely didn’t strike me as having the same caliber of writing or comedic timing as Gilbert’s games, but it nevertheless came across as a charming nod to those past games, even if it didn’t quite reach the same heights.

The presentation here is pretty good, with clean, somewhat well-animated cartoony 2D visuals with a good amount of detail, and mostly solid voice acting (though again, with somewhat poor comedic timing). Both the characters and backgrounds have a fair amount of personality to them, and some events even have some animated cutscenes. It’s all decent, if not especially impressive in any way.

As for the gameplay, this is pretty standard fare for a Graphic Adventure. Look for things to interact with in your environment, “look” at or “use” them, pick up some objects to use on others, you know the drill. From what I saw, this game largely avoids nonsensical “Sierra Logic”. The game lets you highlight hotspots with ZL, and “snap to” them using the right analog stick. Players using the touchscreen in handheld mode can even interact with things directly.

In the end, there’s not too much else to say about Gibbous. This is a decent entry in the Graphic Adventure genre that copies the Ron Gilbert formula and does it pretty well, even if it doesn’t have quite the same level of writing. Fans of the genre and especially those who like this specific stripe of game are likely to be charmed by Gibbous, even if it isn’t likely to become their new favorite in the genre.

tl;dr – Gibbous is a Graphic Adventure about a young librarian who finds himself trying to undo a magic spell and discover the secrets behind an ancient book and the forces trying to gain control of it. This is a game that is clearly inspired by the classic works of Ron Gilbert, and it largely succeeds at presenting players with the same sort of experience, even if the level of writing and humor isn’t quite on par with Gilbert’s. Even so, fans of the genre will likely find this a solid game well worth checking out.

Grade: B

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