Crisol: Theatre of Idols makes me bleed for every bullet. I wince each time Gabriel – devout cultist, soldier of the Sun God, etc. – squeezes the spiked grip of his pistol, blood pouring out from his palm and filling the chamber with a red-orange fluid that splutters like lava. If that's not hardcore enough for you, the dude literally exsanguinates corpses to replenish his own vitality – and once drained, they simply melt away.
Usually, it's hard for even the best survival horror games to gross me out. But as Gabriel's melodramatic cries ring out in this nightmarish rendition of Spain where religious imagery comes to life, using blood for bullets is one of the lesser oddities. The result? Crisol is shaping up to be the survival horror telenovela I didn't know I needed. Think Resident Evil Village, but with a Lies of P-meets-BioShock aesthetic. Exactly.
