Lovecraft's work never translates well into the video game medium, but I thought this might be different because it's based on the Dream Cycle. But perhaps more than any other Lovecraft-based game, Cyclopean is too mechanical and gamey, which means it completely fails to capture the magic of the source material. It's not even a semi-literary work, like some horror games out there, namely Clive Barker's Undying. Most of the writing here is purely functional. Which, as a result, completely defeats the point of the game being based on Lovecraft's works. It could've just as well been any generic fantasy.

My decision to give Cyclopean a try was mostly motivated by my desire to immerse myself into the world of Dreamlands, which doesn't get enough recognition even among the self-proclaimed fans of Lovecraft. From the mechanical perspective it doesn't interest me much; rather I was willing to cut its intentionally archaic mechanics some slack in favor of an immersive world. I'm not a big fan of rolling a dice to get a randomized character or that the combat is basically you clicking the "attack" button and reading a log of how it went down. I know these are residues of its DnD origins, but I don't think they necessarily translate into video games well. After all, the fun of DnD is the freedom it provides you, which is well-replicated in some games, for example Baldur's Gate, but here you don't have it. It all kinda devolves into a basic grind.