Cecelia is an action role-playing game, developed by Gammasoft. Cecelia was released on PS3 physically and PC/Mac digitally.
Story[]
The game starts in a first person view, with you as Edwin Porter sitting there with your future wife to be with both of your families, they talk, you get a number of reply options and after a few minutes, you and your future wife start to leave, once you start walking down the street while she gives you sweet talk, A number of union soldiers come up and kidnapp her. Your character tries to fight back but is knocked out and falls to the ground.
You awaken that morning, drowsy and surrounded by townsfolk and doctors. You run off from the scene to home, grabbing your gun and rifle and going on a adventure.
Your future wife name is revealed at this point to the player, Cecelia. The player travels through the countryside with his rifle and pistol, accidentally getting mixed up in major civil war battles on both sides of the coin.
At each battle, Porter asks the men there if they have seen Cecelia, showing them pictures. They all tell his no.
Porter receives a letter from his family a few months after setting out, telling him that his mother is dead. Porter is then distressed by this, having a emotional breakdown.
Porter goes into a dream state, dreaming that Cecelia is dead and that he's on a hopeless mission. He then decides to go to his mothers funeral, until he sees one of the men who took Cecelia resting from a battle.
Porter tortures the man until he speaks, he tells him where Cecelia is, which he quickly rides off to get.
At the location is a large mantion, surrounded by black slaves in the fields. Porter slowly walks up, shooting some of the slave rangers, letting them free.
He then rushes into the mantion, a large firefight breaks out with the house catching on fire, the player then gets a limited time to find Cecelia. Which depending on how long it took, changes the ending.
Endings[]
If you get to Cecelia within a minute of the four minutes you are given, she is sitting on the floor crying until she sees you. She runs up, kisses and hugs you, you both runs through the mansion as it falls apart, you both then ride off into the sunset and it fades to black
If you get to her within two minutes, she is on the floor, crying until she sees you, she runs up, kisses nod hugs you and you both jump out the window after the door is blocked by a falling support. The screen fades to black
If you get to her between 3-4 minutes, she is on the floor crying. Her legs crushed by a support beam. You run up, kissing her for the last time as you both sit there as he house falls apart around you, the song " We'll meet again" starts playing as it fades to black
After it fades to black, the credits start rolling
Gameplay[]
The character travels around with a accurate era civil war rifle and pistol. With many of the fights happening involving having to reloading continuously and for a long time. The pistol is faster and is more likely to be used for short distance while the rifle for long distance. The player also have a knife for hand to hand combat.
The player will face union and confederate soldiers and their generals and animals which the player will need to hunt to survive or steal, which adds a stealth aspect
The player can crouch, go prone and climb up fences and other obstacles.
Many of the conversations which are place are with dialogue boxes, allowing the player to choose his response.
Moral Choices[]
Some of the moral choices which the player will have to go through are choices like
- Torturing men to get information
- Freeing blacks from slaveholder
- Killing animals to survive or stealing
Only the torturing and stealing have a large effect on the game, with the information getting longer to get out from not torturing and the player having to be stealthy to steal food.
Freeing the slaves will help in the final fight, with them throwing ammo and health kits to you when you need them.
Multiplayer[]
A multiplayer aspect of the game will be released with the base game. It will be the civil war battles, with the player able to create and join servers which may be casual or realistic and have fun, recreate civil war battles or just be realistic. The same gun rules apply to multiplayer.
Soundtrack[]
The game licensed the song by Vera Lynn "We'll meet again" the rest of the music during the game is supposed to be suspenseful during the fights but moving and sad during the cutscenes
Post-Release[]
Killing Lincoln[]
In turn 39, the first Cecelia DLC was released, dubbed "Killing Lincoln". The Killing Lincoln DLC adds a new six hour long campaign where a new female character, Indiana, kills Lincoln in an alternate history timeline and spends the rest of the game escaping from the army as she survives in the wild, making her way back to the White House at the end of the game, where she disguises as Andrew Johnson and becomes the new president of the United States.
The game adds new cutscenes, completely new levels, seven new weapons and a completely new character (Indiana)
Reception[]
Cecelia was met with positive reviews, with critics citing the gameplay and story-telling as the strong points. It was also pointed out that the game was brutal, but in a realistic way, and this was seen as a positive as it reflected the time period. The user rating is 8.7/10 on Metacritic.
IGN
"Cecelia is one of those games that don't come around too often. It's an emotional tale of searching for someone you love, and the era they chose to do this in fit perfectly. Gammasoft really have a knack for developing great stories in this game, and this may be their best. The gameplay is great as well, very brutal, but very realistic. Everything is kept in the civil war era, and doing so really helps the immersion. The occasional glitch doesn't do much to break the experience, and it's a great game to just sit back and play and lose yourself in. The choices are there to give you a personalized experience, as well. The graphics are a little sub par, the voice acting can be weak at times, and there only being a couple weapons makes the combat feel a little bit more repetitive than it should, but otherwise, this is a great, emotional game that doesn't hesitate to deliver a story with a punch." OVERALL SCORE 8.7/10
Killing Lincoln[]
The reception to the Killing Lincoln DLC has been unanimously positive, with critics praising the new campaign and the fact that it retains what works from the base game, but also adding its own little mechanics and quirks, making it a fun experience. The DLC has a user rating of 9.2 on Metacritic, and an OVERALL SCORE OF 8.6/10 from critics.