The Stone of Madness Review (Nintendo Switch OLED)

by Jim Smale · January 31, 2025

The Stone of Madness Review, From the studio that brought you the Blasphemous series comes The Stone of Madness: a real-time tactical stealth game set in an 18th-century Spanish Monastery. Located in the Pyrenees, this time-worn Jesuit monastery is home to a madhouse and an inquisitorial prison. Five prisoners – plagued by cruel punishment, madness, and despair – pool their skills and resources to face their phobias, stave off insanity, uncover the mysteries of the Monastery, and find a way to escape.

The Stone of Madness Review Pros:

Exquisite high-quality graphics with a unique art style.
3GB download size.
Four save slots.
Accessibility options – three font types including Dyslexia ones, HUD size, subtitles, and text size.
Three game mode difficulties – Story mode, The Stone of Madness, and Despair mode. Each one adjusts how the enemy sees and reacts with you and how the sanity mechanic works.
Beautiful hand-drawn animated cutscenes.
Excellent voice work.
The art and animation reminds me of Dragons Lair.
It’s a game that just looks so good and is a visual treat.
Stealth em up gameplay.
Tutorial pop-ups as you play.
Opening Prologue section.
You can skip and fast-forward cutscenes and character interactions.
Highlight a guard to see their cone of vision, as long as you are not acting suspiciously then you are safe.
Every interaction will have a timed interaction timer.
It kind of plays like a free-form game but with point-and-click elements.
The Codex fills in with information as you play and encounter items people and tutorials.
Objectives tell you your missions but also have a completion percentage for the current act.
Forbidden areas will display a red line at the top of the screen or at the entrance and getting caught here is bad news.
Vision cones of enemies will fill in with yellow to denote suspicion and then red for alert so you always have a visual tell. If the cone is striped it means you are only in stealth as long as you move slowly.
It’s a puzzle game with stealth elements throughout and is a fantastic mental workout.
Cutscenes are integrated into the gameplay.
You can use the environment like hiding in bushes or hiding behind boxes and the like.
A full 3D game world on an isometric camera angle.
If interactions have several actions you can scroll through them before committing.
Multiple choice conversations with characters.
A full inventory management system.
You can loot boxes and stands etc and you have a handy loot all button.
Every character you play has their own disorder or sanity like being a Christian and being near dead bodies or violence will cause it to rise.
Light plays a part and you illuminate and extinguish candles and other light sources.
The game offers some great animations.
When moving around the walls go invisible or break down so you can see.
You can run away from enemies when detected to escape.
Suspicion meter is a separate bar and fills up slower, if this isn’t full when captured you will be released.
Animas are supernatural beings and show up in well-lit rooms, they can destroy your character’s sanity quickly so use blessings to temporarily paralyze them.
Find and equip an oil lamp to help show clues and interactions. You can use other light sources to light your lamp but wind can blow the candle out.
Fascinating locations to explore.
I really enjoyed playing the game in handheld with headphones on and just soaking it all in.
Recruit/rescue new characters to play as and when they join you can see key skills they possess and a brief description of them.
Over time you need to learn what character to use in each scenario.
The way each character plays so uniquely and differently it really must be underlined how much they add to the game with this.
When swapping players (which can be done instantly in a menu) you leave the other players where they are whether that be standing, crouching or hiding.
One call gimmick is you can call other characters and have them follow you and do actions, each character has a set radius in terms of call range.
When quitting the game it tells you when you last saved.
I like the mental gymnastics you need to incorporate into the game.
Everyone will play this game differently and that is fascinating.
You can exchange items between characters when they are close by.
Each character has their own skill tree for new ability unlocks.
Tactical pause lets you scan the area by moving the camera around, objectives show along with arrows and tips.
I like how other inmates, people you meet, civilians, etc interact and react to each character. They can make things harder or easier for you but it’s just another layer of great game design.
Help notifications pop up when they are in danger or you have left them in a bad place.
Many memorable characters and you soon learn everyone’s abilities.
You can hide bodies to avoid detection.
There is so many opportunities to have a moment or memorable encounter.
It’s great (sometimes) how it can take so many moving parts to do a simple task like moving a body. Only certain people can do it but the bodies in the dark so you need a light but the other guy hates darkness so you have to move him first, and it goes on from there.
You can zoom the camera in and out to help look at your environment.
It’s a really clever puzzle game and the stealth is great fun.
Certain characters can kill, stun, or knockout enemies but you can always loot downed enemies.
I really like how easy it is to highlight an enemy so I can see their cone, it’s all done by highlighting them with the right stick and clicking to undo the action.
The day and night mechanic is again its own thing. During the day you can explore and do missions and generally play the game whereas the night is your back in your cell and here you can heal, craft items, and basically do your management of the team.
During the night you can use the black market to buy items and materials.
Pay to wipe or lower your suspicion level with the guards.
At the start of a new day, you can pick up to 3 people to take out as your party, they are all sat around a war table and have these cool animations amd then you choose the trapdoor to exit from.
The story is actually very interesting and engaging.
You can lose a player for an amount of time if they sustain injuries.

The Stone of Madness Review Cons:

It does not have the fastest loading time.
No touchscreen support.
You cannot remap the controls.
Doesn’t offer Colourblind support.
It’s a slow-paced game from the story to the movement and constant cutscene transitions.
Limited voice work once you get into it.
It takes a while to get used to not having a camera.
The stealth is clever but does feel inconsistent at times.
It is both a blessing and a curse that enemies spotting you don’t investigate until they go red, up until then they stay on their route regardless.
No easy way to save the game or even trigger a save.
There is no in-game achievement system.
It’s frustrating to not know where you land after capture/death.
I kind of wish you had an undo button or at least in the Prologue so you can get used to many moving parts.
They don’t always do a great job of helping signpost where you should be going.
It’s not always clear or easy to know if a wall or box or something is high enough to hold or help you.
Failing an objective causes a long loading screen.