Story: 10/10
The story is fucking amazing and had me crying at multiple points, and as it progressed and as i learned more i was getting more and more interested in the mystery of it. Dead patients, Agent Rainbow, the talking cat, and how Desmond got into this mess in the first place, it’s all told so well.

Characters: 8/10
I don’t dislike any of the characters, i just think some of them could’ve been explored more and some were just less interesting than others. I liked Virginia and her story but would i rather hear more about her getting scars in her face or would i rather hear more about Lucas and his trauma from the war and his connections to Agent Rainbow? And then there’s Desmond, who, for being the main character, i found to be the least interesting. It’s not that i don’t like him, but more that we don’t really even learn anything about him beside some small hints from Rainbow, until the very end of the game, and the stuff we do learn is insanely interesting to me, but i just wish we got more of it. But there are of course other characters who i absolutely LOVE! Agent Rainbow is one of my favorite antagonists ever and the fact that he’s both menacing AND hilarious at the same time is really impressive. Rosemary was also another very interesting character, i feel like they should’ve handled Desmond how they handled her. Her voice came from time to time early in the game but then we started learning more and more about her story and it’s really interesting to hear about her. So in conclusion, none of the characters are bad, but some are just better than others.

Gameplay: 9/10
The gameplay for me ranges from pretty basic combat with nothing special to offer to really clever fun to solve puzzles. When it comes to the combat, it ain’t bad, it’s just nothing special. You have a pistol, shotgun, and a flare gun as your ranged options and then the mirror as your melee one, but if you ask me then using the mirror as a weapon is just a chore. It’s not ALL bad tho, like using the radio device to stun Lucas for a short period of time is pretty useful and can be fun. However when you look at the other parts of the gameplay, it becomes way more fun, specifically the puzzles! None of them felt tedious to do and some were also pretty difficult which isn’t a bad thing. I said using the mirror in combat felt like a chore, but its other use is so fun and unique! You look at it and it basically shows you everything in the level. Where the enemies are, where the collectibles are, etc. Sounds like a cheating method at first but it really isn’t cause with the collectibles for example, sure you know where they are now but you still need to figure out how to get them, i personally think it’s a really clever system. The scares also range from nothing scary to REEE!! And it’s all because of Agent Rainbow. I don’t think the game was scary for the most part ngl, so if ur looking for a scary game then this isn’t it. But the few times i did get scared was when Agent Rainbow just appeared behind me OUT OF NOWHERE XD, was fucking terrifying lmao. Finally the bugs, and ima keep it short, i found none personally.

Visuals: 10/10
When it comes to the visuals, i think the game nails what it’s going for. If my rating on this was based on how good it actually looked then idk i’d give it like a 7 or an 8, but i more so wanna rate the style, and the style is awesome! Every level you play feels different and unique due to all of them being about different characters. Like how in Lucas’s level you sometimes get his war flashbacks, the sky turns red, there are planes flying, minefields all over the place, it’s a great example of “show don’t tell” cuz it shows you these traumas of the character. Then you have for example the Agent Rainbow level, which is just a complete drug trip and i love it! And you basically got a sneak peek at what it would like like in Allen’s level when you went to the ship. In conclusion the graphics aren’t amazing sure but the style definitely is.

Bosses: 9/10
Some might say this should be in the gameplay section but i disagree. And ima keep it simple, the bosses in this game, ARE FUCKING AWESOME! So why a 9 and not a 10? Cause sometimes the bosses aren’t bad, but rather just not bosses :/, specifically the first 2 levels, Virginia and Allen’s. To beat Virginia you just play the level, you get to the final mirror and get her to chase you just like the past 4 mirrors, nothing special and pretty underwhelming. Then with Allen it’s kind of more like a boss i guess. But also not really, you survive being on top of the lighthouse, go down to get the power on while avoiding Allen just like in past sections, then run back up and you’re done. So why a 9 then? Simply because of Max, Lucas, and Rainbow’s boss fights, THOSE are some god damn good boss fights. Drugging Max to get him to help you defeat him, making Lucas see that there’s someone who believes in him, and showing Rainbow that YOU, are in sound mind, is what makes me give the boss fights a 9/10.

Music: 10/10
The music is fucking awesome and how could it not be when it was made by The Living fucking Tombstone? No but seriously tho like all of the music SLAPS! Especially the songs played through the vinyls MY GOD, each song is unique to the character and shows a bit of what they’re going through and it’s awesome, and it’s also obviously just a banger to listen to it. Here Comes a Savior is the only one i’m not that much a fan of but that’s just one of the many songs in the soundtrack that i ABSOLUTELY LOVED!

Total: 9.3/10
In conclusion, In Sound Mind is an amazing and unique experience when it comes to psychological horror, and i would absolutely recommend it to anyone who likes horror games with a great story.

Spoilers only discussed at the very bottom

One of the toughest things critics run into is the concept of reviewing a game for what it is versus what it should have been. We all think we’re capable of telling someone else’s story better than they are, but the reality is that’s not what we’re supposed to do: our jobs are to review things as they were released to us, not drum-up fanfiction we believe would’ve made for a better end product. No outsider knows how a game’s dev cycle went, and for titles I diminished in the past for not doing things my way, I apologize for such pretentiousness.

Still, there’s a reason I began on this tangent, and it has to do with In Sound Mind’s plot. The premise is you’re a depressed therapist named Desmond chock-full of regret: his last four patients recently offed themselves and he’s now awoken in an urban limbo inhabited by their ghosts. It’s a fascinating concept, one that lends itself well to the psychological genre, yet what you’ll quickly realize is the developers weren’t content with just exploring it- see, Desmond soon learns of a conspiracy tying all of these deaths together, and when you find out what exactly it entails, it can’t help but come across as silly and outdated (+), and while the revelation does do a great job explaining, well, everything (++), I feel most gamers would’ve been fine accepting plot conveniences in favor of Desmond’s more-personal tale.

Alas, In Sound Mind tries to have its cake and eat it too. Because the numerous micro plots required less effort from a writing standpoint, they end up getting significantly diminished, their contents relegated to optional stationery made even more unimportant by the lack of responses from Desmond. Seriously, if there’s one issue that consistently plagues In Sound Mind, it’s the limited amount of dialogue you hear from our leading man (a particularly-perplexing decision given his occupation as a, you know, therapist). The most you get are audio tapes strewn between stages detailing parts of a session Desmond had with each client, but in terms of the levels themselves, don’t expect to hear more than 10 lines of narratorial dialogue. Heck, don’t expect to hear much in-general courtesy of Desmond being another victim of Kagome Syndrome, or that lazy phenomenon wherein a normal person has no reaction whatsoever to being transported into a radically-different dimension. Whether it’s facing off against demons, dodging hazards, or uncovering some radical truth, Desmond remains eerily quiet for the lion’s share of it.

But look, I don’t want to fall prey to those reviewer pitfalls I outlined in the introduction. Yes, the dilemmas are underdeveloped; however, it’s clear the writers were more interested in a show-don’t-tell approach via the environmental storytelling, and on that front there’s definitely greater success. Every area centers on a theme inspired by the circumstances of its respective persona’s life, and though the scapes aren’t as unique as say Psychonauts (more on that later), the monstrified renditions of the clients are excellent and speak well to their personality quirks. Virginia’s fear of being gazed at, for example, has turned her into a screaming banshee, while Max’s anger problems have rendered him a roaring steampunk bull. Combined with their small bits of verbiage thrown out during encounters and it’s evident We Create Stuff was banking on this being sufficient, and though it didn’t work for me (particularly as relates to the ending++), I can see others getting caught up in the memoirs of the past, a large part of that having to do with the visual presentation as this is a very good-looking game. So good, in fact, that I can’t believe it’s not butter was made in Unity.

See, In Sound Mind walks this fine line between verism and hypnogenic stagecraft -- most of the textures and annex are based in reality, yet concurrently coated with an inherent mysticism; things seem tangible, but could easily shift at a moment’s notice. In a way, it’s more reminiscent of a dreamscape than your usual sleep-based games, abandoning phantasmic imagery in favor of volatile physicality: gasiform clouds twirl near the ground, oceans cascade with rainbow oil puddles, particulates splatter amidst extensive kinetic force. I was especially impressed by the game’s depiction of light diffusion, being one of the few titles to accurately portray both the relativistic doppler effect and intermixture of color luminescence (i.e., flashing my yellow torch into a red lamp produced an orange glow).

There are some harsh blemishes, the worst being the implementation of haze effects. Whether it was to support the aforestated mysticism or hide some ugly geometry I cannot say, but every level has some variant of it, and each one gave me a massive headache to the point where I had to take a break after 1-1.5 hours of playtime.

Additionally, In Sound Mind’s interiors ail from a noticeable lack of furnishing when compared to similar games. You’ll be in familiar environments like construction yards, bedrooms, markets, and of course your classic steeples, yet nothing was done to distinguish them from the many variants you’ve no doubt seen elsewhere: wall paintings are smeary and bland, specific brand names nonexistent, and even Desmond’s office remains indifferent from a stereotypical counselor room (minus the random record player). The exteriors technically hail better, but as I noted earlier, there was something intrinsically analogous about them between levels; the terrain and walls may appear dissimilar, but they’re functionally the same thing. With the exception of the water (which does have a story reason for its similitude), I won’t say anything is reskinned; however, for all but the last level, don’t expect radical departures from scape-to-scape.

I also experienced a couple of bugs, the first a game breaker wherein a gate would not open, the second Desmond’s hand constantly shaking during phone conversations. Neither were significant, but bear notation nonetheless.

Next-up is the sound, which ironically falls along similar tracks to the characters in that narratorial-related facets were prioritized over everything else. The mutants you stumble across, for instance, are magnificent in aural depth, their screams masterfully blended with the dins you’d expect from such a composite figure: catching Virginia’s singing transition from mesmeric beauty to cacophonous screeching or hearing Allen’s gurgled pleas as his throat suffocates with tar made for some of the tensest moments in the journey.

Unfortunately, that same effort wasn’t extended to the rest of the game, resulting in continuous mediocrity: weapons have a singular peal regardless of who/what you strike, explosions lack any kind of power or vibration, and stepping on glass triggers the same pre-rendered clink amongst others. It’s far from distracting, but nowhere near the kind of immersiveness necessitated by a horror entry.

The music was composed by The Living Tombstone, a group I’d label underrated were it not for the fact that their YouTube channel (at the time of this review) boasts over 7 million subscribers. Here, they’ve done a solid job providing dark elevator music for Desmond’s journey, and I don’t mean that as a backhanded compliment: save certain tracks like “Quit Running” and a couple heavy metal-adorned ones for Max’s bovinious shenanigans, it’s very much a backgroundy OST ripe with the kind of preludes you’d hear in a Hans Zimmer arrangement prior to the concourse of the epic melody…only without the melody. Interestingly, The Living Tombstone also conceived six vocalized songs you can unlock through finding hidden vinyls scattered everywhere (why they’d try and restrict the amount of people who’d theoretically listen to them after spending so much time producing them is beyond me).

Voice acting sadly abets this trend with a set of actors who, while not bad, get brought down by either shoddy ADR direction, miscast roles, or a lack of material to work with. For examples of all three: Mick Lauer does an excellent job as Desmond, yet in giving life to the antagonist, sounds like a bad impression of Leonard Nimoy’s Galvatron; Tiana Camacho has a sarcastically sultry lilt that simply does not fit the sapient overseer nature of Desmond’s cat Tonia; and Joshua Tomar can’t do anything but yell in spite of Max technically having a full slate of depth. Of the cast, I’d say Hayley Nelson (Virginia) and Helen Laser (Rosemary) turn out the best, but it’s a low bar in the grand scheme of things.

Finally, we come to the gameplay, which is admittedly hard to describe. See, much like the Between the Lions show from back-in-the-day, In Sound Mind is a jack-of-all-trades that makes it hard to place in one category. Sure, it’s been marketed as survival horror, but it’s only got a few moments of fright and any “survivalness” is rendered obsolete on the normal difficulty. You’ll experience gunslinging, stealthing, platforming, and loads of puzzles that largely come down to finding an elaborate method of opening a door.

At its core, In Sound Mind involves you entering a zone to alleviate its dreamer of their emotional turmoil; each patient bearing their own obstacles, stimuli, and finally resolutions. Not once did I ever feel like I was just going through the motions or experiencing deja vu, and We Create Stuff definitely deserves props for ensuring that level of diversity between areas. Whenever you finish a space and return back to Desmond’s building, there’s an almost Metroidvania-type overlay wherein any tools/weapons you obtained from before are utilized to unlock new subhubs, and I really appreciated the developers not forgetting about prior items in designing the later stages.

As far as whether it’s fun, though, your mileage will definitely vary- “boss fights” are average, the main villain frustrating (he constantly waivers between trying to kill & save Desmond), combat so-so, and the atmospheres inconsistent. I can’t say I ever found myself especially euphoric during a playthrough, though there certainly were a few thrilling ordeals tossed about (the supermarket, in particular, being awesome).

And that’s ultimately what it all comes down to. If anything that was said above sounds good to you guys, definitely consider checking out In Sound Mind -- it has an interesting premise with a lot of love poured into it, and though I had my issues, I think We Create Stuff is on track to, well, create some quality stuff.


NOTES
-In Sound Mind features one of the most wholesome uses of mannequins I have ever witnessed in an entertainment medium.

-Lots of elongated hallways: expect to pointlessly meander for an extended period.


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SPOILERS
+Basically it turns out Virginia, Allen, Max, and Lucas were all unwittingly experimented on by the game’s version of the CIA using a drug called Rainbow that increases your connection to some netherrealm at the cost of making you more prone to obedience. I say outdated, not because CIA experimentation is nonexistent (MKUltra was a thing after all), but more-so because of Cold War-tropes. Yes, In Sound Mind is technically a period piece, but I personally didn’t think it was necessary to create a convoluted connection between radically-different individuals, when their association with Desmond was sufficient.

++Desmond’s psyche is presumably in that metaphysical realm as a result of getting drugged, thus illustrating how he manifested in this random complex with connections to the other subconsciouses.

+++The whole confrontation with Rainbow latches its “stirringness” on Desmond recognizing the good of his past patients, how they overcame their demons, and how he’s going to do the same, and it’s a case of a good concept utterly falling apart due to the meager build-up of the preceding components. If the writers wanted this to be the crux of the climax (especially with Rainbow representing Desmond’s own inner strife) they should’ve placed all the focus on the episodic tales, not thrown-in this sci-fi conspiracy wrench that was seemingly only concocted to set-up a sequel (Lucas rescues Desmond from his coma in the mid-credits).




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