Had a hard time deciding if I would recommend or not this game. Although it is tremendously effective in scaring you (its very chilling and gave me shivers more than once) it falls flat one the ideia that it wants to be a full fleged sequel to The Eight Pages. When it comes down to it, Slender: The Arrival is a one trick pony that repeats ad nauseum the one and only guimick it has.
Though its marginally better than its experimental predecessor, mostly thanks to some great atmosphere and visual sense, it hardly does anything to evolve the horror or gameplay of the original beyond re-using the same tired structure in different situations. If there was some potential to this formula, Slender The Arrival doesn't quite capture it.
I’m the perfect age to remember peak Slenderman hype. When the creepypasta first started getting big I was about 10 years old – the time when your mind first starts being truly susceptible to the darker side of imagination. Hushed whispers at sleepovers, telling stories about The Slenderman that we’d made up on the spot to scare each other, nightmares about a blank-faced predator, I was there for all of it. I remember scouring YouTube for “Top 10 Creepypastas” videos on the family computer, skimming through to find where Slenderman would rank, and listening only to that segment, gleaning whatever information I could. Everything else in that scene was goofy, stupid, but this, this was something special.
In a way, when I booted up Slender: The Arrival, I think I was hoping it would rekindle some of that initial spark, or at least remind me why this character and mythos held such an appeal for myself and so many others. Instead, what I got was an experience so shoddy, so lazily constructed, that not only have I wasted my time, but I’ve tarnished those memories irrevocably.
Read my full review here: https://www.gohorror.com/post/slender-the-arrival-game-review
In a way, when I booted up Slender: The Arrival, I think I was hoping it would rekindle some of that initial spark, or at least remind me why this character and mythos held such an appeal for myself and so many others. Instead, what I got was an experience so shoddy, so lazily constructed, that not only have I wasted my time, but I’ve tarnished those memories irrevocably.
Read my full review here: https://www.gohorror.com/post/slender-the-arrival-game-review