Playtime: 10 Hours
Score: 9/10
A nice surprise of a survival horror game! So I didn't know much about this game until I heard rumblings of it and then played the demo last year. And now I finally play it and I can confidently say, that its my new GOTY of 2021!
To start off with the visuals. The game reminded me a lot of the Resident Evil 1 remake in its lighting and visual design of the environments. The fact that the game takes place mostly in a mansion definitely adds to that and I quite enjoyed it. The only thing that isn't the best are the character models that look a little too uncanny valley, but it is a AA title so I'm not going to knock it too much. While the game makes you think it will be like Resident Evil it actually quickly turns more into Silent Hill as you unlock the later areas with blood soaked walls and an excessive amount of gore in the environment. You always just feel uneasy as you're moving through the rooms, like something is going to pop out at you and with the fixed camera angle, it adds to the uncertainty as you don't know what will be waiting for you in a room when you first enter it. While I tend to prefer the over the shoulder, third person or first person camera styles in horror games generally, I do admire how they used the fixed camera angles here and some of the angles they chose when in certain rooms added to that uneasy feel. Kind of like the bathroom scene at the beginning of Silent Hill 2.
The atmosphere has this oppressive feel as you feel trapped in this large mansion with no one to really help you. You will find plenty of dead bodies lying on the floor or on operating tables throughout the mansion/hospital as well as blood and guts in various corners. You can clearly see the bodies have been butchered and messed with, making you wander about who or what exactly did this. The game also features a couple of jump scares throughout the game and while I am usually not a fan of jump scares personally, but they were pretty well done here, happening when you least expect them. One of them in particular definitely gave me a jolt when it happened.
Next we have the music and sound design which is really well done overall. The OST has a lot of beautiful piano melodies while also having a lot of screeching intense tracks that really build up the games atmosphere and make you feel like you're in a hostile environment. The sounds the monsters make are disturbing and the loud moans they scream out when you kill them really sends a shiver down you're spine. The voice acting though isn't the best with their only being a few characters with dialogue, including your main character. While I would have preferred better voice acting, it added to the nostalgia a little as these types of games never had the best voice acting to begin with. The sound design overall is very well done.
Moving onto gameplay, it plays very much like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, with its gameplay loop of exploration, combat and puzzles. I enjoyed exploring the mansion with all of its nooks and cranny's, finding secret passages and plenty of things in the environment. The puzzles were enjoyable too with some pretty brain buster ones to solve. While it does get a bit much towards the end, I found the puzzles to be another great aspect of the game. The combat plays very much like I said before, akin to Resident Evil and Silent Hill in that you ready your weapons before attacking. The weapons you find feel very makeshift and unconventional because there are no traditional weapons lying around. You a get a nail gun in place of a pistol, a shotgun which is literally just some pipes duck taped together, an electric lance that can be used to shock enemies from close range and a good old fashioned crowbar. Unlike Silent Hill, you can't really get through the game with just the crowbar as most of the enemies are melee based in their attacks, and your character can only take a few hits before dying. The best strategy is to often shoot the enemies and when their down, hit them with your crowbar to finish them off. The weapons overall felt good to use, especially the shogun which has a nice punch to it whenever you fire. Your inventory is also thankfully unlimited and with clear categories of key items, resources and files. I also like how the map of the mansion is an actual physical map you have to select in your inventory and rotated around to read. While the map does mark some key items, I feel like it could have also marked things like ammo or health items you missed which is a QOL feature that many modern horror games use.
The enemy design is another thing I want to talk about before the story section. The enemies all look like Frankenstein like monsters with various blades and spikes stuck to their arms and bodies. At the same time their torsos and faces all look butchered and mangled like their barely holding together physically. While the various enemy types look samey after a while, towards the end they do introduce some new ones that look very different which I appreciated. Some enemy types feel redundant though like the wall enemies who have such giant blades for arms that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you shouldn't go passed them. Dealing with them is as simple as walking up next to them and just hitting them with you're crowbar until they die, and they can't fight back from that angle, so their inclusion in the game feels very pointless. About halfway through the game they introduce a stalker enemy. The design just looks really lame and I didn't find it intimidating at all. You do find out later the story reason, why the stalker enemy is there which I won't spoil, but overall it just felt redundant from a gameplay perspective. The best thing to do is when you enter a room and hear the stalker enemies theme is to just go out and come back in again, as they usually will disappear. It just a waste of resources fighting it.
Finally we can talk about the story. Caroline receives a weird photograph of two twin girls, addressed to her. She travels to the mansion from where it was sent only for her to be knocked out and then wakes up in a bath tub naked and hooked up to a machine. She must now find the missing girls and escape! As you explore the mansion you will find dairy entries and files from the family members that used to live in this mansion. The story they tell is very sad and disturbing and it adds context to much of what is going on. The notes are short and don't feel long winded to read, so I recommend reading all of them as it enhances the story overall. It gave me a lot of Silent Hill 3 vibes as you learn about a cult that controlled this family and their intentions that are evil in nature. Overall, I really loved the story as it took elements from many horror games but did its own thing with it. It makes me excited for the sequel they announced and how that game could play out.
In conclusion, I fully recommend this game to anyone who likes survival horror games and wants to play something new! As I said at the top of this review, its my new GOTY of 2021 beating out RE8!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
My GOTY for Every Year I have been alive - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/my-favorite-games-for-every-year-i-have-been-alive/
Score: 9/10
A nice surprise of a survival horror game! So I didn't know much about this game until I heard rumblings of it and then played the demo last year. And now I finally play it and I can confidently say, that its my new GOTY of 2021!
To start off with the visuals. The game reminded me a lot of the Resident Evil 1 remake in its lighting and visual design of the environments. The fact that the game takes place mostly in a mansion definitely adds to that and I quite enjoyed it. The only thing that isn't the best are the character models that look a little too uncanny valley, but it is a AA title so I'm not going to knock it too much. While the game makes you think it will be like Resident Evil it actually quickly turns more into Silent Hill as you unlock the later areas with blood soaked walls and an excessive amount of gore in the environment. You always just feel uneasy as you're moving through the rooms, like something is going to pop out at you and with the fixed camera angle, it adds to the uncertainty as you don't know what will be waiting for you in a room when you first enter it. While I tend to prefer the over the shoulder, third person or first person camera styles in horror games generally, I do admire how they used the fixed camera angles here and some of the angles they chose when in certain rooms added to that uneasy feel. Kind of like the bathroom scene at the beginning of Silent Hill 2.
The atmosphere has this oppressive feel as you feel trapped in this large mansion with no one to really help you. You will find plenty of dead bodies lying on the floor or on operating tables throughout the mansion/hospital as well as blood and guts in various corners. You can clearly see the bodies have been butchered and messed with, making you wander about who or what exactly did this. The game also features a couple of jump scares throughout the game and while I am usually not a fan of jump scares personally, but they were pretty well done here, happening when you least expect them. One of them in particular definitely gave me a jolt when it happened.
Next we have the music and sound design which is really well done overall. The OST has a lot of beautiful piano melodies while also having a lot of screeching intense tracks that really build up the games atmosphere and make you feel like you're in a hostile environment. The sounds the monsters make are disturbing and the loud moans they scream out when you kill them really sends a shiver down you're spine. The voice acting though isn't the best with their only being a few characters with dialogue, including your main character. While I would have preferred better voice acting, it added to the nostalgia a little as these types of games never had the best voice acting to begin with. The sound design overall is very well done.
Moving onto gameplay, it plays very much like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, with its gameplay loop of exploration, combat and puzzles. I enjoyed exploring the mansion with all of its nooks and cranny's, finding secret passages and plenty of things in the environment. The puzzles were enjoyable too with some pretty brain buster ones to solve. While it does get a bit much towards the end, I found the puzzles to be another great aspect of the game. The combat plays very much like I said before, akin to Resident Evil and Silent Hill in that you ready your weapons before attacking. The weapons you find feel very makeshift and unconventional because there are no traditional weapons lying around. You a get a nail gun in place of a pistol, a shotgun which is literally just some pipes duck taped together, an electric lance that can be used to shock enemies from close range and a good old fashioned crowbar. Unlike Silent Hill, you can't really get through the game with just the crowbar as most of the enemies are melee based in their attacks, and your character can only take a few hits before dying. The best strategy is to often shoot the enemies and when their down, hit them with your crowbar to finish them off. The weapons overall felt good to use, especially the shogun which has a nice punch to it whenever you fire. Your inventory is also thankfully unlimited and with clear categories of key items, resources and files. I also like how the map of the mansion is an actual physical map you have to select in your inventory and rotated around to read. While the map does mark some key items, I feel like it could have also marked things like ammo or health items you missed which is a QOL feature that many modern horror games use.
The enemy design is another thing I want to talk about before the story section. The enemies all look like Frankenstein like monsters with various blades and spikes stuck to their arms and bodies. At the same time their torsos and faces all look butchered and mangled like their barely holding together physically. While the various enemy types look samey after a while, towards the end they do introduce some new ones that look very different which I appreciated. Some enemy types feel redundant though like the wall enemies who have such giant blades for arms that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you shouldn't go passed them. Dealing with them is as simple as walking up next to them and just hitting them with you're crowbar until they die, and they can't fight back from that angle, so their inclusion in the game feels very pointless. About halfway through the game they introduce a stalker enemy. The design just looks really lame and I didn't find it intimidating at all. You do find out later the story reason, why the stalker enemy is there which I won't spoil, but overall it just felt redundant from a gameplay perspective. The best thing to do is when you enter a room and hear the stalker enemies theme is to just go out and come back in again, as they usually will disappear. It just a waste of resources fighting it.
Finally we can talk about the story. Caroline receives a weird photograph of two twin girls, addressed to her. She travels to the mansion from where it was sent only for her to be knocked out and then wakes up in a bath tub naked and hooked up to a machine. She must now find the missing girls and escape! As you explore the mansion you will find dairy entries and files from the family members that used to live in this mansion. The story they tell is very sad and disturbing and it adds context to much of what is going on. The notes are short and don't feel long winded to read, so I recommend reading all of them as it enhances the story overall. It gave me a lot of Silent Hill 3 vibes as you learn about a cult that controlled this family and their intentions that are evil in nature. Overall, I really loved the story as it took elements from many horror games but did its own thing with it. It makes me excited for the sequel they announced and how that game could play out.
In conclusion, I fully recommend this game to anyone who likes survival horror games and wants to play something new! As I said at the top of this review, its my new GOTY of 2021 beating out RE8!
All Games I've Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/
My GOTY for Every Year I have been alive - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/my-favorite-games-for-every-year-i-have-been-alive/