There was a moment in this game where I entered a strange, large room with nothing but a gallows puzzle in the middle. My instincts immediately went "alright, this is clearly a boss arena and once I solve that puzzle, I'm gonna get attacked by a bunch of monsters". So I did the puzzle, the game played a distant screaming sound and footsteps started approaching me. I reloaded my gun, and ... nothing happened. I spent a minute searching this weird foggy room for anything, but it was completely empty and I was free to leave at any point.
Now I'm thinking whether I would remember that moment if something actually attacked me there. Sure, I'd probably get startled for a few milliseconds once I saw a monster approaching me (and knowing I hadn't saved in like 30 minutes), but in the end, it would have probably been just another quick shotgun to the head - and I'm on my merry way.
This is why subtle horror like this will always be scarier than going "BOO!" in your face every 5 minutes. The fear of the unknown is the best fear to exploit when making a horror game, because whatever your brain comes up with when looking into the fog will always be scarier than what's actually in the fog. Fuck you brain.
And that's not even touching on the more psychological aspects of this game: the broken characters, tragic story, creepily unnatural voice acting, and of course the big twist at the end.
Also, just a funny anecdote, but I played this on PC and there were absolutely no loading screens between gameplay and cutscenes, so I kept shitting my pants every time a random cutscene started playing at full volume when I opened a seemingly innocuous door. That first Pyramid Head encounter got me good.
So yeah, this game's as good as they all say. Maybe I'm jumping the gun by giving this a 10/10 right after my first playthrough, but who knows - I can definitely see this becoming one of my favorite games of all time.
Looking forward to the remake. Hope they don't ruin everything by having Pyramid Head relentlessly pursuing you at all times like Mr. X.
Now I'm thinking whether I would remember that moment if something actually attacked me there. Sure, I'd probably get startled for a few milliseconds once I saw a monster approaching me (and knowing I hadn't saved in like 30 minutes), but in the end, it would have probably been just another quick shotgun to the head - and I'm on my merry way.
This is why subtle horror like this will always be scarier than going "BOO!" in your face every 5 minutes. The fear of the unknown is the best fear to exploit when making a horror game, because whatever your brain comes up with when looking into the fog will always be scarier than what's actually in the fog. Fuck you brain.
And that's not even touching on the more psychological aspects of this game: the broken characters, tragic story, creepily unnatural voice acting, and of course the big twist at the end.
Also, just a funny anecdote, but I played this on PC and there were absolutely no loading screens between gameplay and cutscenes, so I kept shitting my pants every time a random cutscene started playing at full volume when I opened a seemingly innocuous door. That first Pyramid Head encounter got me good.
So yeah, this game's as good as they all say. Maybe I'm jumping the gun by giving this a 10/10 right after my first playthrough, but who knows - I can definitely see this becoming one of my favorite games of all time.
Looking forward to the remake. Hope they don't ruin everything by having Pyramid Head relentlessly pursuing you at all times like Mr. X.