Requiem, for reasons that are mostly unfortunate, takes the place of being the worst entry in the Penumbra series with its surprising distancing from its survival horror format and, for whatever reason, turning into a mediocre puzzle-platformer with controls that were certainly not meant for the genre.
As many people familiar with the series know, it was planned to be an entire trilogy, where Overture and Black Plague would serve as the first and second entries. However, dissonance with the publisher stopped that from happening and urged Frictional to tie up loose ends on the story with this pretty weak-willed expansion for BP.
For some reason, they decided to drop the really solid survival horror that made Black Plague a really fun time and just completely shifted to puzzles for the whole time, and not just the “where’s the key hidden” fare that the game usually hangs with. The game sometimes plays like a really shoddy attempt at capturing the cold and hostile serenity underlined with logic puzzles that made the first Portal game so great. There’s a lot of platforming in some of these puzzles, and trust me, the game was DEFINITELY not meant for platforming, as jumping from lift to lift sometimes feels like a diceroll’s chance rather than determined by your own skill. It really sucks when some of the puzzles are halfway decent, because next thing they’re hitting you with the most random reference to the Donkey Kong arcade game in the form of a platforming challenge, and dear god it does not work in the slightest, with not only the puzzle itself sucking but the music randomly taking a chiptune feel, which was so random and offputting.
Even though the ending was pretty bad, I didn't mind the "story" that was at hand, and the couple times they do comic relief with the centre announcer saying out-of-character things really worked for me.
On the bright side, I’m glad that Frictional got to kick off the Amnesia series after this (and to great success/popularity), because in many ways, the first game is essentially the Penumbra 3 that never happened; There’s a big overlap in tone, mechanics, and level design, and even when I don’t completely buy the hype and praise for TDD, I’m glad it really kickstarted Frictional’s popularity.
Hopefully I’ll look into Penumbra: Necrologue soon, which is a total conversion mod for Amnesia that basically turns it back into Penumbra with all the same mechanics, in the form of a continuation of the story.
As many people familiar with the series know, it was planned to be an entire trilogy, where Overture and Black Plague would serve as the first and second entries. However, dissonance with the publisher stopped that from happening and urged Frictional to tie up loose ends on the story with this pretty weak-willed expansion for BP.
For some reason, they decided to drop the really solid survival horror that made Black Plague a really fun time and just completely shifted to puzzles for the whole time, and not just the “where’s the key hidden” fare that the game usually hangs with. The game sometimes plays like a really shoddy attempt at capturing the cold and hostile serenity underlined with logic puzzles that made the first Portal game so great. There’s a lot of platforming in some of these puzzles, and trust me, the game was DEFINITELY not meant for platforming, as jumping from lift to lift sometimes feels like a diceroll’s chance rather than determined by your own skill. It really sucks when some of the puzzles are halfway decent, because next thing they’re hitting you with the most random reference to the Donkey Kong arcade game in the form of a platforming challenge, and dear god it does not work in the slightest, with not only the puzzle itself sucking but the music randomly taking a chiptune feel, which was so random and offputting.
Even though the ending was pretty bad, I didn't mind the "story" that was at hand, and the couple times they do comic relief with the centre announcer saying out-of-character things really worked for me.
On the bright side, I’m glad that Frictional got to kick off the Amnesia series after this (and to great success/popularity), because in many ways, the first game is essentially the Penumbra 3 that never happened; There’s a big overlap in tone, mechanics, and level design, and even when I don’t completely buy the hype and praise for TDD, I’m glad it really kickstarted Frictional’s popularity.
Hopefully I’ll look into Penumbra: Necrologue soon, which is a total conversion mod for Amnesia that basically turns it back into Penumbra with all the same mechanics, in the form of a continuation of the story.