There's one moment in this game that always hit me hard and defined the feeling - right after you beat the school and kill the boss, you wake up/whatever in the boiler room in the "real world" and walk out into the halls of the "normal" school which is just quiet and empty and lit by daylight, which is not how you've ever seen it before. You've just been through this hellish descent into a twisted version of this place (and experienced this transformation for the first time, because it's the first dungeon) and now you're back to normal, but the normal is itself unnerving and threatening, just in a more passive way. You realize that this is going to be the cycle from now on, that this is the closest to safety you're gonna get.

I personally wouldn't call it comfy ... exactly ...? But it's related. It's a mood. It's like seeing the sun come up when you've been up all night.

(This is also the exact vibe of much of Jacob's Ladder which is of course not a coincidence)

i wish i could like comments on this site because i dont really have anything particularly insightful to add, but i completely agree with that. though i really was including the scarier parts of the game when i said "comfy" too, i just love how it's all presented. all the fog and darkness feels claustrophobic as intended but, i dunno... it's like curling up in a blanket lol. it's probably the really well done early 3D graphics and sound design making me feel that way.

i should watch that

Yeah, I'm with you on that stuff too. I think it's just that it's such a holistic, well-realized world. You want to be there because it's so complete. It is a PLACE. So few games even try for that let alone achieve it, even now but especially in the PS1 era. The incredible art and sound design are almost completely untouched on this system except for by like, I dunno, Vagrant Story. Last time I played this I just walked around town doing nothing, looking at the stores and the houses. Not how I usually play games at all, but it never disappointed me.

And that completeness is of course not just for the 'realistic' city streets or other well-made real world settings. The hell areas are just as immediate and 'believable' in their own way. I think you call this good game design

completely agreed

i lowkey get that