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Well, it's finally here. It started as an N64 title but was then ported to the GC. It was released on the day where the planets aligned, which, coincidentally, plays a major part in the game's plot. Now for my oft dreaded review.
GRAPHICS:Excellent. Not amazing (Metroid Prime) but the textures and water effects are nice. Blood could use work.
GRAPHICS OVERALL:8.5
GAMEPLAY:This is what you bought the game for. You've heard about the Sanity Meter and thought it looked pretty cool. IT IS. In this kind of game nothing is cooler than, at the beginning of the WWI level, walking by a poster that depicts a grinning soldier with the words(in French) JOIN THE ARMY. This helps get a sense of atmosphere. Even better is walking by ten minutes later with low sanity and, out of the corner of your eye, noticing the soldier has been replaced with a demon. A bit unsettled, you walk away from the poster. The instant the camera leaves the wall, you here a squelching noise and turn around. Blood is squirting from behind the poster, dribbling down the wall, and making a spreading puddle on the floor. Very Stephen King. Why am I talking about Sanity Effects instead of gameplay? Read about gameplay in some other review, dang it.
GAMEPLAY OVERALL: 10.0
SOUND: The music is superb. Even better is the creepy soundtrack when your sanity gets low.
SOUND OVERALL: 10.0
CREATIVITY:Best plot I've seen in a game. Can you say H.P. Lovecraft? Each character is brought to life through amazing voice acting. From the encentric(read: borderline insane)Maximilian Roivas to the peerless Michael Edwards, all seem like real people.
CREATIVITY OVERALL: 9.5
GAME OVERALL: 10.0
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This game is the shiznit...it is CREEPY and SCARY (nice adjectives, eh?)...it is so fantasy like and there are parts where you have no idea what the he[ck] is happenin and that is normal...also, beware of THE BATHTUB SCENE...that haunted me for a while..aight..i g2g play it hehee...cya
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This was my first GameCube game, which was provided free with the console. It's a very good thing that it was provided for free, otherwise I'd probably have never owned a copy.
Let me explain a bit, when I bought my console, I wanted one of the cute Japanese puzzle games with it, but none of my choices was in stock. So I ended up choosing Eternal Darkness, much against my better judgement since I had planned to obtain Resident Evil Zero, as my choice of horror rpg for this platform.
It all worked out well in the end - this was one of the most instantly impressive games I've seen. It's well thought out, and the attention to detail is startling. You'll have seen a lot of reviews on this site rave about the sanity system, which stands out as one of the things that the developers got absolutely right. As your sanity slips away the camera angles and soundtrack change, adding just an extra little edge to the whole thing. There are other effects as a result of this too, but you're better finding out about these yourself. I actually found that I preferred playing with the character quite low on sanity - it just added something to the whole experience (although - it turns out that there are occasions where this is a disadvantage - make sure you stay quiet when the trappers are near ;-)
The puzzles are not the most complex, but are balanced enough to not have you charging from one location to another frantically looking for some detail that was missed the first time.
Similarly with the combat - it's fairly easy to master, and I found that there weren't many things I encountered which had me reloading to try to kill again. Especially if the spells are used intelligently.
The magic system was nicely implemented, with various characters discovering the building blocks of the spells for you to assemble. This reminded me of an old Amiga game, but I admit that I may have just dreamt that.
This is a game which is totally accessible right out of the box. Superb use of the graphics capabilities, with a soundtrack that just somehow fits each chapter. I was completely drawn into it to the point of staying up too late for "just one more room", and that's not happened to me in a long time.
If you like the horror rpg genre (and I do), then I doubt you'll be disappointed by this. I really found very little to fault it, and so it must get the full 5 stars.
Did someone mention a sequel ?? Please ??
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I am the scourge of God, no one knows your aniquteis but me.
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Its not very often you see any breakout games in the horror/survival genre. This game brought that to the table. More than gimmicks, the original aspects of this game put it in a class by itself, hands down.
What is so different about Eternal Darkness? Well, for starters lets list the similarities to other games such as Resident Evil and various others. You have a health meter. If it is depleted, you die. You have projectile weapons, with limited ammo and require frequent reloading. That's where the similarities end.
In this game, you have three meters to keep track of: Health, Magic, and Sanity. Magic is replenished as your character moves around. Running replenishes your energy faster than walking. Health and Sanity can only be replenished by recovery spells, or by recovery items that are only given to certain characters in the storyline.
Sanity is the most unique aspect of this game. If you enter a room and a creature catches a glimpse of you, it steals a little bit of your sanity. From that moment on, you have a short window of opportunity, in which to kill the monster, perform a finishing move, and reclaim some of your sanity. At certain times, having your sanity depleted can be detrimental, and at other non-crucial times, its a whole lot of fun. As your sanity dwindles, you begin to hallucinate. The less sanity you possess, the more intense your hallucinations become. I don't want to go into detail about the hallucinations and spoil it for anyone who may read this. Sometimes, its fun to let your character go insane and see what happens. Sometimes, if your sanity runs out, your health starts to decline, but not always.
The magic system is pretty cool. You have a spell list consisting of 12 spells. In order to use these spells, you must gain the alignment runes of one of the four "gods" in the game, and two other spell runes. Combine that with a cirle of power (either 3, 5, or 7 slots) and you can cast a spell. A codex is used to translate the runes, but you can still cast spells without them. A parchment listing the spell is also lying around. It tells you which runes to use, but if you don't have a codex, you will have to experiment to figure out which rune it is referring to. You must stand perfectly still in order to cast spells. If you move or if you are attacked before you finish the incantation, the spell is interrupted and abruptly ends. This provides a challenge when you are in a room full of enemies. Each spell is unique. One heals, one casts a shield, one possesses monsters, one summons monsters, one repairs broken objects and powers up weapons, so forth and so on. You don't have to use them all but you will have to use most of them at one time or another during gameplay. Runes, spell parchments, and codex are placed strategically throughout the game. You just have to make sure you look carefully in every corner of every room. Leave no stone unturned. Most items are hard to miss. Everything you're supposed to pick up glows faintly, so there is no guessing. Without a strategy guide, I only missed one codex the first time through.
On top of a cool magic system and a fascinating sanity system, there is a cool targeting system. Hold down the R button to lock on to an enemy and use the control stick to lock onto either, the head, an arm, or the torso. Certain enemies go down quicker if you hit them in certain areas. This is useful if you're surrounded by a swarm of enemies that are dependent upon sight to attack. Hack off one head, switch to another creature, remove its head, so forth and so on. This can be executed quickly and you'll have a room full of blind zombies who are now easy pickings.
Each of the 10+ characters in the game receive a projectile weapon of sorts and a blunt force slice'n'dice weapon like a sword. Some characters can even equip two weapons. Each character has their own set of unique weapons in this game.
You hold down the L button to run in this game, and if you run for too long your character will have to stop and catch their breath. You can't run forever like Resident Evil. Each character has their own attributes. The firefighter has a longer health bar and can run for longer distances, but he has a smaller sanity and magic meter. The architect has a smaller health and sanity meter, but he has a sizeable magic meter, and he can only run for short distances. The main character has a nice balance of all of four attributes, not to mention she's pretty tough.
The plot is excellently done, the voice acting is very convincing and the graphics are sweet. There are several instances where you will return to the same area, at different points in time, with three different characters. The desert stage is accessed by four different characters and each time you can witness the fact that the site has been excavated and then allowed to fall into ruin again as time progresses. The designers paid very close attention to detail and made sure that the "space-time" continuum was preserved.
On top of all of these wonderful facts about the game, throw in the fact that this game has incredible replay value, since you have to play it through three times, in order to defeat all three "gods". It will not be a chore or prove dull to replay. In fact, I found myself trying to recall everything and then trying to finish a stage quicker than I did on a previous pass.
Simply put, if you don't like this game, then there is something wrong with you. If you love Resident Evil, you will go bananas over this game, since RE has nothing on Eternal Darkness. This game is a must play, let alone a must have.
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