Video Game Review #159: Sonic R

Sonic R

Sega Saturn

Nostalgia Factor:

I was super excited when Sonic R came out back in 1997. I wasn’t a huge fan of the racing genre, but at the same time I was a big fan of the Mario Kart games. I fully expected Sonic R to be just as good as the Mario Kart series. Being the loyal Sega supporter that I was, I went right out and bought myself a copy of the game.

My first impression of the game was not a good one. The graphics looked really sloppy and messy. There was a ton of background draw-in. There were only a small handful of tracks to race on. The music was flat out strange. And the controls…. my god,  the controls. I could barely keep Sonic going in a straight line, much less to the finish line of the race course.

Did I have a serious case of buyer’s remorse after the first time I played this game? You bet.

The more I played Sonic R, the more it began to grow on me. I started to dig the music. Teenage Dan didn’t have a whole lot of other options to play on the Sega Saturn, so he spent many a night staying up into the wee hours of the morning playing this game over and over again. The controls were still a complete mess, but I was able to master them just enough to collect all of the hidden items in the game and unlock all the extra racers (not that I really used anyone outside of Sonic or Super Sonic). The game didn’t offer a whole lot of content or reasons to come back to it, but by the time I was done with it, I was satisfied. It was a short experience, but for the most part I got what I wanted to out of it. I had fun.

It has been years and years since the last time I’ve actually sat down and played this game again. I got it in either late 1997 or early 1998. Let's be generous and assume I played it into 1999. That would mean it has been at least 19 years since my last playthrough. I’ve been a little intimidated to come back and play the game again, because I know the controls are so terrible. Did I really have that much to worry about? Read on and find out.

Story:

As far as I know, there is no story here. You pick your Sonic character and you race against other Sonic characters. That’s it.

There are hidden Chaos Emeralds located in the game’s stages that you can collect, so it wouldn’t shock me if there is some kind of “Dr. Robotnik trying to steal the Emeralds” plot in there somewhere. I never bothered to read the instruction manual, so if there is a story, it is news to me.

Gameplay:

Grand Prix mode is the meat and potatoes of this game. There are other modes to pick from, like Time Attack, but I never bothered with them. Sonic R also offers a two player split-screen mode, but again, I never really bothered with that either.

When you start Grand Prix mode, you get to pick from four characters you’d like to race as. I’d go into great detail about how each racer differs from the others, but I always just picked Sonic every time. He is Sega’s flagship character, so of course he is going to be the fastest and most well-rounded of the bunch.

After picking a character, you are then presented with a whopping….. four tracks to pick from? Four? Really? Hmm. Anyway, assuming you play them in order, they are: a Green Hill Zone-like course, a Casino Nights-like course, an ancient ruins inspired course, and an industrial-style course. If you finish in first place on all of these courses, you unlock a fifth course that seems like it is inspired by Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road, except instead of the course being made of rainbows, it is made of glittering jewels. Beat that course, and the ending credits start to roll. Game over. Seriously, you can beat this game in about 15 or 20 minutes.

If you are just playing to beat the game, you are missing out. Each stage contains a surprising amount of hidden items. The first course contains a Chaos Emerald. The rest of the courses each have two Chaos Emeralds. They are pretty easy to collect. This is the first Sonic game where I never actually had an issue collecting all the Emeralds. Once you collect all the Emeralds, you unlock Super Sonic. Super Sonic almost breaks the game entirely. He is absurdly fast, and much easier to control than the other characters. You can almost finish each course with your eyes closed when you’re in control of Super Sonic.

Each track also contains five Sonic tokens. You have to collect each token while still finishing in first place. If you can do this successfully, you then square off against a secret character in a one-on-one showdown. Beat the secret character, and you unlock them  to play as. Most of these secret characters are useless, however. I only unlock them because I am a completionist. That’s it for single player. Once you’ve collected all the Chaos Emeralds and unlocked all the characters, you are pretty much done.

Now we’re going to talk about the controls. Make no mistake about it, the characters in this game do not handle very well. You hold the up button to make your character run forward, left and right to control your direction, and down to slow down. You can also jump. That’s it. Pretty basic, huh? The problem is that your character moves a bit too fast, and there are a ton of sharp turns in the game. You are constantly going to find yourself barreling around and crashing into things. Constantly. You are the proverbial bull in the china shop. Even if you slow down and are extremely cautions, your character movements are still wild and jerky and unpredictable. Why is it so hard to control your characters? You can’t go backwards or put your character in reverse, so if you get stuck against a wall or in a corner, good luck to you!

One thing that will help you out is the ability to use the controller’s shoulder buttons to lean into your turns. It is still hard to control your character, but this does help. In fact, you are going to find yourself in a world of trouble if you don’t utilize those shoulder buttons. Mastering them is an absolute must if you want to beat this game.

I have to give the game credit for its level design. Sure, all the courses seem to be inspired by pre-existing Sonic the Hedgehog stage tropes, but you can’t deny that they are a ton of fun to explore. The wonky control scheme is a hindrance to exploring these stages, but that is a different subject altogether. The stages are large, expansive, and contain a large number of hidden shortcuts and secrets. Half the fun in this game is taking the time to explore each stage in detail (while not caring if you finish the race in last place or not) so that you can come back on your next attempt and collect everything in time. It helps to get all the Chaos Emeralds first, and then come back after you’ve unlocked Super Sonic to collect all the hidden tokens, some of which are hidden well off of the beaten path.

Graphics:

There are things to like and things to dislike about the game’s graphics. By today’s standards, it probably looks like a mess. Some of the characters are pixelated and flicker at the joints. Textures are a little sloppy, especially when you get in close to them. The game’s background draw is painful on the eyes.

That said, the game is very bright and colorful. The character models look nice. There are a lot of cool lighting and water effects to be seen. Despite its flaws, the game’s visuals just ooze classic Sonic charm. They built a really nice and detailed cartoon world for you to race on. I can only sit here and dream when I think about how cool a fully realized Sonic 3D platformer would have been on the Sega Saturn. Even if they didn’t fix any of the graphical flaws of Sonic R, it still would have been an amazing sight to see.

While we’re on the topic of graphics, I have to bring up how there is a remastered version of the game available on the Sonic Gems Collection for the Gamecube. When I played Sonic R, I played it on the Saturn for my initial playthrough. I finished first on all the courses, but my shoulder buttons on the controller weren’t working properly, making it tough to collect all the hidden items. I then switched over to the Gems Collection so I could properly finish the game and collect everything. Both versions of the game are pretty much identical, but the graphics on the Gems Collection are a lot more polished. Everything looks pretty darn good. All the rough edges from the Saturn version have been smoothed out. This version even adds some cool weather effects randomly to each course. If you want to give Sonic R a chance, I’d say to pick the Gems Collection version as it is a lot prettier than the original.

This unlockable character is the thing of nightmares

Sound:

Sonic R’s soundtrack is either love it or hate it. When I first got the game, I thought that the music was terrible. I was expecting something along the lines of the Sonic 3 or Sonic & Knuckles soundtrack. What did I get instead? Some unknown artist singing goofy songs about feeling the sunshine and living in the city. Every stage has its own song that goes with it, each one slightly sillier than the last. I imagine that the game’s soundtrack made a lot of people go WTF when they first played this game. Over time, it grows on you though. Now, I consider Sonic R’s soundtrack to be one of the all-time best video game soundtracks. Yeah, it is corny as hell, but it just seems appropriate to the game somehow. Sonic R wouldn’t be the same without its soundtrack. It is one of the most charming things about it.

The game’s sound effects are exactly what you’d expect from a Sonic game. The sounds you make when you jump and collect rings are all lifted right from the old classics. Can’t complain about that!

Combine the game’s music and its classic sound effects and you have a winning combination as far as audio goes.

Overall:

If you have the time and the patience necessary to master the game’s wooden controls, you should have a fun time with Sonic R. The game is short, though, and there is not a whole lot of content to be found here. You can finish the game and see everything there is to see in single player in about a day or two. Unless you are a serious collector, I would say that you shouldn’t spend more than five bucks on this game.

I am sure that multiplayer adds some replay value when you are battling it out with your friends. I have never had a whole lot of friends, so multiplayer was always a useless feature to me. I tried playing this with an ex-girlfriend once, but I was a jaded Sonic R veteran and it was her first time playing the game. She couldn’t get used to the controls and would end up running into walls and getting stuck. She got completely massacred by me in our head to head matchups. To be fair, the background draw in is especially bad on split screen. Also, it is very hard to see obstacles and turns and where to go when things are shrunk down like that. It was a bad experience and even I didn’t have a fun time when we were playing. This game’s multiplayer definitely has nothing on Mario Kart.

If you are looking for a quick, fun Sonic game that you have never played before, check out Sonic R! I almost look at it more as a platformer where you race against the clock to collect items than I do an actual racing game. No, the game is not flawless by any stretch of the imagination, and the multiplayer is completely useless, but it is still a lot of fun. Sonic R is an acquired taste though, from its control scheme all the way down to its very interesting soundtrack. I can say with absolute certainty that this is one of the most unique games I have ever played. I can also say with certainty that this game is NOT for everyone.

Final Score:

B

If you liked my review of Sonic R, please check out some of my other reviews:

Super Mario Kart

Wave Race 64

Sonic Mania Plus

Sonic Colors

Nights Into Dreams

Re-Review #4: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

PlayStation 4

>>> Click here to read my initial review of this game! <<<

I don’t know what came over me, but I recently had this sudden, very strong urge to go back and play Uncharted 4 again. As most of you reading this should know, I don’t replay games very often. I am trying to work my way through my entire video game collection, which is quite sizable. I’ve been playing through all my games and reviewing them for nearly four years now, and I still have barely scratched the surface of my collection. Every once in a while, the urge to play something over again overcomes me, however, and I will revisit a game that I have already played and reviewed. Such is the case with Uncharted 4.

The first time I played through this game earlier in the year, I had a good time with it. I enjoyed myself, but I wasn’t crazy about the game or anything. I had read so much hype about the game and how great it was that I think I came in with expectations that were a little too high. It was just more of the same old Uncharted, in my opinion. This time I knew what to expect coming in, and I must say that because of this I had a much better time with the game this time around.

One of the things that helped me enjoy the game more was that I knew what was going on with the storyline ahead of time. The game throws a lot at you right from the get-go. You get four or five different scenes within the first hour of the game, all from different timelines. It was a little confusing to me the first time around, especially considering that Nate’s brother is in several of the scenes. This is the fourth Uncharted game and they had never mentioned anything about Nate having a brother before. This time, knowing in advance what happened to Nate’s brother, everything made so much more sense and I was able to just sit back and enjoy things rather than be confused by  them.

Gameplay hasn’t changed much from the previous Uncharted games. There are a few small tweaks, but nothing game-changing. You can throw a rope and use it to swing across ledges or lower yourself down chasms. You can also use it to pull boxes and other items down from unreachable areas. I don’t know why they haven’t used this element in previous Uncharted games. Maybe they didn’t want it to come across as too much of a copycat of Indiana Jones and his whip? Anyway, it is a natural fit. There is a car driving stage that has open-world elements to it. The game also has some stealth elements to it too, where you can sneak around and avoid battles entirely rather than having every encounter turn into a giant guns blazing free-for-all.

Graphically, the game is freaking gorgeous. There were many moments in the game I just had to stop and take in the scenery. Visually speaking, you don’t get much better than this. All the little special effects like water, fire, and explosions are all rendered amazingly well. The characters look fantastic. I almost had to remind myself that these weren’t real people the deeper I got into the game.

Not only is the game breathtaking and a lot of fun to play, I enjoyed the story as well. Perhaps it is the added element of Nate’s brother being added to the fold, but things felt more personal this time around. The stress that the events of the game put on Nate and Elena’s marriage was interesting to me as well. This is the fourth Uncharted game that I have played, and I have spent a lot of time with those two. I found myself caring about this fictional video game marriage way more than I should have. I actually teared up a little bit during the scene when Elena shows up and calls out Nate on his lies. The only other games that have made me cry are Telltale’s The Walking Dead and The Last of Us. Uncharted 4 is in pretty good company there.

The first time I played this game, I looked at it as just another Uncharted game. This time, it felt like so much more. I haven’t been this emotionally invested in a video game’s characters for a long time. Even though the game is a blast to play, the characters are what make it go. They all complement each other so well. As I said before, I found myself having to remember that these weren’t even real people. You spend so much time with them over the years, you begin to forget that.

This is the perfect closing chapter to an excellent video game series. I’ve always considered Uncharted 2 to be the cream of the crop when it comes to the series, but it now has some stiff competition. I am eventually going to play that one again, so I’ll let you know if my opinion has changed. That said, I have a newfound appreciation for Uncharted 4. It touched me in a way that few video games have been able to do. For that, I have to give it big time props.

Overall:

A

It may seem a little anticlimactic to give the game the same score as I did the first time, even though I liked it more this time around. But the only place you can go from an A is to an A+, and I do not consider this to be a perfect game, by any stretch of the imagination.

Other games I have revisited:

The Walking Dead Season One (PS3)

The Walking Dead Season Two (PS3)

The Walking Dead: Michonne (PS3)

Video Game Review #158: Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas

PlayStation 3

Nostalgia Factor:

I had never played a Fallout game until earlier this year, so I don’t have much to be nostalgic about. I absolutely loved Fallout 3, and I had heard from many sources that its follow up, New Vegas, was even better. Would I agree with that widely accepted statement?

Story:

This game takes place a few years after the events of Fallout 3. Aside from a few basic themes and elements, the games are for the most part unrelated, so don’t feel as if you need to play Fallout 3 (or heck, even Fallouts 1 and 2) before tackling New Vegas.

The setting: a nuclear ravaged version of the Mojave Desert. You play as a courier who makes his living running around the desert delivering letters and packages to people. On one of your runs, you are attacked by a group of men who steal your delivery and shoot you in the head, leaving you for dead. You are taken in and nursed back to full health by a kindly doctor named Saul Tigh, excuse me, Doc Mitchell.

After helping Doc and the fine people of Goodsprings fight off a bandit attack, you head out into the Mojave wastelands to track down the men who attacked you. The Mojave is a complicated place, filled with all kinds of different tribes, factions, outposts, cities, and eccentric individuals. You never know who or what you are going to run into on your adventure.

A major struggle for power is brewing in the background, and you get caught up in it as the game progresses. You can choose which faction you want to ally with. There is the NCR, who is basically the military looking to restore civilization as we once knew it. There’s Caesar’s Legion, an ancient Rome inspired group of barbaric savages who go around slaughtering and crucifying their enemies. And there is Mr House, an old man kept alive by machines who controls an automated army. He doesn’t want anyone to win the battle, and wants to maintain the status quo.

It’s hard for me to completely recap the story, because the choices you make in the game affect how the game plays out around you. No two playthroughs are alike. You could play this game and wind up going down a completely different path than I did. Just as in Fallout 3, you can be a good guy who brings peace and order everywhere he goes, or you can be a destructive force who takes things and kills people at will. It’s up to you. Not only do you have this choice on how you wish to play the game, which faction you align with affects things as well. I aligned with Mr House on my first play through. If and when I ever play this game again, I really want to go the evil route and align with Caesar’s Legion.

Gameplay:

If you’ve played Fallout 3, you will have absolutely no trouble jumping into New Vegas. It looks, feels, and handles EXACTLY the same as its predecessor. It would have been nice to see something a little different, but at the same time if it isn’t broken, no need to fix it. Right?

If you haven’t played Fallout 3, I’ll break it down for you real quick. This game takes place from a first person perspective. You could potentially switch the camera to an over the shoulder view, but this view is useless and not even worth messing around with. You can shoot or melee attack your opponents in real time, but the game does have an extremely useful feature that allows you to freeze time and lock on to your enemies and target their limbs. This will be your main method of attack throughout the game, as it not only almost guarantees you will hit your opponent, it also doles out more damage than regular attacks. You can’t use it endlessly though, as there is a meter that regulates how often this feature can be used. Using it depletes the meter, and it takes time for it to charge up again.

As you play you will pick up new weapons and new items. Some items can be used for healing, others are used for repairing things. Some are of no practical use whatsoever except to trade in for some extra money. You have to be careful how much stuff you pick up though, because if you take too much you will become over encumbered. This means you move at a snail’s pace and cannot fast travel between locations. As someone who likes to pick up any and everything he lays eyes on, it’s a pain in the butt is what it is.

Fallout: New Vegas is an RPG, and as such you will encounter many familiar RPG tropes. You fight things. You gain experience. You level up. As you level up you can assign points to different characteristics of your character. Strength, stamina, intelligence, that kind of thing. You walk around and talk to people. You take on missions for people. You make choices that advance the game’s plot. That kind of thing.

One gripe I have about Fallout 3 has carried over to this game: the map system! You can mark your destination on your map, which is fine. An arrow will point you in the direction of your destination, which is fine. But if there is a cliff or obstacle blocking your way, the arrow doesn’t adjust itself to point you in the right direction. It’s just like “your destination is that way!!” and keeps pointing at the thing that is in your way. I know my destination is that way, ya big jerk. But how do I get to it? I got lost and had to aimlessly wander around many times in this game. The problem isn’t as bad as it was in Fallout 3, probably because there is no subway tunnel system to throw things off in this game. But it is still pretty bad.

Graphics:

New Vegas looks better than Fallout 3. Fallout 3 was kind of murky looking with a lot of the same lifeless grey and brown colors surrounding you. In New Vegas, everything is so much more bright, colorful, and sharp. It is a little ironic that a game set in the desert is more bright and colorful than something set in the big city, but it is what it is. At heart, everything looks pretty similar to how it did in Fallout 3, just a bit sharper, like I said. I am much more of a gameplay person than a graphics person, so if there are little subtle differences in enemy and character design, I did not notice them.

Overall the game looks okay. It is not breathtaking or anything, but it isn’t ugly either. It looks fine.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure, anyone?

Sound:

The sound of New Vegas is one of its many strong points. Right away, within the first five minutes of the game, I knew I was in for a treat when I discovered that the character who plays Doc Mitchell is voiced by one of my favorite actors of all time, Michael Hogan. Saul frakkin Tigh, man! The voice acting is on-point for pretty much the entire game. A lot of effort must have gone into recording the audio for this game. Even minor NPCs that you don’t interact with much sound really good.

The sound effects are fine. It’s hard to mess up the sound of explosions and guns being fired. No complaints there.

You can’t discuss a Fallout game without bringing up its music, however. The music for the game is very good, if a bit repetitive. It surprised me a bit when I Googled the music for the game and I saw people attacking Johnny Guitar. That is one of my favorite songs in the game! There are a few duds musically on the game’s soundtrack but for the most part I liked them all. Some of my favorites are Blue Moon, Big Iron, Ain’t That a Kick in the Head, Heartaches by the Number, Johnny Guitar, and my personal favorite: Let’s Ride Into the Sunset Together. I like how Fallout 3 and now New Vegas have introduced me to so many songs I would have never even thought to listen to.

Overall:

I had a really fun time with New Vegas. It does a lot of things better than Fallout 3. Better graphics, slightly better first person shooting mechanics, WAY more missions to take on. The whole “pick a faction to side with” thing was cool too. Technically, this is probably a much better game than Fallout 3, and I think that has been reflected in almost all of the reviews out there that people have posted online. Does this mean that I personally like this title better than Fallout 3?

No, actually. Perhaps it was only because I had never played anything like it before, but Fallout 3 completely blew me away when I first played it. If you read my review of that game, you will see that I gave it an A+. Maybe it was because I had just played Fallout 3 a few months before taking on New Vegas, but New Vegas didn’t wow me like 3 did. Despite all the cosmetic changes and gameplay tweaks, this is almost the same game but with a different skin.

I also found the game to be bogged down by an alarming number of technical issues. When I peruse online forums that compare Fallout 3 with New Vegas, most people say that they had more technical difficulties with 3, and that New Vegas was a much cleaner experience. I had the opposite experience. This game was constantly freezing on me. It happened a lot when I would save the game or enter new areas. It even happened a few times in the middle of conversations. Every time I would enter a new area I had to hold my breath that the game wasn’t going to freeze on me. I’d say that over my 60 some hours of gameplay the game must have frozen about 25 to 30 times, and that is no exaggeration.

Another glitch happened to me later in the game when I needed to speak to a certain character in order to advance the game’s story line. But when I would walk up to him and talk to him, he wouldn’t respond at all. So there was no way I could start the mission. I even left and came back, and when I returned he was gone completely. The map marker was still pointing me to where he would normally stand, as if he was still there. Weird. Luckily I was able to load an old save and take a different route to end the game (which is why I ended up going the Mr House route. I had planned to side with the NCR!). Stuff like this was constantly happening all game long where I couldn’t finish missions properly for some reason or another. I didn’t know if it was me doing something wrong that had broken the game or wrecked the mission so it couldn’t be completed, or if it was 100% the game’s fault. I’m thinking it is the game’s fault.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the game’s long loading times. Dear God, the loading times. They are out of control in this game. A perfect example is the Vegas strip. For some reason they broke it in to three sections instead of one big section. You can’t fast travel into the strip either, so each time you need to pay the strip a visit (which is a lot in this game), you have to sit through at least two loading screens – one for fast traveling to the location right outside the strip and another one for when you actually enter the strip. As I mentioned, the strip is broken into several sections. So if you need to access something at the very end of the strip, you’ll have to sit through another two loading screens just to get there. It is ridiculous. This area of the game is bogged down with several fetch quests too, so you are constantly having to leave the strip and come back a few minutes later. Might as well have a book by your side as you play, because you are going to be sitting there looking at loading screens for quite some time. How this isn’t something people don’t harp on more often, I have no idea.

The glitches and the long loading times alone were enough to drop this game below Fallout 3 in my opinion. There are a lot more quests and things to do in this game, but many of these quests are just mindless fetch quests that feel like filler. Normally I would be okay with this as I am an Animal Crossing vet. Fetch quests are nothing for me. But the long load times really made a lot of these quests a big chore to complete.

Anything else I need to gripe about? Nah, I think I got it all out!

All in all, this was an enjoyable game, despite the several paragraphs long rant that I just posted. There are lots of issues here, but nothing that made me say ScReW this GAME!11! or anything like that. It is very addicting. A lot to see, a lot to do, a lot to collect. I spent many long nights playing this game and telling myself “just one more mission! Just let me talk to this one person. Just let me collect this one item, then I will stop.” But then I would just keep on playing and playing and playing.

While the Fallout 3 vs New Vegas debate seems to be rather one sided (most people I know are in New Vegas’s corner), I have to go against the grain on this one. I liked Fallout 3 a bit more. Maybe I liked it more because it was more new and original when I first played it, and this one is just more of the same. I just feel like New Vegas didn’t have the same impact on me as 3 did. It does a lot of things better than its predecessor, but I just wasn’t as into it, for a variety of reasons. It started to feel a little bit like a chore to me on several occasions, which never happened to me with Fallout 3. That is the main difference between the two. Not to say this is a bad game, by any stretch of the imagination. We all have opinions, and this is just my humble version of one.

Final Score:

B

If you liked my review of Fallout: New Vegas, please check out some of my other game reviews:

Fallout 3

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

BioShock

Shenmue

Video Game Review #157: Metroid

Metroid

Nintendo Entertainment System

Nostalgia Factor:

I was only four years old when Metroid came out back in the mid-80s. This was never a game that I actually owned myself. Instead, I would play it whenever I was visiting a friend that had the game. Metroid was a bit too complex for us at that age. We never had any idea of what was going on, nor did we ever make a significant dent as far as progressing in the game. But hey, we liked it and we had fun with it.

My uncles also had the game, and I loved to sit there spellbound, watching them as they played. My uncles are several years older than me, so they had a better grasp of how to advance in the game and how to eventually complete it. I remember when my uncle John beat the game, it seemed like such a giant accomplishment to me. I ran out of the room shouting “John beat Mother Brain! John beat Mother Brain!!!” Aaaaaand no one cared. Good times.

Metroid was a game that always vexed me when I was younger. As a kid, I was generally pretty good at video games and beat nearly every game I sat down and played. Metroid was another story. Perhaps if I had owned the game myself and had been able to invest more time in it, I would have been able to beat it. But I never did.

Years and years went by before I saw this game for sale at Mega Media Xchange. I quickly snatched it up and added it to my collection. I was in my mid to late 20s at the time, so clearly a LOT of time had passed since I’d first played it as a kid. I used an online walkthrough to beat the game, and I felt so accomplished when the closing credits started to roll. By beating Metroid, it was like I had exorcised an old demon that had been following me around since I was four years old. This was several years before I started doing reviews.

Now here I am in my mid-30s. A week or two ago this random urge to pull out Metroid and give it another go (this time, with limited help from online guides) overwhelmed me. It was time to return to the game that had haunted me for so long when I was a small child.

Story:

There isn’t much to report as far as Metroid’s storyline goes. You power up the game and it takes you to the title screen. If you wait a minute and don’t push any buttons, you get a screen that says:

"EMERGENCY ORDER!

DEFEAT THE METROID OF THE PLANET ZEBETH AND DESTROY THE MOTHER BRAIN THE MECHANICAL LIFE VEIN

GALAXY FEDERAL POLICE M510"

And that is all the information the game gives you concerning its storyline. Informative, huh? If you have an instruction manual, maybe it outlines the storyline in more detail. Unfortunately, I do not have a manual.

Gameplay:

One of Metroid’s strongest areas is in its gameplay. Using the directional pad, you control the game’s protagonist, Samus Aran. Samus can run left and right. She jumps. She shoots. The deeper into the game you get, the more moves you can unlock. The most notable move is unlocked when you collect the morph ball mere seconds into the game. This item turns you into a ball when you press the down key. This allows you to roll through small corridors and tight spaces. You can drop bombs when in ball form. Not only is this useful for killing enemies and destroying fake walls and floors, the bombs also help propel you into the air to reach hidden areas.

The controls for the game are all crisp and responsive. Samus moves perfectly in tune with the directions you input into the controller. I have no complaints there. The game can be difficult at times, especially with some of the precision jumping that you need to master in order to progress in the game. But the game rarely ever feels unfair, which is a testament to its design. If you die or miss a platform with an ill-timed jump, it is most likely your fault that it happened, not the game’s.

How does Metroid play out? Why did I struggle with this game so much as a kid? Quite simply, it all boils down to the format of the game. On the surface, it may look like your typical 2D platform game, but it is not. Most games of this nature from the NES era were pretty simple. You started on the left side of the screen, working your way towards the right until you reach the end of the level. Rinse and repeat. But things are not that simple in Metroid.

In Metroid, there are no levels, no stages, nothing of the sort. The whole game is one giant maze, and it is pretty much wide open right from the beginning. Where you go, where you choose to explore – that is entirely up to you. Hidden in this maze are essential power ups like missile and health upgrades and different types of attack beams. In order to beat the game, you have to explore this giant map, collecting as many upgrades as you can. You are going to need them if you want to have any hope of beating Mother Brain at the end of the game.

In order to get to Mother Brain, you need to first kill two of the game’s boss characters: Ridley and Kraid. Ridley and Kraid each exist in their own separate hideouts that you have to find and explore. Think of your starting area in the game as the “main hub”. Hidden within this hub are elevators that take you to Ridley and Kraid’s lairs. Find and kill these two characters, and this unlocks the elevator to Mother Brain. The game doesn’t give you much in terms of direction, so it is up to you to discover this on your own. Given the maze-like structure of the game, it is no wonder I could never figure out what to do when I was as kid. Knowing what to do now, in present day, made things so much easier.

I expected to come into this game and spend days and days wandering around getting lost. That didn’t happen. I actually beat Metroid pretty quickly in two different playing sessions that totaled just a couple hours each. Amazing how I could beat a game so quickly that I had struggled with for so long as a child. But I had fun. It was a great time. It is no fun wandering around with no idea of what your goal is or where to go. Having a purpose in mind really, really helped me to enjoy this game, so much more than I ever did when I was younger. Even more than I did when I had to use a walkthrough to beat it about ten years ago. I’ve never appreciated Metroid more than I do right now.

Graphics:

I think Metroid still looks terrific. The game’s look and feel just oozes classic charm. All I have to do is take one look at a screenshot of the game and it immediately teleports me back to my childhood.

That said, if you are not a child of the 80s, you are going to think this game looks super primitive. Focus on the positives though. Samus look great. The enemies look great. There are a wide variety of enemies that all look different, they aren’t just the same thing over and over again with different color schemes. The areas of the game all look different too. Each section of the game has its own unique feel with its own distinct personality. Yes, the game’s visuals are super primitive, but remember that this came out in 1986. Most of you reading this probably weren’t even born yet!

Sound:

 Aside from its gameplay, Metroid’s music and sound effects may be one of the strongest things about it. As soon as you turn on the system, you are immediately greeted by the game’s booming, iconic opening theme. This theme is kind of eerie and intimidating, and it definitely gets you in the mood to play some Metroid when you hear it. Once you start playing, the game’s equally iconic but cheery hub theme starts up. Enter different areas, and different music starts to play. Each area’s music is freaking great, and fits in perfectly with the environment to create a truly engrossing atmosphere for the game. I can’t say that there is a Nintendo game out there that has a better soundtrack.

The sound effects, while not quite as good as the game’s music, are really good too. I love the jumping sound, the sound of your main weapon, the sound of the ice beam, the sound your bombs make, and the sound the game makes when you hit an enemy. All iconic. If it was up to music and sound effects alone, Metroid would definitely get an A plus.

Overall:

Metroid is a great game no matter how you look at it. When I view it through my nostalgia goggles, I look at it is a big, challenging game that, although I had fun with it, gave me fits as a kid. Looking at it by today’s standards, the game has aged surprisingly well. If you can ignore the graphics (which I actually enjoy, but I know most younger people won’t), you will find great gameplay, great music, and a really fun world to explore. It definitely helps if you know what the goal of the game is when you start it out. If you come into it blind, it can be a little confusing and difficult to get into.

Metroid is an important game as it laid the groundwork for “open world” platform games. You don’t just move from the left side of the screen to the right, you explore! You find things. You backtrack. You discover new areas. Seems commonplace in games now, but it can all be traced back to Metroid. They don’t call newer games in this vein “Metroidvania” style for no reason.

Would I recommend this to anyone who hasn’t played the game before? Yeah! Metroid may not be for everyone, and it certainly is not without its flaws, but it is an important game both in my life and in the history of video games as a whole. It is not and probably never will be my favorite Nintendo game, but I’ve played Super Metroid, some of the Prime games, and Other M, and this still stands out as my favorite in the series.

Final Score:

A

If you liked my review of Metroid, please check out some of my other reviews:

Castlevania

Ghosts 'n Goblins

Vectorman

Tomb Raider

Alien: Isolation

(sorry, haven't reviewed many games in this vein yet)

Video Game Review #156: Star Wars: Dark Forces

Star Wars: Dark Forces

PlayStation

Nostalgia Factor:

I have a long, tortured relationship with this game. When I was a kid, I was a big fan of games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. When Dark Forces came out for the PC in 1995, it seemed like a match made in heaven for me. A Doom-like first person shooter set in the Star Wars universe? Yes, please!

I got the game for my birthday that year. Unfortunately, I was not able to play it. I tried every trick in the book, but for whatever reason this game would absolutely not run on our family PC. I gave up on the game and ended up having to return it to the store, where I got Corridor 7 for the PC instead.

Dark Forces came out for the original PlayStation about a year later. I didn’t have any money at the time, plus my infatuation with first person shooters had started to wane. I ended up simply renting Dark Forces. I had the game for a full weekend and I recall not getting very far in it. I must have made it to the fourth or fifth stage, tops. My only real memory of my time with the game was that it was too hard. The levels were enormous, and I was constantly getting lost or stuck in them. When I took the game back to Blockbuster, I can distinctly remember being very disappointed that I hadn’t liked it all that much.

20 years passed where I did not play or even really think about Star Wars: Dark Forces. That was when I noticed the game on sale for the PlayStation 3 on the PS Network. It was pretty darn cheap, so I bought it. I didn’t play it right away though - I had all the time in the world to get around to it. A few more years ended up passing before October of 2018 rolled around. I was looking to play some of my downloaded PS3 games so I could clear out my online collection. Dark Forces was the title that jumped out at me. 23 years had passed since my failed attempt to play this game on my old PC, 22 years since the weekend where I had rented it and walked away from the experience frustrated. But hey, later was better than never. I was finally going to play to completion the game that had tormented me for so long when I was a kid.

Story:

You play as Kyle Katarn, a mercenary working for the Rebel Alliance. Your first mission acts as a bridge of sorts into Episode One: A New Hope. You have to storm an Imperial base, guns blazing, and steal the plans for the original Death Star. Then you get the heck out of dodge. At one point, this was actually accepted Star Wars canon… until Disney bought the whole shebang and came in and erased a lot of the non-movie event canon. Obviously, the events of Rogue One are what is accepted now. But hey, in an alternate universe this is how things “really” went down.

After the first mission, the plot of the game changes a bit. The Alliance has gotten word of a new ultra-powerful Stormtrooper armor design. These new troopers are referred to as Dark Troopers. Hence the name of the game: Dark Forces. Katarn is sent out to gather more information on these troopers. Eventually he is tasked with tracking where these suits are being created and destroying the source of their production. Katarn’s mission takes him through 14 different stages, ranging from an ice world to Coruscant, Nar Shadaa, a prison, a space station, a giant Imperial vessel, and more!

Gameplay:

If you have ever played a first person shooter from the 90s you should know what to expect here. You play the game from the perspective of Kyle Katarn. He holds a weapon up in front of him and he blasts things. Simple enough!

Unfortunately, the analog stick doesn’t work with this game, as it was created before those were a thing for the PS1. Instead you have to use the directional keypad, which takes some getting used to. Normally your character moves at an accelerated walking pace. You can hold down one of the trigger buttons to turn it into a full-on sprint. You have a standard firing button. You’ve got a jump button. You’ve got an action button that opens doors and so forth. One of the trigger buttons you can hold down to have your character look up and down. It’s not exactly the smoothest way in the world to look up and down, but you’ll get the hang of it as you play.

There were a few things with the control scheme that tripped me up a bit. I didn’t bother reading the instruction manual for the game (if they even have an instruction manual for the online version), so there were some actions that I didn’t know how to pull off. An example is that you often have to crouch under low hanging ledges in order to advance in the game. You crouch by holding the L2 button and triangle at the same time. The first time I had to crouch under something, I didn’t know how to do it because I didn’t read the manual and it does not tell you how to do this in-game. I tried every button on the controller and nothing worked. I thought I was stuck and wouldn’t be able to advance. I think this happened back in the 90s too, when I rented Dark Forces, and that is one of the reasons I was not able to make it very far in the game. Luckily in present day I was able to look up the solution online.

Another irritating feature is in the game’s pause menu. There is a normal pause menu for the game, which is fine. But in order to use some of the game’s more advanced features (like using the map or checking the progress on your mission objectives), you have to open up a menu within the pause menu. Not only does it take a long time to load, the controls within this extra menu are a bit sluggish and slow to respond. I don’t know why, but this bothers me. Why couldn’t they have just put these things in the regular menu? Speaking of the regular menu, you have to pause the game every once in a while when the game gets too dark to turn on either your headlamp or your night vision goggles. This is another thing that I don’t know why it annoys me so much – having to pause and unpause constantly to adjust your light situation. But don’t you dare forget to turn off your lights when you don’t need them anymore. You’ll run out of power and you won’t be able to use them anymore. And there are just a ton of really dark areas in this game where you virtually NEED to be able to see what you are doing in order to move on. Running out of batteries for your headlamp can be very very bad news.

Your typical level consists of completing your mission objective and returning to the start of the stage to get picked up by your ship. What are the objectives like? Well, I already mentioned one: stealing the Death Star plans. Other objectives involve rescuing captives, planting explosives, or stealing classified Imperial documents. Backtracking to the beginning of the stage to get picked up is a little annoying, but luckily the really long levels don’t make you do this.

Graphics:

The game doesn’t look great. I mean, this came out in the mid-90s so you can’t expect it to look too good. But you know me, I am often willing to overlook an older game’s graphical shortcomings if I can see the classic charm in its presentation. I struggle to do that here. A lot of the landscapes are really bland. There are many levels that look muddy and ugly. Everything is very pixelated, especially your enemies when they are in close. There are levels that look pretty good, especially those that take place on the inside of an Imperial ship or facility. But the ugly ones I think far outweigh the good ones.

What is good about the game’s graphics is that the atmosphere of the game feels very in-tune with the old classic Star Wars movies.  I mean, a lot of the levels don’t look pretty, but they do feel as if they could have been ripped directly from the world of the old movies. I don’t know how to explain it, but the world of the game feels just like classic Star Wars. Not the new movies. Definitely not the prequels. But classic Star Wars. And that is pretty darn cool.

Sound:

Most Star Wars games completely nail it in terms of music and sound effects, but Dark Forces is the exception to the rule. I mean, the sound effects are fine. Just as how the game’s look captures the feel of the classic movies, the blaster shot noises and the bleeps and bloops and explosions do the same. You really can’t go wrong when the movies have such great source material for sound effects to pull from.

If I had to nitpick, which I love to do, it is that some of the stage music is a little generic and repetitive. I mean, most of the music sounds great and sets the tone for the game perfectly. But every once in a while you will stumble upon a song that simply feels out of place and not nearly as epic as the music from the rest of the game. With such a great library of music from the movies to sample from, they definitely could have done a lot better with the music.

Overall:

When I first started this game up, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it. All the memories from my younger days came rushing back to me. I didn’t have a great time with the game when I was a teenager, and playing this game again in present day, I could totally see why I didn’t like it that much.

The level design for this game is both a blessing and a curse. You want to have big stages with multiple objectives and lots of things to do and places to explore. That’s a good thing! But they go a little bit off the rails in this game. Lots of passages that look exactly the same. Buttons that are hard to see because they blend right in with the surrounding environment. Obscure objectives. Lots of backtracking. Lots of wandering around for hours at a time looking for that one switch you may have forgotten to throw. It is nice that the levels are big, but it is very easy to completely get lost while playing this game, especially when the game doesn’t tell you how to do simple but crucial things like duck under ledges. It doesn’t help that there is no mid-stage save feature. That’s right, the game only saves in between stages, so if you have to stop playing mid-stage, you lose all your progress and will have to start the stage over again the next time you play. 

As I played the first few stages of the game, my interest immediately started to wane. I didn’t like the game much, and it became my goal to just rush through the thing and beat it so I could move on to whatever I want to play next. It wasn’t until I hit the fourth or fifth level that my opinion started to change. I had mastered all the moves. I had become pretty a pretty good shot with the game’s weapons, the level design of the game started to make more sense to me. All of a sudden, rather than feeling like a chore, the game became fun and challenging to me. The more I played, the more wrapped up in the world of Dark Forces I became.

If you would have asked me after I had only played through the first couple of stages I would have said that this was a D quality game. By the end of the game, I was starving for more. I was actually a little bit sad when it ended. Going back to my teenage years and all my struggles with the game – my PC copy not working, the shitty time I had when I rented the game – I didn’t like this game one bit, and I didn’t expect my opinion on it to change.

I am pleased to say that it did! This game probably isn’t for everyone, as younger gamers may not be able to see past the game’s flaws and rough design edges. But if you like Star Wars and you like classic first person shooters like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, this game is perfect for you. If you stick with it, Dark Forces can be a fun, fairly rewarding experience.

Final Score:

B

If you liked my review of Star Wars: Dark Forces, check out some of my other game reviews:

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter

Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition

Quake 64

Super Star Wars

Video Game Review #155: Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

GameCube

Nostalgia Factor:

Eternal Darkness owns the distinction of being the very first GameCube game I ever purchased. It was either late 2003 or early 2004. The GameCube had recently dropped to just 99 dollars in price. I thought that this was too good to be true, so I braved the frigid temperatures and hopped on the bus to the nearest mall with the intent of picking up one of these dirt-cheap next-gen systems. Not only did I buy a new GameCube, which came bundled with a super awesome Legend of Zelda Collector’s Edition disc, but I also purchased the Resident Evil remake and a game I had never heard of before: Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. Usually I don’t buy games that I have never heard of or read reviews for, but it was only 5 bucks so I figured why the heck not? If it sucked, it was only 5 dollars down the drain.

Little did I know that this would end up turning into one of my favorite GameCube titles of all time. I played the heck out of this game with my old girlfriend Jessica. The game scared the crap out of both of us. The insanity effects were something completely mind-blowing for its time. The game seems easy to me in present day now that I understand its mechanics, but back in the day I got stuck quite often. This was before the days of prevalent internet access, before the days of every game having an online guide you could easily look at whenever you’d get stuck. A friend of ours owned the game and had beaten it, so whenever we’d get stuck we would have to call up this friend and find out what to do next. Sometimes she’d give us handwritten notes about how to solve certain puzzles, or what spells to use in what situations. Ah, the good old days.

Every few years I pop this game in and give it a go. Since last week was the week of Halloween and I wanted to play a scary game, I figured it was the perfect time to play Eternal Darkness again.

Storyline:

The main character of the game is Alex Roivas. Alex receives notification from the police that her last remaining relative, her grandfather, has been murdered in his Rhode Island estate. The police are stumped, so Alex comes to the estate to investigate his death. Hidden around this mansion are chapters from a book entitled The Tome of Eternal Darkness. Each chapter tells of an ancient evil that has been awakening over the centuries, and the encounters that people have had with this evil since its inception. Whenever Alex finds a chapter, the game flashes back in time to the story on the pages. Each chapter takes place in a different era of time. You’ll visit Ancient Rome, France, Cambodia, and even the very mansion that the “main game” takes place in. Some of these locations you will visit multiple times, albeit each in a different time period. Each chapter is like a piece of the puzzle, the more chapters Alex discovers, the more she is able to piece together about the evil’s present day threat.

As Alex discovers and reads each chapter, she also learns the spells and magic contained on the book’s pages. When you get to the end of the game and discover that the ancient evil is festering *spoiler alert* directly under your grandfather’s estate, Alex is well equipped to head down and kick some ass using the information she learned from the book.

Gameplay:

This game plays similarly to a Resident Evil game, minus the tank controls. You walk around a fully 3D environment, using the left trigger button to break out into a sprint. Be careful with how much you sprint, however, as your character will become fatigued and start to move at a snail’s pace if you run for too long. This feature of the game is…. very annoying to say the least. The other trigger button brings up your weapon. You can target different body parts of your enemies using this button as well. I always found it beneficial to go for the arms first. Some enemies can be taken down with one solid hit to the head, so you can never go wrong aiming for the head either.

The other buttons are used for investigating things that look out of place, or picking items up. Pausing the game takes you to an interactive menu. Here, you can manage your inventory, equip different weapons, check out the game map, save your game, and manage your spell book.

The ability to cast spells is one of the main things that makes Eternal Darkness different from your typical survival horror game. Each chapter, your character picks up different runes and artifacts and learns new spells. When you learn a new spell, the game tells you what components make up the new spell. You then have to craft the spell in order to use it. Early in the game, most spells are three-pointed, weaker quality spells. The deeper you make it into the game, the more complex and powerful spells you can learn.

Here are a few examples of spells you learn as you play: Enchant Item, which you can use to repair broken items (like a key that has been snapped in half). You can also use this spell to juice up your weapons and make them more powerful. There is a Shield spell that absorbs enemy damage. Reveal Invisible, which reveals hidden items and puzzles. Recover, which helps to fill your magic, health, and sanity meters. More on the sanity meter in just a moment! There are other spells you can learn too, some of which are useless and I never used, and some of which are essential to move on in the game.

OK, the sanity meter. This is the function of the game that put Eternal Darkness on the map. Whenever your character sees a supernatural enemy, which is quite often in this game, your sanity meter starts to deplete. The lower your sanity becomes, the more crazy, fucked up shit your character starts to experience. The screen will start to bleed. The music changes. You hear weird screams and babies crying in the background. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The game really tries to mess with your head. You’ll walk into a room, and a trap will trigger that beheads your character. The game over screen comes up. Oh wait, just an illusion. Walk into a room, and you’ll be walking on the ceiling instead of the floor. Psych! My personal favorite is when the game opens up your save files and goes through and deletes them all one by one. As I played, I purposely let my sanity meter run low just to see what kind of tricks the game had up its sleeve. You have to be careful, however, because if your sanity meter hits rock bottom your health will start to drain, and that is no fun at all.

Graphics:

I think the game looks pretty darn good, especially for its age. But when I go back and read other reviews on sites such as Metacritic, I find that people tend to bash the game’s visuals. I think it looks fine, though. The character models look good and are not ugly. The environments are well detailed and nice to look at. The Roivas estate in particular is one of my favorite locales in video game history.

The game goes out of its way to creep you out with its freaky and grotesque characters and environments, and the graphics definitely hold up their end of the bargain. I have zero complaints in this area. I don’t know what other people are tripping over.

Sound:

The music and sound effects of Eternal Darkness may be its strongest point. The game sounds great! The voice acting is good, if not particularly spectacular. Where the game shines is in its music. The music blends perfectly with the game’s haunting scenery and visuals to create a truly terrifying gaming environment. There is a distinct sense of dread that you feel as you explore the world of Eternal Darkness, and it would not be possible without the game’s music.

Not only is the game’s music very haunting, but its sound effects add to the feeling of dread as well. You are walking around, exploring an abandoned mansion, when BAM BAM BAM, there comes a knocking sound from seemingly out of nowhere. Is there someone at the door? Is a monster about to jump out and bash your head in? No, it is just the game trying to scare the crap out of you. As I mentioned earlier, when you start to go insane you will hear babies crying and random screaming sounds in the background. Eternal Darkness definitely creates a very dark, disturbing atmosphere and it wouldn’t be possible without its music and sound effects.

Overall:

I had a terrific time with Eternal Darkness in the early 2000s, and I am pleased to find that I still enjoy the game in present day. The graphics, the music, the atmosphere, and the game’s controls still hold up. Not only that, but it is still very fun to play as well. This does not mean that the game is free from my criticism, however.

The game’s puzzles can be a bit vague and obscure. Example: the hub manor. Now that I have played the game several times, I know that there is nothing to be confused about. You find a chapter of the book, you play through it, you come back to the main hub, you use whatever knowledge obtained in the chapter to help you find the next chapter of the book. So on and so forth. The formula is pretty straightforward. But to a new person, it may not be so easy to figure out. I remember when I was new to this game, I didn’t realize that I was supposed to open my inventory and read the chapter that I had found. I thought it was just another inventory item that would come in handy later on. I continued on trying to explore the manor to find out what to do next. I spent a countless amount of time in the room with the giant telescope and all the cranks you have to spin. I didn’t know that I was wasting my time and would have to come back later after reading several chapters in the Tome of Eternal Darkness. I was stuck before I had barely even begun to play. I also got stuck later on in a wine cellar because I didn’t see a door that was concealed and very hard to see on the side of the screen. I had been wandering around for hours, completely lost, before I finally stumbled upon it. Why did they make it so hard to see? I got stuck again in the same dang cellar later on in the game, because I didn’t realize that you were supposed to investigate ALL of the wine casks. I had checked out two or three of them and they all gave me the same generic message about there being nothing to see here. So I left. Turns out that ONE of the casks had contained a hidden secret. One of the ones I hadn’t checked, of course. Another several hours down the drain. All I am saying is that the game could have done a better job directing me where to go next.

The game doesn’t really explain things well when it comes to the spell system, and how different colored spell types are more powerful than other colors. Often I would know what I was supposed to do and what spell I was supposed to cast, I just wasn’t casting the right colored spell. For example, there is a green rune on a dresser that indicates to you something invisible is hidden there. I cast the Reveal Invisible spell, but nothing happens. Oh wait, there are three different color types of spell. The rune is green, let’s cast the green spell! Nothing happens. I immediately think I must be on the wrong track, so I leave the room and start looking somewhere else. Nope. I was in the right room the whole time. What I needed to know is that the red spells are more powerful than the green spells, so I should have been casting the red Reveal Invisible spell rather than the green one. D’oh! An hour of my time wasted when the answer was literally RIGHT in front of me.

If this is your first time playing, you’re going to get stuck on small little things like this quite often. Oh look, there is a monster behind a barrier wall. Simple enough: I just need to cast Dispel Magic to knock down the barrier and kill the creature. Well, if you are trying to cast a three pointed spell when the creature is being protected by a five pointed spell, you are only going to end up wasting a lot of magic power. Then you realize you need a five pointed spell. But in order to create a five pointed spell, you have to craft it first. Then you have to make sure you are casting the right color. On and on. It is easy to get stuck in this game when it comes to the magic system, especially when the game doesn’t explain things very well for you.

Another issue of mine: backtracking! Many games are guilty of making you do this, but Eternal Darkness seems especially egregious. Especially when your characters get winded all the time and you are constantly having to stop moving to catch your breath. This issue is particularly bad towards the end of the game when you have to activate a portal by turning on all its switches. Each switch you hit, the game teleports you to a faraway location and you then have to painstakingly make your way back to the portal to hit the next switch in line. Then you get teleported away again and have to backtrack to the portal again. This happens I believe 18 times over the course of the game’s final two chapters, and it is a major pain in the behind.

All these gripes of mine, and I haven’t even mentioned one of the boss characters you have to fight using magic late in the game. I wanted to rage quit SO MUCH during this fight! You have a dozen or so spells at your disposal, a limited amount of health, magic, and sanity – and the game gives you no hints at how to kill this thing. Not only that, but its patterns are wild and unpredictable as well, which makes it even harder to figure out how to proceed. I was NOT a fan of this fight, one tiny bit. Even having played this game multiple times in my life, I still nearly got stuck against this boss on my last play through. I will never look at black and white tiled floors the same way again.

With all this nitpicking, you would think that I hated this game. I do like it, I really do. I just found it too easy to get stuck or lost with no idea on how to proceed next. If you take that away (and all the backtracking), the game is outstanding. The story is terrific and I like how the game jumps around to different locations and time periods and you get to play as multiple characters. You really have to use your brain to complete this game, especially with the spell crafting system. It takes a bit to get used to, but once you figure it out, the game becomes exponentially easier and makes you feel very, very clever. Not only this, it is also one of the scariest games I have ever played. The sanity meter is something that will live on in video game history forever.

If you like survival horror, you should love Eternal Darkness, flaws and all. Once you get the hang of this game, it is a very rewarding experience. I am still waiting on that sequel or HD remake, which I am sure will be amazing if and when it ever comes.

Overall:

B+

If you liked my review of Eternal Darkness, check out some of my other reviews:

Resident Evil: Director's Cut

Resident Evil 2

Silent Hill

Silent Hill 2

Resident Evil VII: Biohazard