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:
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