Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

"Terrific game marred by a few shortfalls."

Well, it's been four years in the making. Was it worth it? Yes. I first heard about this game in February and I've been waiting impatiently for it ever since. The concept of going insane was just to good to pass up. Now, here's a breakdown of the specifics:

Graphics: 10/10
The graphics at the beginning aren't anything to gawk at(except for the sand in Chapter 1). The character models are pretty detailed and the backgrounds look nice. What was really good about the graphics throughout the entire game, however, was the animations for the characters. In a lot of games(like Resident Evil)the characters move like robots. The characters in Eternal Darkness actually move like people. As I said, the graphics at the beginning aren't jaw-dropping, but once you get to about Chapter 7 and notice some of the lightning flashes and other lighting effects, it gets pretty amazing.

Sound: 9/10
Nearly every other review of this game that I've read has given sound a 10. I can't understand why. There is no real noticeable music. Most of the time I didn't even hear any music, except for the little number it plays when you get something. The sound effects are where the sound truly gets noticed. One of my favorite such effects is the whispering in the background, which is a real mood-setter. The sound effect for walking zombies, however, never ceases to puzzle me. It's a very squishy sound, which I can't quite understand coming from a dehydrated corpse. Oh well. It's still pretty cool. The best sound effect(is this considered a sound effect?)is the voice acting. The voice of Maximillian Roivas is great, reminding me of Willem DaFoe as the Green Goblin. In fact I've watched a certain cut scene of his at least 3 times.

Story: 10/10
At first I was baffled over the ravings of ED's story. I figured it was complex(like Final Fantasy 7)and that was why it was so good. I was wrong. The story is something like this: There are four Ancients who pretty much control the world. Three of them are balanced(meaning one could defeat another, but not the third, like the first 3 Pokemon in Pokemon games: red defeats green defeats blue defeats red)and the fourth prevents the 3 from entering our world, lest they destroy it. the plot revolves around one of the Ancients trying to enter our realm. The overall plot is pretty simplistic. Where things get a little strange is where the characters come in. There are 12 in all and how most of them cross the path's of the Ancient's is a little weird. some of the characters include a Cambodian dancing girl, an abducted Renaissance architect, and a Canadian industrial firefighter who is fighting the oil fires after Desert Storm. Not your typical video game heroes. Silicon Knights does do a good job of connecting them with the Ancient's, though.

Gameplay: 10/10
Ah, gameplay, the single most important factor. Let me tell you, this game is fun. A lot of people complain about the easy and repetitive combat. I think the combat is very fun. Chopping off a zombie's head and watching him reach up and feel for it with his hands is fun that can only be rivaled by hacking off his arms also. The insanity effects are not what I had hoped for, though. While they are good when they occur, they don't happen often enough. Here's why: every time an enemy looks at you, you lose some sanity. Once your sanity meter is completely depleted, you begin to lose health when looked upon. This tends to prevent players from staying insane. Further more, there are two ways to recover sanity. The first is to perform a finishing move(which isn't required to kill an enemy) once you've knocked a monster to the ground. The second way is with magic. The bad thing about this, though, is that your magic bar recharges automatically, as long as you're moving. So, you can just run around in circles until you have enough magic to fill your sanity meter. This prevents you from seeing the clever hallucinations. The puzzles are pretty simple. I was stuck 3 times, but it's just because I was being an idiot 3 times. The biggest qualm I had with the game was it's length, or lack thereof. It is only about 17 hours long, much shorter than the 60 I had been hearing about. Silicon Knights sort of made up for this by offering 3 separate gameplay paths that you can try. Three times 17 is roughly 60 hours, but on your second time through you know where everything is, so the game offers about 30-35 hours. This would be pretty good if all three paths were totally different, but your second and third times through will be much like your first. Oh well. I'll play through it 3 times anyway. The final verdict: buy this game(but only if you can handle the gruesome content)!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/03/02, Updated 07/03/02