Echo Night Beyond

"Slow and steady is the pace of the game."

Perhaps one of the most boring games I've played in a while. The story was very good, but the delivery falls flat. Nothing dulls the senses than running around for hours looking for a clue on what to do next. I found it humorous that they needed to put "Alcohol reference" on the rating label. It's so idiotic that game companies are forced to label such things because of all the whiney parents who complain about everything and have no lives.


GRAPHICS
Good. The graphics are well drawn and clear. They've done a very good job giving the game a haunted atmosphere. It makes you feel like your abandoned in a cold, lonely place surrounded by death. The game is best played at night with the lights off.

SOUND & MUSIC
Fair & Good. There really isn't much to comment on about the sounds, flickering lights, footsteps on different materials, door sounds, all are average nothing really notable about any of it. Probably the most prominent of the sounds would be your heartbeat, which increases as you run or are attacked. There really isn't much environmental effects either. There should have been more metal stress noises, or the sound of escaping atmosphere, or ghost cries. The music is good though, it give the game a calming, yet spooky feel. It picks up in tempo and beat when a violent ghost is near or attacks you.

PLAYABILITY & CONTENT
Fair->Poor. First off, the game would have been a whole lot better if it took a Fatal Frame style game play. In Fatal Frame you were able to fight the ghosts. In Echo Night Beyond (ENB), you don't fight at all. However, some people might find that appealing.

When you encounter a ghost you either have to avoid it or run away if it's violent. They only way to calm a ghost is to remove the fog from the area via ventilation systems, which you need one of two keycards to use. You can only talk to calm ghosts, and then they tell you what troubles them and you have to help them in some fashion in order to release them.

You'll spend a whole lot of time wandering around for clues. There isn't much direction on where to go or what to do, so you really need to pay attention otherwise you're going to waste a hell of a lot of time. The game would have been better if you kept a journal that indicated specific objectives of what a ghost wanted or maybe where to go next. Several times you'll have to go from one end of the facility to the other as the game progresses, and some things that you see in the beginning of the game won't unlock until the very end. So you wind up wasting time trying to complete something that you can't until way down the road.

The game is very linear, if you don't help a certain ghost you can't progress because ghosts often hold key items. There are several "stupid" obstacles during the game. For example, there were two potted plants in front of a door, and you couldn't go past because of the plants which weren't very big at all. So instead of being able to move them out of the way, you had to wait until you helped a certain ghost who moves them for you.

Also, gathering items was tedious, you don't know what items are obtainable, a flash or brackets around them would have helped, you'll often miss things because it doesn't always register to pick up unless you're fairly focused on something, so you can easily overlook a key item if you're not careful.

There are four endings depending on how your finish the game, but to me the endings aren't all that great and wasn't worth spending all the time I did playing the game. There isn't any action to the game and they rely far too much on the spooky/horror atmosphere to carry the game, and it just doesn't cut it.

CONTROLS
Presets.

SAVING FEATURES
Save points only.

THE GOOD
Graphics.
Storyline.

THE BAD
No action.
Slow game play.
Time consuming clue/item hunting.

THE UGLY
Very linear.

OVERALL RATING 4

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/19/04