My introduction into Lovecraft horror!

I loved the sanity meter and the characters, even though we never spend too much time with them.

Soundtrack was great and is to this day stuck in my head when I think about the game, even though it's minimalistic in most cases.

Some of the scares are still unmatched for me ("Thanks for playing the demo!" -"THANKS FOR PLAYING THE W H A T ? ! ") not only because of the occasional 4thw all breaking. :)

I loved this game as a kid. Visually it does not hold up today but the mechanics sure do.

My friend and I played this when we were much younger at a sleepover in his creepy basement which we swear was haunted. We got so scared that asked each other to turn off the GameCube and we huddle under the blankets. Eventually he was the hero and turned it off.

The insanity system, creepy voices, the different eras you got to play through, the environments at the time and the story were all so darn good. Great Halloween game to play! Wish this would get brought back to life one day.

Honestly, this is one of my favourite games ever and I think a lot of people chalk this one up as being "Resident Evil but with a sanity meter or limb targeting etc." - but really there's very much something distinctive here with what's being down, which is about a Lovecraftian horror and spinning a meager survival horror game into some sort of epic tome of sorts and I really dug it.

There's a strange, fascinating appeal I got with this game by playing it on a shitty 90s CRT screen - and I really liked just how much attention was drawn towards the atmosphere in this one. Of course, there's the famous sanity effects (which include things up to turning your TV screen off or pretending that your memory card is corrupt) but it's surprising just how much they add to this creepy vibe where basically anything can go wrong - and I remember in particular people terrified of the whining screams that occur when your sanity becomes really low, and some of the genuinely terrifying screamer events.

But then it's also spooky and atmospheric in its own right, especially with how so much of it takes places of sanctuary and flips them on their head into something terrifying - places like the church and the mansion will get burnt into your brain when you play this game long enough, only that it gets twisted every so often. Even something as silly as the 'memory card failing', I think, is meant as a sneaky way of forcing you to question what you are seeing rather than it being presented as this incredibly horrifying thing.

That, and I think the story here is genuinely intriguing - where it's all about this massive cosmic battle spanning many millennia, with the main story gimmick being a college student Alex Rovias, reading through all of these historical documents - and I especially liked just how much attention is drawn towards all these different moods and atmospheres of these different eras, and also just how much the main villain, at heart, is presented as this giant egotistic bastard who is just after power at whatever costs after something corrupted him. Very much one of the things this game goes for is criticising the theme of power, notably with how noble knights, bishops and priests become corrupted or evil in ways other people do not take account of - or with more mundane examples of police detectives who don't exactly follow through on their jobs, which jumpstarts the main plot of the game.

And also the voice acting in this game is superb, from the likes of people like Richard Doyle, Jennifer Hale, Earl Boen and narrated by Neil Dickson (who has a distinct James Mason type voice and makes the most mundane things imaginable sound fascinating), and it's one of those things where you get the sense of the characters being living, breathing people and also the extra effort to flesh out the characters so they don't just seem like stock archetypes.

It's very much a horror game, but then I also think the humour here is very much part of the point - where there's a central absurdity behind this game, but then it's also genuinely terrifying as much as it is intriguing with just how it plays with horror conventions where there's much more to it than you'd expect. I really dug this game, and it's honestly something that I'd consider to be perfect.

How is this game simultaneously too hard and too easy? On the one hand there were fights/parts, that made me curse this game on the other hand I barely got to see the effects of the sanity systems, as my sanity was rarely low enough. When I actually had low sanity for a while the stuff that happend was really nice, at least most of the time. Makes the whole thing a little gimmicky sadly...
The atmosphere was really cool, most of the time that is, when the little story vignettes weren't too bland (which only like 3(?) were). Most of them were pretty cool.

All in all I think this is quite the ambitious title and now that the patent is finally expiring maybe some developer will pick the idea up again? I would really enjoy that

L2AGO #12

If you had asked me 5 years ago to play Eternal Darkness, I would have immediately shot back with "hell no." Back then, I was convinced I would never get into this genre. After all, I thought the original Ghostbusters was a terrifying movie as a kid, I had trouble falling asleep after reading the Wikipedia description of Clock Tower, and my friends had to actually make a "horror comedy" theme night during the Halloween movie event catering to me in particular so I wouldn't feel left out. That said, I finally talked myself into trying the game out after running through several Silent Hill games + Resident Evil 2 not too long ago. And I was hooked.

I can't overemphasize how impressed I am by Eternal Darkness in how well it appeals to its target audience; it thrives off of this pulpy, B-movie, comic book & over the top cheap thrills horror, and every bit of its presentation seems out of place yet so fine tuned to achieve this feeling. Cartoon beat em up sound effects whenever you slash someone with a sword? Check. Shitty low-budget movie caption font for subtitles and exposition combined with overly earnest and serious narration? Check. Purple gothic prose descriptions for every scene you can examine and the classic "non-choice" choose your own adventure book prompt asking if you want to progress the game or not? Check. (Hell, there's a dramatic reading of an Edgar Allen Poe quote every time you boot up the game.) Crash course obstacles of spinning axes and spike tiles? Check. The "FINISH HIM" prompt that plays when you've sapped an enemy out of all their health and can run through an exaggerated killing animation like hacking them to death with a giant sword or dropping a kukri like a parlor trick to send them back into the abyss? Check. The extents to which Eternal Darkness goes out to capture this low budget movie horror feel really impresses me, and kept me thoroughly engrossed in every detail of this game.

Now while I was very much soaking in all the little things here and there adding to the presentation, let us not forget this is a horror game despite its very cheesy aesthetics. That is not to say that the game isn't scary though; in fact it ends up being scary by keeping you just a little tense while pulling out its shock factor whenever it feels like it. See, the game works off of a Sanity meter, distorting your perception of reality within this B-movie horror world even further; as you get spotted by exaggerated carcasses and Mega Man bosses, your Sanity meter will take a hit and weird shit will start happening on screen, from discordant Gregorian chanting in the background to sudden door knock noises to bleeding walls. I won't spoil some of the more absurd sanity effects, but needless to say, many got quite a genuine shock from me while exploring the desolate and often run down environments. There's this genuine sense of powerlessness at times due to these effects and how the game loves to throw you in these situations where you're left bare without your excessive powers and weapons (a little more on that later) and have to run past scores of powerful enemies before you can fight back. It is true that you have to be playing a little suboptimal to experience some of the more harrowing effects, but this is easy enough to circumvent at least because the main protagonist, Alex, doesn't encounter any enemies in the mansion for a good while, and the Shield spell can at least mitigate damage taken while you have low sanity should you choose to go that path to get some more kicks.

So let's also talk a bit about the combat and gameplay. I've heard Eternal Darkness be compared a lot to Resident Evil due to its fixed camera angle presentation and 3rd person overworld combat + puzzles, though I think it more than distinguishes itself from Resident Evil in its exaggeration. This is because it has some wrinkles in its combat due to the targeting system; you can aim for specific body parts of enemies to systematically work through them. For example, aiming for the head does the most damage and will often leave the enemy blind and standing still, just attacking in place every now and then, while aiming for arms will make their attack animations a bit worse since they'll need a hand or two to deal damage. There's also a fantastic magic system; collect and combine runes to cast these fantastical spells like summoning monsters of your own or setting up a damage barrier, and sooner or later you'll feel that rush of power just plowing through the horrors with these flashy attacks. As a result, the game doesn't feel very difficult because there's this sense of overwhelming power just abusing spells and quickly taking down enemies with the generally precise targeting system, and that's perfectly okay; I think that just adds to how cheesy and over the top the game tries to present itself and it's a lot of fun treating it as this magical horror sandbox wizard simulator. And as I mentioned earlier, this sense of feeling overpowered just adds more contrast when your toys are taken away and you have to try and fend them off or evade the monsters without them.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the story due to spoilers, but needless to say, despite how dumb and pulpy the narrative feels at times, I was genuinely engrossed in learning more about this winding tale that captured so many different moments in history caught up in the same supernatural disaster. There's four different locations across the game, and you visit them multiple times over different eras with different protagonists captured in the Tome of Eternal Darkness... think of it like a deconstructed Decameron, with Alex Roivas as the frame story reading from 2000 AD, only the stories all take place at different times and some of the people met horrible and exaggerated fates. While the main areas of the game are revisited chronologically (despite the Tome itself jumping back and forth through time), the game does a good enough job changing the different areas of the game to reflect its era to vary up the puzzles and atmosphere so you generally won't feel like you're going through the same motions. All the protagonists involved in the story have their own pieces to say, and it's a ton of fun speculating on how they fell into the narrative and everything that's going on around them. After all, it's Eternal Darkness and most of it is magical mumbo jumbo at the end of the day, but that's part of the fun; you don't need in-universe explanations for every single bit of lore and the writers recognize that and just go with the flow. Sometimes, the nonsense just works.

Now despite all my praise, there are some flaws here and there, mainly due to jank of this era or lack of polish in some sections. There was one section where I was trying to finish off a skeleton to regain sanity but because I was fighting next to a doorway, I ended up going through the doorway instead because the B button is used for both finishing off enemies and going through doors. One of the bosses near the mid to end "broke" because I decided to walk behind it and it decided to not become vulnerable for attack, and I did have to restart that fight. There are two sections at the end of the game that are pretty close to one another and more or less mirror the same gameplay strategy of dungeon crawling through many rooms, and that can get a bit excessive at times. There's also a room in the final dungeon that has a bit of a vague solution; I kept getting trapped in the room when it turns out you needed to sneak by the floor markings, and I honestly couldn't see any hints/clues alluding to this. I found one type of the enemies to be a bit of a bother, since they love wasting your time by teleporting you into a pocket dimension where you have to run to the end and can't cast spells; I think they more or less exist to give you a better excuse to use ranged weapons, since they can't be targeted by melee weapons. Oh, and there's a convenient "quick spell" binding option so you don't have to go back and menu spam every time you want to cast, but you will have to recreate spells in the menu every time you gain a power upgrade if you want to quick cast it. Fortunately, I found most of these moments to be fairly minor in the scope of the overall experience.

So this is a pretty easy recommendation from me; Eternal Darkness can definitely be an unsettling and at times, genuinely shocking game, but I think anyone who loves dumb, over the top, cheap horror thrills will absolutely get a kick out of this and it's a very fun game to play and stream with friends. I'm glad it seems to have picked up more steam in recent years and is getting the recognition it deserves; a shame that the proposed Kickstarters for a sequel never got off the ground running, but until then, we've at least got more cheap thrills at the source.

I've somehow managed to make it twenty whole years not really knowing what Eternal Darkness is beyond the basics: a survival horror game with "sanity effects" that kick in the more spooked your character is, though even then I had no concept of what those could be outside of tilting the screen at a dutch angle (which is a fancy way of saying "sideways.") As a result of being kept in the dark (har) for so long about the specific ways the sanity effects prey on the player, I actually got spooked a couple times, though in ways that were perhaps made more unique to the time and setting I experienced them in.

The first was when the game simulated a CRT shutting off. This tricked me only for a moment, but in that flash I thought "oh no, it took me forever to find this CRT, I can't go hunting for another one." A half second later I realized the set was still humming and all was well, but the thought of my TV breaking and having to scour the Facebook marketplace for a replacement put the fear of God in me.

A short while later I wrapped up the game's second chapter when it transitioned to a screen thanking me for playing the demo of Eternal Darkness and to look forward to the full game. Anxiety crept over me as I was tricked into thinking I just wasted two hours playing an extended demo and would have to repeat all of that. After all, I'm playing this on a modded Wii and it's not like I've never accidentally downloaded an ISO of a demo version of a game before (in fact I did that with Rogue Squadron III while gathering games to put on the system.) Had I experienced this back in 2002 I wouldn't have doubted myself for a second, I'd have a genuine disc and box assuring me that I did in fact have the full game, but in 2022 Eternal Darkness' little demo and CRT fake outs take on new life.

I also found the game's structure to be really interesting. Rather than controlling one character in a confined location, you're treated to 11 survival horror vignettes, with protagonist Alex Roivas' investigation into her grandfather's death serving as a framing device. Each chapter features a different character, and each character shares the same dungeon with at least two others. It's fun to see how these locations slowly open up over time, becoming more involved and deadly the closer you get to the modern day. Spells introduce another unique twist on the standard survival horror formula, requiring you to enchant items with the right elements both to solve puzzles and get an edge on enemies, all while preserving your sanity.

A consequence of this segmented design is that progression feels pretty linear. Each chapter has a well telegraphed route through it with not much room for experimentation, and puzzles aren't always given enough room to unfold. Later chapters also start to drag as there's a whole lot of running back and forth to ferry items over great distances. While this is a staple of survival horror games, Eternal Darkness' linear design means running down straight hallways with little deviation, and after a while it starts to feel like it's just wasting your time. This is especially bad during a late game segment where you're tasked with activating a teleportation device. You have to jump through a portal and activate a rune, then survive a short combat encounter before dragging your ass back to the teleporter. You repeat this nine times, and a couple chapters later you get to do the whole process over again. It sucks.

Combat is also a bit wonky, requiring you to hold the right trigger and move the analog stick to select body parts to target. Removing specific body parts will disable enemies in unique ways, with different enemies having different body parts you need to prioritize. This is a really interesting system on paper, but in practice it just feels off. You could excuse this by saying it's similar to tank controls, it's not meant to feel good because that's what builds tension. I've made this argument for poor design choices in survival horror games before, but even I know that after a while the excuse stretches thin and is just used to mask things that are shitty without being purposefully so. In this case, I think it's just another example of the Gamecube's clown controller making things feel like crap, and jankiness that's more generally characteristic of this era of games.

My gripes aside, I think Eternal Darkness holds up. I was surprised by the way the game was able to get to me, and I think its structure is pretty unique. Reminds me a little of Clock Tower 3, and I think more survival horror games should be like Clock Tower 3. Just a shame what happened to Silicon Knights, virtually blowing their own legs off at the kneecaps trying to go after Epic Games like that. But, hey, at least you can get Too Human for free now! You can't beat free...

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a name that was passed around a lot in the early days of Internet game coverage on YouTube. I had never played it, both because of my inexperience with the horror genre and the initial lack of a GameCube. But after falling in love with titan franchises like Resident Evil, how does returning to the GameCube's hidden gem stack up?

Eternal Darkness follows Alex Roivas, who arrives at her grandfather's estate to investigate his grizzly murder. Digging a little further, Alex finds the Tome of Eternal Darkness which reveals a dark, supernatural history of Lovecraftian horrors bent on ruling the world, which she must stop to avenge her fallen ancestors. The game sees you exploring the Roivas mansion peeling away at its secrets gradually as you solve puzzles and find ways to unlock new chapters of the Tome. Once you do, you'll be transported to one of the previous owners of the cursed book, in a vastly different time period. The variety of settings on display is a great accomplishment, allowing Eternal Darkness to feel like a great work of historical fiction. In fact, the game is very liturgical by nature, with a poetic tone for its descriptions of the world and people living amongst it.

The game's claim to fame is its Sanity meter, which reduces every time your character sees something horrifying or is under the influence of a fear spell. The lower the sanity, the more your game starts to mess with you, from hallucinating objects, to a couple of fourth wall breaking manuevers that I won't spoil. Bring it too low, and you start to lose health; ensuring that maintaining your sanity is crucial to survival. It's a fantastic mechanic that is well balanced given you can recover sanity from performing a finishing move on any enemy. Games in the last decade have taken the meta horror ideas to other extremes, but Sanity's Requiem excels in this area because you never know exactly how it will screw with your perception, putting the player constantly at unease.

Every chapter sees Alex and her ancestors exploring a location to fight their way towards stopping the Darkness. While there aren't many new locations (the game flips between a church, a tomb, and the mansion) developer Silicon Knights finds clever ways to constantly throw you in a new direction, while giving you clues to find your footing in recognizable areas. Inside these claustrophobic walls are dozens of skeletons, zombies, and other undead freaks ready to kill you. Every chapter grants some form of melee weapon as well as gun/ranged weapon to dispose of them, all with varying stats and ammo availability. Each character also handles differently, with an agile adventurer being prepped for the job, while a noble house lord feeling a little slow, but has the health to withstand the fight. I loved the arsenal of characters and almost wish the game gave you the ability to come back to those figures after their chapter was over.

Combat is an interesting mixed bag. Whether it's with your close or long range weapon, you can target body parts to dismember your targets, which adds some strategy and skill to the otherwise basic encounters. Melee weapons usually do the trick for most enemies, but larger brawls will need careful dodging and magical assistance. Throughout the game, you'll collect runes and scrolls to cast spells to use on yourself, enemies, or the environment. Many of these spells become essential tools to your survival, and the magic is a fascinating twist on the usually dire survival horror formula. Unfortunately, some of the magical elements of the game are its less well-explained, leading to some frustrating moments about how it works or where it should even be used. There aren't many big battles (that you can't just run away from or avoid completely) but they are fun setpieces, if not a little repetitive. The game suffers from monotony in a few spots, made worse by its reused level designs, and the lack of autosave, which may force you to rewatch cutscenes or redo entire sections of caverns if you don't frequently and aggressively save your progress.

It took a while for me to push through Eternal Darkness, but that's not a bad thing. It's a great horror title that works in short bursts per Chapter. It would be easy to compare ED to Resident Evil's Spencer Mansion or even more modern horror like Pony Island/Inscryption's 4th wall frights, but Eternal Darkness truly still manages to hold an adventure that no other game truly has managed to recapture. From its magical components, highly text based puzzles and adventuring, and bonkers Sanity mechanic, ED is still easily one of the GameCube's most unique titles, which deserves a remaster in some form in the future.