Dementium is one of the saddest stories on the DS. There are very few horror games on the system, and Dementium was a hyped-up train wreck all the way to release. Renegade Kid originally pitched Dementium as a Silent Hill game on the DS. They went to Konami to show off their FPS engine running at 60 FPS. It's an impressive engine and still is today, and it's a joy to play and experience, but Dementium's tricks end after about 30 minutes, and even the remastered version doesn't add much.
The biggest issue with the original game was the insane difficulty level and lack of checkpoints. If you died, you had to restart the entire chapter, and the game is made up of claustrophobic, deja vu-enducing labyrinthine corridors that require either a detailed walkthrough and guide or pure dumb luck. The enfuriating boss fights and repeated enemies will make your head scream, and most people won't get through the first few chapters before shutting the game off. I did it back when the game originally came out. The first half of the game consists of finding items to progress, and this constant backtracking is infuriating. Each floor of the hospital looks exactly the same, and each hallway is literally repeated on multiple floors. I passed the same hallway with slugs coming out of the walls and dropping from the ceiling grates in the exact same pattern dozens of times. The same closets with the same set of boxes stacked in the exact same position will repeat several times in a row in every hallway. The same three office layouts repeat ad nauseam. It's a lazy design of copy and paste, and the last of the landmarks makes backtracking an utter nightmare.
What becomes a horror game of keeping your own sanity quickly becomes apparent once you get to the first boss fight. Bosses flash red and become invulnerable for a few seconds after each shot. This is an incredibly stupid design choice. Let me blast these guys away, as you also have limited ammo early in the game, only to become Rambo by the final few chapters. Health is also finite, as whatever you find in each hallway is. Thankfully, it's plentiful, but later chapters become endurance races. The final chapters lack any type of puzzle solving or object hunting and just see you running through dozens upon dozens of hallways, just running from enemies, hoping you find the right door that's not locked. Almost every door in this game is locked, and the clues to the right door are the ones with bloody handprints. That's even not 100% true sometimes. The remastered version adds new checkpoints and save points throughout the game, but those still aren't enough. This game needs a save anywhere feature.
There are plenty of guns, such as a pistol, revolver, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and baton. They all feel good to shoot, and the shooting mechanics are very smooth and accurate. It's a crying shame it was put to waste on this mundane slog of a mess. The remastered version also takes advantage of the dual analog controls of the 3DS, which helps as well. The final chapter of the game is a stamina rush of every enemy thrown at you numerous times just to get to a final boss that can kill you very quickly. Prepare to run through this level numerous times in sheer frustration over terror. I like the idea of switching between a gun and a flashlight, but after a while, I ran from most enemies. The same five repeat through the entire game; the novelty of a DS shooter wears off very quickly.
Overall, the visuals and atmosphere are actually memorable. The music is haunting, and the darkness creeping in around you works. There are no jump scares, and the story is non-existent outside of a few scenes. You can't even determine what's going on in this poem through written text, as there's very little of it. It's a boring, frustrating mess of a game wrapped around a fantastic game engine and haunting atmosphere. It's a shame the remaster couldn't do more than upscale the textures and add checkpoints that barely help the difficulty.
The biggest issue with the original game was the insane difficulty level and lack of checkpoints. If you died, you had to restart the entire chapter, and the game is made up of claustrophobic, deja vu-enducing labyrinthine corridors that require either a detailed walkthrough and guide or pure dumb luck. The enfuriating boss fights and repeated enemies will make your head scream, and most people won't get through the first few chapters before shutting the game off. I did it back when the game originally came out. The first half of the game consists of finding items to progress, and this constant backtracking is infuriating. Each floor of the hospital looks exactly the same, and each hallway is literally repeated on multiple floors. I passed the same hallway with slugs coming out of the walls and dropping from the ceiling grates in the exact same pattern dozens of times. The same closets with the same set of boxes stacked in the exact same position will repeat several times in a row in every hallway. The same three office layouts repeat ad nauseam. It's a lazy design of copy and paste, and the last of the landmarks makes backtracking an utter nightmare.
What becomes a horror game of keeping your own sanity quickly becomes apparent once you get to the first boss fight. Bosses flash red and become invulnerable for a few seconds after each shot. This is an incredibly stupid design choice. Let me blast these guys away, as you also have limited ammo early in the game, only to become Rambo by the final few chapters. Health is also finite, as whatever you find in each hallway is. Thankfully, it's plentiful, but later chapters become endurance races. The final chapters lack any type of puzzle solving or object hunting and just see you running through dozens upon dozens of hallways, just running from enemies, hoping you find the right door that's not locked. Almost every door in this game is locked, and the clues to the right door are the ones with bloody handprints. That's even not 100% true sometimes. The remastered version adds new checkpoints and save points throughout the game, but those still aren't enough. This game needs a save anywhere feature.
There are plenty of guns, such as a pistol, revolver, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and baton. They all feel good to shoot, and the shooting mechanics are very smooth and accurate. It's a crying shame it was put to waste on this mundane slog of a mess. The remastered version also takes advantage of the dual analog controls of the 3DS, which helps as well. The final chapter of the game is a stamina rush of every enemy thrown at you numerous times just to get to a final boss that can kill you very quickly. Prepare to run through this level numerous times in sheer frustration over terror. I like the idea of switching between a gun and a flashlight, but after a while, I ran from most enemies. The same five repeat through the entire game; the novelty of a DS shooter wears off very quickly.
Overall, the visuals and atmosphere are actually memorable. The music is haunting, and the darkness creeping in around you works. There are no jump scares, and the story is non-existent outside of a few scenes. You can't even determine what's going on in this poem through written text, as there's very little of it. It's a boring, frustrating mess of a game wrapped around a fantastic game engine and haunting atmosphere. It's a shame the remaster couldn't do more than upscale the textures and add checkpoints that barely help the difficulty.