i made a whole-hearted attempt to revisit this for halloween '21. my first pass of this game was noteworthy for how quickly my opinion of it dropped; i cannot say that a second play through changed that. if anything, it solidified what a disappointment i found amnesia: rebirth to be.

it's worth noting that, i think, the biggest problems with rebirth are it's genre (cosmic horror) and the lack of, to be frank, scares. i have some personal gripes with it, but at it's heart, rebirth is a true gothic horror story. there's only one monster that poses any kind of threat to you through out the game: the ghost of grief. it's a somber walk through tasi's memories, unraveling her trauma and loss. after a while, it felt exploitative at best. i get it, something very sad happened to her and salim. this, combined with how the game shows it's cards early and disappoints on delivering it's scares, served me a slice of frustration pie very quickly. there's a few segments that feel like the dark descent, but twice as many that feel like imitators released on steam for $1.99.

it's a polished game with a lot of love in it. i admit that much. i appreciate the bold choices in it, too. i think the setting was a lovely, unique place to take survival horror. the pregnancy related mechanic was an interesting way to update the sanity meter. i just don't think this had any business being a mainline amnesia title. i have to wonder how it would have looked as a standalone title, allowed to breathe in it's own space.