Ok, these post-pandemic inspired games are getting out of hand. I hope to god the 28 Years Later movie pushes the envelope. We just need one badly. Nostalgia isn't always a bad thing, but sometimes it can leave something that sort of tarnishes its potential.
By the obvious margin, it plays like Silent Hills. Fixed camera locations, using the movement analog to also reset the camera when turning, limited combat mechanics, and absolutely terrible lighting implementation using a Unity engine. Just decisions that could have sacrificed quality for the sake of nostalgia. So where's the good in it?
It's playable, the atmosphere is strong, storytelling solid, it does a good job of engrossing in the experience from the narrative standpoint with engaging combat. It doesn't fully stick the landing, but the overall package really has a lot going for it.
Pretty somber prologue, with a very familiar tone. A bioterrorist attack plummets the socioeconomic state of Britain in tethers. Living majority of people to live in closed confinement, and in some time, high value citizens build a walled city named Aeonis.
Separated from the mainland, somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean. A futuristic metropolis that in the current timeline of the game has floating cars, cutting edge technology, advanced A.I., useful gadgets, and you'll forget most of those exist because as soon as the exposition ends, you've crashed in some abandoned suburban town.
You can't establish radio contact because the signal keeps breaking. All this because the person (Sasha) wearing the hazmat suit has been missing her group exposition outside the city. Yes, I play as her lover. Like Silent Hill, it's a psychological survival horror game, with some tech-noir as well. And it really starts off strong here. Especially with these flashbacks sequences.
They're texts with a moving background, accompanying music and good voice acting playing out. Well inserted backstories thematically tied to its overarching narrative, relative to the main character's experience outside the wall before she and her family got out. These do a good job creating relatability on Mica's plight, and why she set herself on such a dangerous quest to find her partner. Especially with what awaits out there in the ruins.
But then you find out documents telling different stories, like government and real-estate companies together, making things uneasier for the population. Not dealing with myriad of issues like serious health concerns, scuffles between neighbors, building infrastructure problems, etc.
New bits of information that are difficult to connect, even if they're interesting to read on their own. The environment does the same job as well, making exploration more interesting because I kind of want to find out how things got this way. Never a good resolution.
So I focused on Mica's story, and thought everything else were devices for atmosphere, and getting anything emotional out of it. She has to deal with an evil entity, who might be also drawing the dangerous threats towards her. Since, after that one phone call in a broken down apartment, things have gotten pretty scarier. Like the silence after exploring the building was gone.
Loud, clanking noise builds up, the music is unnerving, and then they show up. The children, mutated beings with long claws for fingers, deformed bodies, creepy crawlies, they're easy to avoid if you're careful enough, but hard to kill. It's more difficult with Mica's movements.
Tank controls are optional, with the default of her traveling along with the analog stick, even then she can easily get hit if the timing is poor. These guys are tough, even when they're down, stomping them is all it takes to kill. And there aren't much ammo pick-ups to justify shooting them all down. Furthermore, you can't control where you aim, even.
Of course, gun combat sucks, but it doesn't seem like that's what it is going for. The club I found is needed for ammo preservation, not only that, but soon as I left the room after doing a challenging puzzle of opening a locked vault with a key in it, I encountered two more together on the corridor of the same building floor. There's not a lot of sidetracking to find extra stuff either.
Which is where the survival aspect of it excels, even with limitations, it hinges on decisions. I get another weapon, which is a guitar, funny enough, strung everytime I smack one of them. It also does more damage, but takes longer to attack, which also got me hit several times.
There's also the puzzles, I mentioned one I did was tough, it sadly gets easier much later, but you have to put your thinking cap in, and figure out putting items in inconspicuous of places. I combined a keycard with a machine that turns it into an all-access item, and I got into different places. A useful hammer breaking cabinets, a bottle and lighter that turned on sprinklers.
But then, this part of the game happens. I had to insert chopsticks on a fuse box to set the voltage meter. Electricity came out, got the elevator working, and then a cutscene with a man on the edge, he's probably going to jump. What could it mean if I saved him? I was more curious.
Several dialogue choices later, he became my follower. The atmosphere gets more dreary, more enemy type pops up, and I had to go back to the crash landing, before a path leading me to the train station. Oh, nighttime, the lack of lighting, and dogs too. Oh yeah, you had no use for guns? Well, dogs are what they're exactly for. God forbid, you also fight gas spewers.
This is what I mean by engagement, it goes into high gear, gets more mysterious as I venture the town before arriving in a cemetery. More new weapons, like a bow and right after, a shotgun. I start battling 5-6 of these on a subway station stairway. Man I'm pumped.
Didn't I complain earlier about bad camera spots, mimicking Silent Hills too much, and terrible lighting? Yeah, those exist in some places. That, and silly game design choices like not updating information properly on the map, save system a little clunky, UI being annoying, stuff like that.
Making puzzles easier was a bad decision, then again, I can't say I didn't have fun overall. This isn't Signalis or Crow Country good. It's a passion project for Silent Hill fans. Without the veneer of janky, terrible knockoffs, it tries its best. Though, IMO, should have made the tech stuff more useful. Newgame+ is great, with a first-person mode, and those three endings, including doggo.
