Despite being released two years after the original game, you can’t really expect much from Keepers of the Dark. This isn’t so much a sequel as an expansion, but played much differently. Instead of a linear path going forward, you have access to eight “realms,” which are just small sections of the first game recycled. Each realm consists of two ghosts that you must banish, with one serving as the main ghost that must be counted towards the final total to unlock the main large gate in the main hub. This was actually a neat idea, and I liked this game better than the first. While the combat is the main focus of the game, it still works, as you can consider this a boss rush game and only have to deal with one ghost at a time.
Each realm has a variety of items to pick up to make defeating ghosts in other realms easier. For example, you need to find 14 needles to make fighting a ghost in a specific realm much easier. In total, there are four notes to pick up in order to fight an optional ghost in another realm. These items aren’t too difficult to find on your own, as the “realms” are just small linear areas with little space to explore. I still find the stiff animations, the “limbo” death ritual, the sprinting stamina, and the long knockdown animations quite annoying, as they remain unchanged from the previous game. I also found the lack of any type of health meter irritating, as some bosses took up to two dozen shots to kill. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if the game had glitched or I was doing something wrong.
I did, however, run into a glitch in which one of the Nerd notes was not where it was supposed to be. This locked me out of an otherwise 100% first run, which is maddening. There are still graphical glitches, pop-ins, and clipping that shouldn’t be there. This shouldn’t be happening in a game in 2016. The lack of a cohesive story still irritates me, and the majority of “cutscenes” rely on in-game engine stills for narration. There are eight main bosses in total (one in each realm) and maybe 3-4 cut scenes. Overall, I feel like this game worked with the limitations of the first a little better.
If you were dissatisfied with the first game, you will likely dislike this one, but if you found the first game enjoyable, you may find this one to play more smoothly. Although it is a direct continuation of the first game, those seeking a compelling murder mystery or a compelling story in general may find it lacking. While the bosses draw inspiration from Indonesian urban legends and folktales, their lack of exploration and explanation renders them incomprehensible to those beyond Indonesia. Hopefully with a sequel the game can improve on the camera-obscura gameplay and dive deeper into the lore, but as it stands these two games are lacking too much to recommend to anyone who isn’t a die-hard survival horror fan.
In my never-ending pursuit to find the best horror games that feel truly scary or are reminiscent of the 90’s and early 2000’s horror but actually play well, I took upon myself to gather up all modern horror games that are worth playing. What defines a horror video game? Most people typically assume that there are simple answers, such as ghosts, zombies, space, or any other single word category. While it’s difficult to pin down and categorize horror into a single genre, or even sub-genres, what makes horror games keep us up at night is the fear of the unknown. We can characterize this as a basic uncertainty, ranging from the unknown lurking around every corner to the never ending pursuit of the antagonist. Humans have harbored fear of the unknown since ancient times, and video games can provide us with a glimpse into this terrifying realm. Games can give us a glimpse into this abyss. While some gamers may not consider Doom a scary game, its release likely frightened many kids and adults, and it may still do so today. Everyone’s fear is a scale or spectrum. There’s not one set number you can place. P.T. was one of the scariest things I ever experienced, and some people laughed the entire time. Some may consider this just a coping mechanism, and others may be able to easily overcome their own fears.
Rather than doing this chronologically, I have broken this series up into multiple categories. These games may also fall into other categories, and some may think a single game feels like something else to them while playing it. Horror has also made a comeback over the last five years. Just looking on SteamDB shows that indie horror titles are at an all-time high; however, there is also an onslaught of utter garbage in every storefront.
I hope to sort these out, as good modern indie horror is hard to come by. It’s like sorting through the bargain bin at Wal-Mart. Do you really need to play Hitler: BDSM Bunker or another “creepy” Hentai game only to discover it’s complete garbage? While a lot of these games play off of current memes and satirize political issues, they aren’t “real” games. For every 10 P.T. clones, there’s a single good survival horror out there trying to be something different. For every 20 Five Nights at Freddy’s or Poppy Playtime clones there’s a hidden gem of a text adventure buried under the heaping steaming pile of crap.
My reading of “From Ants to Zombies” by Alexander Chatziioannou inspired this entire idea. It completely transformed my viewpoint and understanding of horror games. What I won’t include are obvious AAA titles from the Resident Evil series or games like P.T. We all know them; everyone has played one of these, and you already know if you love them or hate them. I won’t incorporate any Early Access games or titles released before 2014, unless they belong to a series that has seen a release within the past decade. I will also not include remakes or remasters such as the most recent Dead Rising, Silent Hill 2, or Dead Space games, for example. I wanted to mostly highlight indie horror and games that may have had a larger budget but were easily overlooked or forgotten.
I will break this series up into 10 categories as follows:
New Retro: These are games that try to bring back the feeling and nostalgia or horror games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. PS1 and Nintendo 64 style graphics, older visual effects, maybe even older play styles like tank controls. This category will be last as to highlight the future of horror gaming.
Psychological: This is one of the most common categories in horror. These games usually play a lot of tricks on the mind, have heavy use of music, ambiance, jump scares, or heavily use the story is scare the player.
Zombies, Ghosts, and Creatures, Oh My!: These games are usually considered not as scary to some, but usually still have creepy monster design or mostly use monsters to terrify the player.
Space: Space is a great factor of “Fear of the Unknown”. Games set in space or use the vast void or outer space to scare us.
Relentless Pursuer: Games that constantly keep you on your toes with antagonists that just won’t let off. These games aren’t as popular as they once were.
Fear of the Abyss: These games use phobias to usually scare the player. This doesn’t completely excludes space, but mostly includes games that take place in the ocean.
Eldritch: Lovecraftian horror is the easiest way to describe this, however this can also describe games with entire art style devoted to bio-mechanism, gross organics monsters throughout, and overall giving a feeling of uneasiness or a larger than life monster or being that you can’t ever see, but it lets you know it’s there.
Survival Horror: The most popular genre and what most people think of when they think of horror games. These usually have the player using resource management to survive whatever baddies that come at you. These are also more on the atmospheric side.
Boomer Shooter Nightmares: There has been a huge surge of Boomer Shooters in the ire of Doom in the last five years. While Doom itself doesn’t make the list there are so many great indie shooters out there that it needed its own category.
Errant Children: This category includes both protagonist and antagonistic children in the game. These are very uncommon, and have mostly dropped out of favor over the last decade, but a few still exist.
STASIS is a unique, point-and-click sci-fi-horror adventure game set in the distant future. Players must solve puzzles, interact with computers, and combine items on an abandoned spacecraft. John Maracheck, suffering from pain, faces his wife and daughter’s disappearance. This is a very frightening game and one of the scariest point-and-clicks, if the the scariest, I have ever played. The ambient sound design alone is enough to make you lose sleep.
STASIS: BONE TOTEM is the latest installment in the STASIS anthology, featuring a new story, characters, and underwater environment. Mac and Charlie, a husband and wife duo, discover an abandoned oil rig in the Pacific Ocean and uncover a secret that Cayne Corporation will keep hidden. The game offers an immersive narrative with spine-tingling horror and unexpected twists, combining the thrilling storytelling of STASIS with a tense underwater setting. It features stunning visuals, a music score, a screenplay, and veteran voice acting. While not quite as scary as Stasis, the game is more weird and dives deeper into the occult territory.
Aliens: Dark Descent is a game where players command a squad of Colonial Marines to stop a Xenomorph outbreak on Planet Lethe. The game involves real-time combat against iconic Xenomorphs, rogue operatives from the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and new creatures from the Alien franchise. Players must navigate large open levels, annihilating enemies strategically and intuitively. They can customize their squad with different classes, level up, and specialize their soldiers with unique abilities and weapons. The game also allows players to research new tech and improve their squad. Think of this as a turn-based strategy version of Alien: Isolation. Dark Descent borrows a lot of what worked in that game such as tension and atmosphere. Despite being top-down the game is still quite scary and intense.
Observation (2019) Platforms: WIN, PS4, XB1
Observation is a sci-fi thriller that follows Dr. Emma Fisher and her mission crew through the lens of the station’s artificial intelligence, S.A.M. Players assume the role of S.A.M., operating control systems, cameras, and tools to uncover the true nature of themselves and their crew. The game is much slower paced than you would want since this is essentially a puzzle-based walking simulator. The game is very tense and the atmosphere is suffocating and lonely.
Prey (2017) Platforms: WIN, PS4, XB1
In Prey, Morgan Yu is a key subject on Talos I, a moon-orbiting space station, where an experiment aims to alter humanity forever. However, the space station is overrun by hostile aliens, and Morgan is hunted down. To survive, Morgan must use his wits, weapons, and abilities to uncover the dark secrets of Talos I and his past. The game features a sci-fi thriller setting, and an unimaginable threat from a living ecology. Players must use their alien abilities to craft useful items and survive unprecedented threats. This game infamously was the troubled reboot of the Prey series. The 2006 darling didn’t get the true sequel treatment it wanted and we didn’t get the exciting game that Prey 2 never was. However, Arkane did a fine job giving us a System Shock like experience with interesting enemies.
Alien: Isolation is set in a world of constant dread and mortal danger. Fifteen years after the events of Alien™, Amanda, Ellen Ripley’s daughter, embarks on a mission to unravel the truth behind her mother’s disappearance. She navigates a volatile world, confronting a panicked population and an unpredictable, ruthless Alien. Underpowered and underprepared, Amanda must scavenge resources, improvise solutions, and use her wits to survive. The game takes place in the decommissioned trading station Sevastopol, where Amanda encounters a rich cast of inhabitants and faces the same terrifying thing that separated them. This is considered the best Alien game to date and one of the most terrifying games ever created. I still can’t get through this game ten years later. It’s gorgeous to look at and feels great to play.
The Expanse: A Telltale Series (2023) Platforms: WIN, PS4, PS5, XB1, XSX
Telltale’s latest adventure takes players on the role of Camina Drummer, the Executive Officer of the Artemis, as they explore the dangerous Belt aboard the Artemis. The game features an immersive exploration of zero-g environments, shipwrecks, and zero-g thrusters. Players must make difficult choices and navigate the complexities of space, politics, crew animosities, and their responsibilities to protect the Belt. The game offers no right or wrong path, only choices and their consequences. This is one of the few adventure games I didn’t want to end. The story telling and pacing was so good I played it through in one sitting. The space setting isn’t so much a antagonist itself, but is unfortunately mostly a backdrop. It’s scary in a sense that it feels like something is out there and you never know what it is.
The Invincible (2023) Platforms: WIN, PS5, XSX
Yasna, an astrobiologist, finds herself on the unexplored planet Regis III in a space race. Her mission becomes a search for lost crewmates, and every decision she makes can bring her closer to danger. She must make difficult choices and witness one of 11 possible endings in the philosophical story. The game is based on Stanisław Lem’s iconic novel, The Invincible, and involves interacting with robots, people, and analogue technologies in a retro futuristic timeline. The game challenges Yasna to make difficult choices and witness the consequences of her choices. While the game is mostly a walking simulator at heart, the story is fantastic and so is the lore and technology used in the game’s world. It’s fascinating to explore and learn more about this world, and space itself is the enemy.
I turn to indie horror games for my fix because AAA horror titles just aren’t much of a thing anymore. Back in the day when we got regular Silent Hill releases and games like The Suffering, Obscure, Haunting Ground, and Resident Evil, there were more than you could count. Today, the majority of indie horror titles range from bad to subpar, with only the rare ones being truly good. DreadOut falls into the badto subpar category, but it doesn’t come with the majority of problems that most indie horror titles have.
The story itself relies heavily on Indonesian folklore, and unless you are adverse to this subject, you won’t have any idea of what’s going on. In essence, the story unfolds as you embark on a school field trip, encounter an unexpected bridge, and ultimately find yourself inside a haunted school. The explanation for the appearance of this bridge, the existence of a haunted school in this town, and the other events in the game are mostly left to the player’s imagination. There are hints in the notes, but I never figured it out. I mainly came for the scares, and DreadOut does provide some.
The combat system is similar to Fatal Frame in that it uses a camera obscura to battle ghosts and poltergeists. In this game, you can only see them in the camera frame (or phone screen). You do get a DSLR later on, but I found this a bit pointless as it doesn’t increase your “attack power,” and you only get a light if you press the flashlight button by creating a large flash around you. The phone actually uses the camera light as a flashlight, and it works well in most dark areas. The game employs a vignette around the screen to indicate the presence of a hint or object nearby (blue) or an enemy (red). If the vignette is red, it requires you to pull out the camera and search for anything moving. Unfortunately, most of the time, the ghost was nearly impossible to see, either because it was too close to the walls which required me to press the shutter button at random. The phone screen will “glitch” when a deadly shot is ready. When this happens, gold particles fly out of the ghost, and you know it took damage.
Thankfully, unlike most horror games, combat isn’t the main focus. They’re rare and you never fight more than one ghost. There are a few boss fights in the game, and these are the most captivating of the ghost designs. They aren’t difficult, and dying doesn’t reset any progress. Your punishment is a further walk from limbo to “the light.” You can acquire an item to nullify this walking distance or change it in the settings. I was unaware of the purpose of these items, as the game provided no explanation and was extremely ambiguous. When you enter the light, you simply pick up right where you left off. You can usually take 3-5 hits from a ghost before “dying.” It’s not very punishing at all.
Exploration would be the best part of the game, but it is incredibly ugly and dated (even for its time), with low-res textures, stiff animations, low-res models, and very little detail in anything. This looks almost like a first-gen PS2 game. The game’s release was just before the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One, making the graphics engine, which was already a decade old, unjustifiable. Most of the game is very linear and straight forward, but the first area in the school was a confusing mess of hallways and doors, but other than that, it wasn’t difficult to navigate around.
You can finish the game in 2-3 hours, but honestly, there are many other games, like DreadOut, that not only look better but also play better. The voice acting is mostly passable, and there isn’t much dialogue to begin with, including a lackluster story. Why would you bother with this game? Well, if you really love horror like I do and enjoy the atmosphere of these games, which DreadOut does well, then this game is definitely worth your time. The music is also surprisingly excellent and really sells the haunting and uneasy atmosphere. The game has a few decent jump scares, and I felt uneasy through most of the game, so it at least accomplishes that.
In my never-ending pursuit to find the best horror games that feel truly scary or are reminiscent of the 90’s and early 2000’s horror but actually play well, I took upon myself to gather up all modern horror games that are worth playing. What defines a horror video game? Most people typically assume that there are simple answers, such as ghosts, zombies, space, or any other single word category. While it’s difficult to pin down and categorize horror into a single genre, or even sub-genres, what makes horror games keep us up at night is the fear of the unknown. We can characterize this as a basic uncertainty, ranging from the unknown lurking around every corner to the never ending pursuit of the antagonist. Humans have harbored fear of the unknown since ancient times, and video games can provide us with a glimpse into this terrifying realm. Games can give us a glimpse into this abyss. While some gamers may not consider Doom a scary game, its release likely frightened many kids and adults, and it may still do so today. Everyone’s fear is a scale or spectrum. There’s not one set number you can place. P.T. was one of the scariest things I ever experienced, and some people laughed the entire time. Some may consider this just a coping mechanism, and others may be able to easily overcome their own fears.
Rather than doing this chronologically, I have broken this series up into multiple categories. These games may also fall into other categories, and some may think a single game feels like something else to them while playing it. Horror has also made a comeback over the last five years. Just looking on SteamDB shows that indie horror titles are at an all-time high; however, there is also an onslaught of utter garbage in every storefront.
I hope to sort these out, as good modern indie horror is hard to come by. It’s like sorting through the bargain bin at Wal-Mart. Do you really need to play Hitler: BDSM Bunker or another “creepy” Hentai game only to discover it’s complete garbage? While a lot of these games play off of current memes and satirize political issues, they aren’t “real” games. For every 10 P.T. clones, there’s a single good survival horror out there trying to be something different. For every 20 Five Nights at Freddy’s or Poppy Playtime clones there’s a hidden gem of a text adventure buried under the heaping steaming pile of crap.
My reading of “From Ants to Zombies” by Alexander Chatziioannou inspired this entire idea. It completely transformed my viewpoint and understanding of horror games. What I won’t include are obvious AAA titles from the Resident Evil series or games like P.T. We all know them; everyone has played one of these, and you already know if you love them or hate them. I won’t incorporate any Early Access games or titles released before 2014, unless they belong to a series that has seen a release within the past decade. I will also not include remakes or remasters such as the most recent Dead Rising, Silent Hill 2, or Dead Space games, for example. I wanted to mostly highlight indie horror and games that may have had a larger budget but were easily overlooked or forgotten.
I will break this series up into 10 categories as follows:
New Retro: These are games that try to bring back the feeling and nostalgia or horror games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. PS1 and Nintendo 64 style graphics, older visual effects, maybe even older play styles like tank controls. This category will be last as to highlight the future of horror gaming.
Psychological: This is one of the most common categories in horror. These games usually play a lot of tricks on the mind, have heavy use of music, ambiance, jump scares, or heavily use the story is scare the player.
Zombies, Ghosts, and Creatures, Oh My!: These games are usually considered not as scary to some, but usually still have creepy monster design or mostly use monsters to terrify the player.
Space: Space is a great factor of “Fear of the Unknown”. Games set in space or use the vast void or outer space to scare us.
Relentless Pursuer: Games that constantly keep you on your toes with antagonists that just won’t let off. These games aren’t as popular as they once were.
Fear of the Abyss: These games use phobias to usually scare the player. This doesn’t completely excludes space, but mostly includes games that take place in the ocean.
Eldritch: Lovecraftian horror is the easiest way to describe this, however this can also describe games with entire art style devoted to bio-mechanism, gross organics monsters throughout, and overall giving a feeling of uneasiness or a larger than life monster or being that you can’t ever see, but it lets you know it’s there.
Survival Horror: The most popular genre and what most people think of when they think of horror games. These usually have the player using resource management to survive whatever baddies that come at you. These are also more on the atmospheric side.
Boomer Shooter Nightmares: There has been a huge surge of Boomer Shooters in the ire of Doom in the last five years. While Doom itself doesn’t make the list there are so many great indie shooters out there that it needed its own category.
Errant Children: This category includes both protagonist and antagonistic children in the game. These are very uncommon, and have mostly dropped out of favor over the last decade, but a few still exist.
The Exit 8 (2023) Platforms: WIN, PS5, PS4, NSW
Escape from an underground passageway by carefully observing your surroundings and avoiding anomalies. The Exit 8 is a walking simulator inspired by Japanese underground passageways and liminal spaces. For such a simple concept, The Exit 8 employs the feeling of familiarity but subtly questions your own sight and senses. I haven’t had this feeling since P.T. ten years ago. The never ending looping hallway changes in small ways, and it’s up to you to find the differences. There is no music, very little sound, and the blinding white tiles sear into your eyes. The sensory deprivation mixed with the uneasiness of something never being quite right makes The Exit 8 a fantastic horror title.
Krimson is a gritty rhythm platformer with heavy electronic metal music. Players navigate a hellish world, with one wrong move causing death. The game features four settings: blood-soaked organic, grungy industrial, psychedelic LSD-fueled acid trip, and hot molten metal madness. The game demands attention and requires skills, mind, and patience. Players must dance with the hell hath rhythm to conquer the hellish world. Sometimes it’s not monsters and ghosts that scare you, but an overwhelming senses attack. Krimson is a constant onslaught of surreal visuals, flashing lights, and abstract colors. This is what it is like to go on an acid trip and not be able to escape. Some of the monster designs are incredibly weird and terrifying, especially when you’re being chased and trying to take everything in.
A young man is on a path in the woods, facing a princess in a cabin. He must slay her to save the world, as she will charm, lie, and promise him the world. The princess is an ordinary human, and he must stay focused on the task. The story is a branching narrative, with the protagonist’s actions and beliefs determining their identity and the story’s unfolding. I usually don’t care for visual novels, but Slay the Princess’ unique art style mixed with a compelling story is something you can’t miss. Claustrophobia and being physically and mentally trapped are enough to make you hold your breath while playing. The fantastic monster design and visual shots are at the right angle and give just enough depth to make it tough to press on. You have the option to turn on the lights, open doors and windows, and step outside, as this game can evoke a sense of solitude and gratitude for your freedom of space.
Ad Infinitum (2023) Platforms: WIN, PS4, PS5, XB1, XSX
Ad Infinitum is a game where players play as a German soldier haunted by the horrors of World War I. They must break the cycle of suffering by regaining control of their life’s narrative. The game takes players from their teenage years to the trenches, where they must navigate through nightmares and terrifying creatures. The fallout of the war is felt far from the front, as players peel back the shroud that hides the secrets of their family. Through exploration and solving riddles, they reveal a chapter in the story of a German family torn apart by war. The horrors of war alone are enough to fight anyone, but a lot of media romanticizes it. Ad Infinitum does a fantastic job showing us the ugly side of World War I. The game skillfully employs the typical “descent into madness” trope for psychological horror games, and its visual roller coaster ride is truly captivating. While the gameplay itself is lacking in many ways (especially the annoying stealth areas) and the story is hard to follow, the actual beat-to-beat events and scripted scenes are something of a nightmare.
Faith: The Unholy Trinity (2022) Platforms: WIN, PS4, NSW
In 1986, two priests arrived at the Martin Family home in Connecticut to investigate a demonic possession case. FAITH is a pixel horror game inspired by classic 8-bit gaming and the 1980s “Satanic Scare.” Players use their holy crucifix to perform exorcisms, fight against possessed cultists, and cleanse haunted objects. The game features three chapters: FAITH, Chapter II, and Chapter III, where the protagonist faces paranormal entities and a powerful demon. As you progress through the story, you encounter various demons and uncover a plethora of scares and horrors. The developers have skillfully depicted frightening imagery with minimal visual flair. The game is also gory and has unsettling music that is purposefully uncomfortable to listen to. The close-up shots of what appear to be rotoscoped facial animations are frightening. Nothing feels normal or real in this game, and it’s a blast to play with the lights off and headphones on.
Growing My Grandpa! (2022) Platforms: WIN
Growing My Grandpa centers around the themes of family and nostalgia, allowing players to engage in a heartfelt narrative that explores the relationship between a grandchild and their grandfather. Through various gameplay mechanics, players experience the joys and challenges of nurturing their grandparent, fostering a deeper understanding of generational bonds and the passage of time. The game is full of disturbing imagery, eerie music, and the overall feeling of complete wrongness. It’s a tale that keeps you on the edge of your seat and is frightening to experience.
Father’s Day (2022) Platforms: WIN
In this game, players take control of three characters who switch roles: police Sergeant Henry, scientist Phil, and Jonathan, a relative of a missing child. Phil’s dream of a perfect life crumbled when he lost his wife and son, driving him to obsessively devise a secret plan to bring them back. Eventually, he finds himself in a bathroom with blood on his hands, yet he presses on with his project. However, things start to spiral out of control, leaving him to grapple with the question of how to make everything right and where to find a reality where everyone is happy. The game is your typical walking simulator, but the scares are subtle and you’re constantly on the edge of your seat thanks to creepy ambient sounds and music.
Ikai is a first-person psychological horror game inspired by Japanese folklore, featuring a defenseless main character who faces threats directly. The game evokes a sense of helplessness and tense atmosphere, with slow, precise movements resembling real life. The story revolves around a demon that is threatening to cross the doorway into the world. The priestess, Naoko, works in the mountains, leaving the shrine under her niece’s control. As the villagers’ dreads grow, Naoko loses consciousness and falls to the ground, almost dead. The shrine’s bell screams for help, but all gods have gone, leaving the world filled with monsters, ghosts, and spirits. The game is a bit slow for a walking simulator, but the scares and atmosphere are well worth it. The ancient Japanese setting reminded me of games like Fatal Frame. While the monsters aren’t plenty, the story and setting are enough to keep moving on.
In Sound Mind (2021) Platforms: WIN, PS5, XSX, NSW
In Sound Mind is a psychological horror game from the creators of Nightmare House 2, featuring a unique first-person narrative and puzzles. Players must navigate a series of haunting memories and encounter a cast of terrors in boss fights. The game features an eerie soundtrack by The Living Tombstone, and offers an imaginative narrative with sentient mannequins, a feline companion, and even the option to pet the cat. The game is very slow to start as the first hour is mostly building up the story, but once the action starts and the scary monsters come out it’s all worth it in the end.
The Medium (2021) Platforms: WIN, MAC, PS5, XSX, NSW
The Medium is a psychological horror game that features dual-reality gameplay and an original soundtrack co-composed by Arkadiusz Reikowski and Akira Yamaoka. Players have psychic abilities that allow them to travel between realities and explore them simultaneously. The game features a mature and morally ambiguous story, where everything has another side. The Medium’s spirit world is a dark mirror reflection of our reality, where unpunished deeds, evil urges, and vile secrets manifest. The game is inspired by Zdzisław Beksiński’s paintings and is set in a mature and morally ambiguous world. Beksinski is one of my favorite artists next to H.R. Giger and I can tell you this game is stunning to look at. While the story itself isn’t memorable, the experience is.
Explore a diverse world with colorful friends and foes, uncovering a forgotten past, and choose your path to determine your fate and potentially others’. I honestly have to mention that this game is a very slow burn. It’s heavily inspired by Earthbound and if you didn’t like that game you won’t like this. Thankfully this game is less “Nintendo” and more of its own thing and actually has some moments where you are deep into the heads of these kids and it can be quite unsettling. Getting there though may feel like a chore to some.
The Coma: Recut (2017) The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters (2020) Platforms: WIN, MAC, LIN, PS4, XB1, NSW
The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters is a story-driven game set in the warped Sehwa district. Mina Park, a student, discovers a dark and sinister presence at her school and is pursued by a mysterious figure. To survive, she must venture beyond her school and into the surrounding district, encountering strange creatures, mysterious strangers, and uneasy allies. The game features an all-new AI, a terrifying Dark Song, and challenges to balance exploration with survival. Players must craft items, scavenge resources, unlock tools, and hide to avoid detection. The first game is similar, but with a different story and is worth starting with. The haunting music, atmosphere, and oppressing visuals are well worth it. Don’t let the anime style visuals put you off.
Visage (2018) Platforms: WIN, PS4, PS5, XB1, XSX
Visage is a first-person psychological horror game set in a mysterious, atmospheric house filled with a twisted past of brutal murders, insane people, and suicides. The game takes players through gloomy corridors, dead rooms, and endless mazes, leaving them restless and terrified. Dark entities haunt the players, following their every move and playing tricks on their minds. Players must find ways to escape the nightmare or pull themselves deeper into it. Death is part of the game, and players must avoid terror to avoid joining the ranks of the dead. To stay sane, players must find ways to stay in the light and avoid going insane. A lot of people may be turned off by the subtle imagery. This isn’t a straight forward story, but more of a haunted house ride. It’s one of the most disturbing games you will play and has similar nightmare inducing visuals that P.T. has.
Players join Brian Pasternack, a young man in a dystopian 90s society, on his first day at Sintracorp, the world’s largest company. His job involves hunting a “witch” who has returned to torment employees. Pasternack must learn office protocol, engage in watercooler conversation, consider his five-year goal, assess health and safety, and conduct a rigorous personal assessment to uncover new paths and uncover the corporation’s dark past. The trippy vaporwave visuals mixed with weird horror flair is what will keep you going.
Blair Witch (2019) Platforms: WIN, PS4, XB1, NSW
In 1996, a young boy disappears in the Black Hills Forest, Maryland. Ellis, a former police officer facing his darkest fears and the Blair Witch, a mysterious force haunting the woods. The game is based on the cinematic lore of Blair Witch and follows Ellis as he navigates through a cursed forest, with his canine sidekick, Bullet, by his side. The game also challenges Ellis’ sanity against the Blair Witch and his past. I personally have a lot of memories around the first movie and there just isn’t enough content based on the fascinating lore. While the story here is complete garbage the visuals and setting are not. It’s got the same creepy feeling you get when you drive down a lonely road and look through the darkness beyond the trees.
Lost in Vivo (2018) Platforms: WIN
This horror game is about claustrophobia, where a service dog is forced down a sewer drain during a storm. Along the way, players encounter others with abnormal or psychological fear. The game has some very disturbing imagery despite being a first person shooter. The atmosphere is enough to make you sweat and give you a lump in your throat. It’s a very odd horror title, one of the weirdest out there, but worth it.
Detention (2017) Platforms: WIN, MAC, LIN, PS4, NSW, AND
Detention is a 2D atmospheric horror game set in 1960s Taiwan, where two students find themselves trapped in a haunted high school. The game incorporates East Asian elements like Taoism, Buddhism, and Chinese mythology, and players must navigate the school to escape the evil creatures and uncover the dark past of the cursed school. The monster design is some of the eeriest in a 2D horror title, and the perspective itself add a different element than 3D horror games. The atmosphere is similar to Silent Hill, and while the story is confusing, the experience isn’t.
In my never-ending pursuit to find the best horror games that feel truly scary or are reminiscent of the 90’s and early 2000’s horror but actually play well, I took upon myself to gather up all modern horror games that are worth playing. What defines a horror video game? Most people typically assume that there are simple answers, such as ghosts, zombies, space, or any other single word category. While it’s difficult to pin down and categorize horror into a single genre, or even sub-genres, what makes horror games keep us up at night is the fear of the unknown. We can characterize this as a basic uncertainty, ranging from the unknown lurking around every corner to the never ending pursuit of the antagonist. Humans have harbored fear of the unknown since ancient times, and video games can provide us with a glimpse into this terrifying realm. Games can give us a glimpse into this abyss. While some gamers may not consider Doom a scary game, its release likely frightened many kids and adults, and it may still do so today. Everyone’s fear is a scale or spectrum. There’s not one set number you can place. P.T. was one of the scariest things I ever experienced, and some people laughed the entire time. Some may consider this just a coping mechanism, and others may be able to easily overcome their own fears.
Rather than doing this chronologically, I have broken this series up into multiple categories. These games may also fall into other categories, and some may think a single game feels like something else to them while playing it. Horror has also made a comeback over the last five years. Just looking on SteamDB shows that indie horror titles are at an all-time high; however, there is also an onslaught of utter garbage in every storefront.
I hope to sort these out, as good modern indie horror is hard to come by. It’s like sorting through the bargain bin at Wal-Mart. Do you really need to play Hitler: BDSM Bunker or another “creepy” Hentai game only to discover it’s complete garbage? While a lot of these games play off of current memes and satirize political issues, they aren’t “real” games. For every 10 P.T. clones, there’s a single good survival horror out there trying to be something different. For every 20 Five Nights at Freddy’s or Poppy Playtime clones there’s a hidden gem of a text adventure buried under the heaping steaming pile of crap.
My reading of “From Ants to Zombies” by Alexander Chatziioannou inspired this entire idea. It completely transformed my viewpoint and understanding of horror games. What I won’t include are obvious AAA titles from the Resident Evil series or games like P.T. We all know them; everyone has played one of these, and you already know if you love them or hate them. I won’t incorporate any Early Access games or titles released before 2014, unless they belong to a series that has seen a release within the past decade. I will also not include remakes or remasters such as the most recent Dead Rising, Silent Hill 2, or Dead Space games, for example. I wanted to mostly highlight indie horror and games that may have had a larger budget but were easily overlooked or forgotten.
I will break this series up into 10 categories as follows:
New Retro: These are games that try to bring back the feeling and nostalgia or horror games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. PS1 and Nintendo 64 style graphics, older visual effects, maybe even older play styles like tank controls. This category will be last as to highlight the future of horror gaming.
Psychological: This is one of the most common categories in horror. These games usually play a lot of tricks on the mind, have heavy use of music, ambiance, jump scares, or heavily use the story is scare the player.
Zombies, Ghosts, and Creatures, Oh My!: These games are usually considered not as scary to some, but usually still have creepy monster design or mostly use monsters to terrify the player.
Space: Space is a great factor of “Fear of the Unknown”. Games set in space or use the vast void or outer space to scare us.
Relentless Pursuer: Games that constantly keep you on your toes with antagonists that just won’t let off. These games aren’t as popular as they once were.
Fear of the Abyss: These games use phobias to usually scare the player. This doesn’t completely excludes space, but mostly includes games that take place in the ocean.
Eldritch: Lovecraftian horror is the easiest way to describe this, however this can also describe games with entire art style devoted to bio-mechanism, gross organics monsters throughout, and overall giving a feeling of uneasiness or a larger than life monster or being that you can’t ever see, but it lets you know it’s there.
Survival Horror: The most popular genre and what most people think of when they think of horror games. These usually have the player using resource management to survive whatever baddies that come at you. These are also more on the atmospheric side.
Boomer Shooter Nightmares: There has been a huge surge of Boomer Shooters in the ire of Doom in the last five years. While Doom itself doesn’t make the list there are so many great indie shooters out there that it needed its own category.
Errant Children: This category includes both protagonist and antagonistic children in the game. These are very uncommon, and have mostly dropped out of favor over the last decade, but a few still exist.
Fear & Hunger (2018) Fear & Hunger 2: Termina (2022) Platforms: WIN, MAC
Fear & Hunger isn’t just a turn-based RPG. The first game has heavy influences from Silent Hill. The haunting atmosphere and otherworldly creatures mess with your head. As you progress, the story unfolds, and every open door feels like terror and dread. The second game, Termina, intensifies this feeling of dread by giving you only three days to explore a gloomy town. These games are challenging, particularly the first one, which features roguelike elements. JRPGs and horror, then these games are for you.
Endoparasitic (2022) Endoparasitic 2 (2024) Platforms: WIN, MAC, LIN
While at the surface level it seems hard to distinguish between the two games despite being released two years apart, the fantastic and unique control scheme is what will keep players moving through this game. With only one limb remaining, you control the game with your mouse. Guns are manually reloaded one bullet at a time; you must inject yourself with various vaccines to stay alive. It’s a heart-pounding experience, and staying on the edge of your seat makes you jump at every sound and enemy that crawls towards you. The sequel is mostly the same, but with slightly improved visuals and mechanics.
This game is the closest you’ll get to a new Silent Hill game. It has the same vibes, atmosphere, aesthetics, and overall gameplay, but slightly less janky. While Tormented Souls introduces its own problems, it wouldn’t be copying a 1990s survival horror if it didn’t. Despite the lackluster plot, the monster designs, atmosphere, and music are enjoyable. Look forward to the sequel in 2025.
This is more of a roguelike survival horror. You must play a cycle of day and night with randomly generated levels. By day, you explore the woods, gather items, weapons, and ammo, and craft what you can. By night, you bunker down in your cabin and defend yourself from the monsters outside. There is a narrative, and you can discover, converse with, and determine the fate of various inhabitants of the world. It’s a very intense game and has a terrifying atmosphere for a top-down game.
The Evil Within (2014) The Evil Within 2 (2017) Platforms: WIN, PS4, 360, PS3, XB1
Despite being a “AAA” title, Bethesda cancelled the entire series because the second game didn’t garner much attention. While Bethesda still owns the IP, they have done nothing with it for the past 8 years, and it’s quite a shame. This is Shinji Mikami’s (Resident Evil) baby, and the first game got a lot of attention. Although it didn’t achieve the same level of success as Resident Evil, the game’s focus is primarily on horror rather than action. Sadly, the action in the game can’t decide if it wants to be a straight-up third-person shooter or a survival horror game. It’s best to play this game in easy mode first. The monster design is fantastic, and the atmosphere is great despite the story making zero sense. The second game took a more open-world approach and has refined gameplay. Sadly, Microsoft shut down Tango Gameworks this year so I doubt we will ever see this series again.
Nightmare of Decay (2022) Platforms: WIN
Heavily inspired by the first Resident Evil, Nightmare of Decay sees you waking up in a nightmarish manor full of zombies and cult members. You must manage your resources carefully and fight your way through. The story is by the numbers, but the action feels like a first-person Resident Evil title—graphics and all. The game just feels good, and while not insanely scary, the atmosphere is quite haunting and will make you cautious and watch whats around every corner. The UI is a bit underwhelming, but it gets the job done. This is just a “feel-good” horror game that feels like it would be right at home on the Nintendo 64 or PS1.
I’m not a huge Indiana Jones fan. The only one I remember is the fourth movie, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. When I was a child, I watched bits and pieces of the original trilogy when my parents would put it on, usually when it showed up on a cable network, but that was it. This is my first ever Indiana Jones game, and I have to say that I came away quite surprised with people giving it such high praise and holding it as the best Indiana Jones game to date. The story is cheesy and corny; the dialogue is terrible, and the characters lack depth. Indy himself has no backstory or context. You clearly must already be a fan of the movies, and the developers anticipated this. The storyline suggests that Indy finds himself in the midst of a task for a client and encounters obstacles. Then, the Chinese government hired him to find the dragon’s heart. He eventually encounters Nazis who are also in pursuit of the same object. It’s pretty pointless, and there are so few cut scenes that it really doesn’t matter.
The first half of the game is actually the worst. Stiff animations, clunky combat, and terrible platforming plague the entire game. The puzzles themselves would be neat in a Tomb Raider game, but here they showcase the poor level design. Indy either climbs things, pushes levers, does hand-to-hand combat, or shoots guns. That’s all there is to the entire game. Levels in the first half mostly consist of hand-to-hand combat, as ammo is very scarce. You can replenish your health by using medkits or drinking from your canteen, which refills at water fountains, a resource that becomes increasingly scarce as the game progresses. The canteen upgrades only work for the level you’re on and don’t carry over. There are also artifacts that need to be found in order to unlock concept art, which, to be honest, is a lame idea.
The stiff animations contribute to the clunkiness of platforming. Indy is really jerky or just doesn’t respond instantly to button presses. Because of this, I ended up falling off cliffs or missing jumps more times than I can count. You can also whip-swing, but the stiff animations feel sped up during the swing compared to the rest of the jumping. Having to cold jump to a ledge right above you is a chore. Indy must be precisely aligned to secure a grip. There are ledges you can shimmy across with a dedicated wall hug button, but the combat is even worse. Idy auto-aims and works most of the time, making shooting the best part of the game, but ammo is scarce in the first half. Melee combat just drags on forever. Enemies are fist sponges, and even with a melee weapon such as a sword or bat, opponents would take 20-30 hits to die. You can use your whip to knock weapons out of their hands, which is mandatory if they have a gun and you don’t. When more than two enemies gang up on you and back you into a corner, it becomes a chore to fight them off.
The level design is generic; even for 2003, it’s pretty bad. The game is bland and void of character, with a lot of rectangular empty rooms and hallways. The game occasionally shows something more when you are outdoors, but this doesn’t happen until mid-game. The game accelerates by letting you play one of the two on-rails sections, which it needed more of. The Nazi base is less puzzle-solving and more platforming and combat, which is what I prefer. The temple level proved to be the most challenging, primarily due to its underwater nature and poor swimming mechanics. Indy can only swim fast underwater, and there are sharks that can kill you. Boss fights are also a rare occurrence, but they were one of the few more intriguing elements of the game, as each boss fight needed something in the environment to weaken them before you could take them down. They were almost a mini-puzzle themselves.
Overall, the game is a mostly frustrating and overly long affair. The game can take up to 8 hours to finish if you don’t die frequently, but the devs could have completely eliminated the first half of the game. It’s the weaker half anyway. The unfair checkpoints also don’t help; you have to restart entire long sections every time you die. There are a few fun moments, such as the boss fights and on-rails sections, and the platforming is more enjoyable than the puzzle-solving, but the generic visuals, paper-thin plot, and cumbersome controls and animations hold this game up quite a bit.
The series Alone in the Dark appears to have a perpetual curse. While the earliest 3D titles, such as The New Nightmare, received fairly positive scores, these last two reboots just can’t seem to get things right. I’ll grant the 2008 reboot some leeway, as it attempted to innovate and reinvigorate the series, despite its minimal connection to the lore of Alone in the Dark beyond the protagonist’s name. This new reboot is more faithful to the first game—exploring a creepy mansion, solving puzzles, and having basic combat. It did feel more like The New Nightmare and much less like the 2008 game, but it didn’t boost the series to new heights either.
You can play as either Detective Carnby or Emily Heartwood. The differences here are limited to a few different scenarios in a few levels, but you must play both sides to find all the collectibles. Emily’s uncle is living in an adult family home for the sick, and she needs to get him out. As she explores the mansion, she appears to be trapped in a paranormal dimension, alternating between what might be reality, her uncle’s reality, or her own mind. One of the first issues with the game is that the game isn’t really all that scary. The monster designs are kind of neat but not super interesting, and the atmosphere is more Haunted Mansion and Scooby Doo Fright Night than Silent Hill, but that’s not the biggest issue.
The combat in Alone in the Dark is quite boring and terrible. The melee combat just consists of wildly swinging an object around. You have both a regular hit and a power hit. Items are breakable, but you can carry one around at all times. This is fine if you’re up against a single enemy or can’t reload in time, but most of the time swinging the object causes your character to lunge forward, and it just feels awkward and stiff. There’s not a block or parry button—just a dodge button. The remainder of the battle involves firing a revolver, shotgun, or Tommy gun, with limited ammunition available. In most scenarios, I felt that there were too many enemies coming at you in the tight and cramped spaces you are in. There are some throwable objects, but the only useful ones are the Molotov cocktails. Throwing bricks is pointless because it doesn’t do any damage. Occasionally, there are stealth sections, which are incredibly short (requiring you to weave through three rows of barrels for example) or impossible to complete due to the enemies’ lack of set patrol patterns.
The game primarily consists of aimless wandering while attempting to solve obtuse puzzles with vague hints. The game features combination locks, math, and puzzles that evoke nostalgia from the year 2005. There’s an Egyptian Temple level in which you need to find three lenses to bounce light around to unlock the main door. This consists of a constant back and forth through labyrinthine hallways. You need to find the switch to unlock the lens door, but that switch triggered a collapse, so now you have to find another switch to open the shortcut door. This just feels like lazy design and prolonged play time. The mansion itself is the most monotonous, with repetitive hallways and locked routes in each chapter. Even if you manage to find a key or unlock a door, it remains bolted or blocked in another chapter. This leads me to my biggest issue. Game-breaking bugs. I rarely encounter these in games, but I encountered a bug where a door was blocked, leading to the end of Chapter 4. I couldn’t progress, and that’s where my game ended. Restarting the entire chapter wasn’t a guarantee that it would fix the bug.
The visuals are pretty acceptable for what they are. They aren’t ugly, but they don’t feel like Alone in the Dark at all. The story is pretty forgettable, with uninteresting characters, fairly lame dialogue, and average voice acting. The stiff controls, animations, and combat bring the game down quite a bit, but the game-breaking bugs, absurd level design, lame stealth, and repetitive backtracking add up to a not-so-great adventure.
October 7, 2003, was a day to remember or completely forget, depending on who you were. The original N-Gage model sold for $299 ($462 adjusted for inflation) and was a graphical powerhouse on par with the original PlayStation. While the seven original launch titles were all ports from GBA and PlayStation, they ran from very well to questionable, and the system showed a lot of promise. I remember seeing the N-Gage in GameStop as a broke 13-year-old, wishing I could get one. The ads for Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, SonicN, Tony Hawk, andTomb Raidermade me green with envy. I was envious of all these amazing games that I could play on the go! It was way better than the dumb GBA! Actually, it wasn’t, but Nokia squandered its potential due to the immense power under the hood.
Ultimately, there are great videos on YouTube documenting the system’s history, but in the end, the original model most likely killed the system. The infamous “Taco” phone was sweeping the press and turning gamers off. A former GameStop employee told me that people frequently came in to roast the system and make fun of it when they saw the ads for it. It was the laughingstock of the industry, especially for Nintendo fanboys, and everyone knew it was going to fail. Whether that was accurate at the time remains a matter of debate, but it did not boost sales. They just couldn’t get enough. The portrait screen also turned off many users, necessitating manual customization of most games for the experience. Released just 7 months after the Taco model, the QD lacked features such as a USB port, MP3 playback, dual-band antenna instead of tri-band, and the same operating system, even though Symbian 7.0s had already been out before the QD’s release. This implies that gamers continued to rely on 1st generation Symbian games for content beyond the N-Gage library.
So what’s the QD experience like? It was frustrating, to be honest, but in the end, I grew fond of the little system. I have created a comprehensive guide explaining how to begin the collection process and set up the system, but it’s not an easy task. You need a standard-size SIM card, an MMC memory card (not made anymore), and a card reader for it. The N-Gage library is rather expensive to collect, with many going for $50+. There are a ton of great games available for the N-Gage. In fact, in its sad 65-game library, there are more good games than bad.
A new copy of SonicN sold by GameStop that I purchased
Physically, the QD feels good in the hands. It features a thick rubber bumper around the entire outer edge. The top sports a rubber stopper with the headphone jack and charger port, and the bottom has one for the card slot. These stoppers are a serious pain! They were always intended for older cell phones. Usually, the stoppers for the charging port or headphone jack will eventually tear and break. If you have a large N-Gage library, you’re going to eventually rip these stoppers. Maybe hard plastic would have been better, but this is a budget re-release, so I digress. The back has a removable battery door, and underneath is a spot for the SIM card. The front features a D-pad and various menu navigation and selection buttons on the right, as well as the standard numpad on the left. There are two raised buttons (5 and 7) that function as “game buttons.” You also get an orange backlight. The screen is a backlit 2.1″ TFT LCD at 176×208 resolution and looks pretty decent. At least it’s backlit, which is a nice touch.
In terms of software, the OS itself offers minimal customization options. It’s a standard affair, with the only customization being the wallpaper for the home screen and welcome screen. This is about all you could do on your phone back in the day. There isn’t even an option to customize the ringtone, really. The only special thing about this phone is the form factor and the unique game library, in which there are many awesome games available. If you can get an MMC card up and running, you can play cracked games since the library is so expensive.
How does it feel to actually play the games? Well, it’s a bit awkward at first as the face buttons are so close together. While the 5 and 7 keys have a distinct height, I can still easily hit other buttons, and the D-pad feels surprisingly comfortable. You can roll your thumb around it easily enough. I think shoulder buttons or a push-out keyboard could have helped here. But let’s get to the true reason why anyone would want this. The games. How do they feel and play?
They vary greatly. Sadly, the system didn’t have a long enough life to really iron out the kinks and let developers hone their tools. Some games feel great on the system, like they were hand-tailored, while others feel completely shoe-horned in just to make a quick buck on some hype. The N-Gage isn’t anything special in that regard. The N-Gage received the same treatment as every other console. The portrait screen is probably the system’s biggest fault. Although developers can adapt control schemes to the screen, they must completely tailor games to the orientation. No other console has ever done this before, unless you count the Vectrex or something else. Either stick to widescreen (16:9) or 4:3. Heck, even 1:1 would have worked just fine. I also wish the screen was a little bigger. Even a mere inch would suffice. There’s plenty of detail here, as the TFT LCD is pretty nice for the time period, but that orientation really narrows your field of view.
When it comes to performance, the N-Gage did pretty okay in 3D. It is certainly better than the Gameboy Advance, but not as good as the PSP or even the DS. Games that seem like they were really well adapted ran fine on the system with a little slowdown, such as Ashen, but other games like RedFaction and Tomb Raider run at a sub-30 FPS most of the time. However, some games, such as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, consistently run at 60FPS or even higher. While control schemes with a few buttons work well on the system, anything that requires the entire keypad can get cumbersome due to the layout. Ashen requires the whole keypad, including buttons, to free-look. While it certainly works and takes some getting used to, it’s not ideal at all. It’s the same issue the PSP had with no second analog nub.
Nokia aggressively promoted their N-Gage Arena online gaming, which bore a striking resemblance to Xbox LIVE. This allowed for multiplayer via cellular or Bluetooth connections. Although I am unable to test it at this time, my research indicates that it functioned reasonably well as long as you had adequate coverage in your location. It also depended on the game’s specific net code. I can imagine this being a big deal back in the day, as there weren’t any online wireless portable gaming systems like we have now. The only other portable system to offer cellular online play would be the 3G PlayStation Vita almost a decade later, which bombed spectacularly. Interestingly, the N-Gage Arena launch page remains active as of this writing, but all other links within are inoperable. After the N-Gage devices died out, the N-Gage gaming service survived for a few more years, ending up on their higher-end N-series phones. These were the last Nokia Symbian-based phones before smartphones took over. The N-Gage 2.0 was more of a gaming device than a completely new gadget. These only ran on higher-end phones, such as the N95 (mine pictured below). Games such as Metal Gear Solid Mobile were large names that would hopefully make mobile devices a serious gaming platform. Regrettably, this realization came too late.
Overall, the N-Gage QD was the system that should have been out at launch. While it doesn’t feel as well-built as the original model and cuts some features, it makes gaming on the thing—which was the main marketing push for it—better and just more accessible. Better buttons, easier access to the game slot, a smaller form factor, and just a few other tweaks were enough to consider this version the definitive N-Gage experience, but it was too little, too late. Indeed, the N-Gage library boasts a surprisingly robust selection of games, surpassing the quality of many “failed” systems. Released at the height of the handheld era, the N-Gage faced inevitable failure due to the dominance of the GBA, rumors of new handhelds from Nintendo and Sony, and its eventual higher price compared to both systems. The exclusion of children from the market due to the need for a cell phone and a talk plan further increased the cost, a burden that parents were unwilling to bear. The much cheaper Game Boy Advance was a better alternative. If Nokia had released a game-only version at a price that was more than half the original price and made some adjustments, it might have been a more viable option. Who knows? But it’s still worth having in your collection.
Less than a year later, the much-loved Twilight of the Spirits sequel released to little fanfare. I expected a lot of improvements and more of the same, but this game was a huge departure and mostly recycled content. You play as a seemingly generic character named Edda, a young boy from Cragh Island who is the last surviving excorcist. You now have a Slothian Deimos companion, Hemo, who is annoying and tags along for most of the dialogue. The story seems like it would start out as a normal sequel, picking up right where the last one left off. The previous heroes are all in new senior roles or retired now, but that’s not the case—far from it in fact.
The story essentially goes nowhere. The entire battle system is now real-time, but in a detrimental way. You can attack enemies in arenas with a basic attack button, but you can only use magic if your card is equipped. The card system undermines the foundations established in the initial game. There are special “gimmicks” and part cards. You can purchase the part cards for armor and weapons from vendors or find them in the field. You also have the opportunity to play as all the heroes from the previous game, provided you find their cards hidden somewhere in the world. The frustrating part about all of this is your hunter rank. To rank up at the arena, you must complete repetitive quests such as escort missions, kill X amount of enemies, find X items, and so on, earning two different types of stars in the process. You take a test, and after you rank up, more missions unlock. There doesn’t appear to be much of a story in this game. There are a few story-based missions you can take on, but the combat is so atrocious and downright boring that I never made it past the third rank.
When I refer to areas that are recycled, I mean that they are taken directly from the game. While it’s cool to see the old locales and heroes, the removal of their models from the game creates an uneven visual mess. The newer assets appear marginally better than those from the previous game, but when combined with the older ones, the overall aesthetic is unimpressive. End of Darkness, a 2005 game, just looks plain generic and awful. There’s no personality here. One of the only things that held the previous game together was the excellent story and interesting characters, but they just don’t exist here. The dialogue is dry and dull, and there is almost nothing to like here. Combat could have saved this game, but relying on boring real-time combat and repetitive quests in reused areas just doesn’t cut it.
There have been no improvements in the quality of life. Cities contain hidden holes that Hemo can crawl through. You would think that each hidden hole would hold a cool item or a card, but most of the time, all you get is recipe advice and hints. An absolute waste of time. If that wasn’t enough, there’s nothing else to do in this game except complete the hunter missions and do the ranking trials. It’s also a very short game, if you can get through it without dying of boredom. The game is about half the length of the first one.
Overall, End of Darkness feels more like a side experiment rather than a full-fledged reboot or sequel. It feels like Cattle Call didn’t know which one to choose and decided to try to be both. The new combat system is boring, tedious, and awful. The story is almost non-existent, and the visuals haven’t significantly improved. The new card system is unwieldy and uninteresting, and playing as previous heroes feels pointless.
Around 2004/2005, towards the end of the sixth generation console cycle, games began to take a new turn. AAA titles were becoming something bigger. Blockbuster video games with cinematic gameplay were all the rage as consoles became more powerful. Stormfront Studios was all the rage with their smash-hit movie tie-ins to Peter Jackson’s last two The Lord of the Rings films. The linear gameplay, coupled with unique combat for each character and the ability to bring the world of the movies to life as a playable game, was fantastic and executed well. Here, there’s not much. Having the Dungeons & Dragons license at your fingertips and doing none of the D&D stuff with it is a crying shame. This game could have worked as a generic fantasy title if they just changed a few of the characters’s names.
The game features a captivating opening level. You start out right away in the heat of the action, similar to The Lord of the Rings games. The backgrounds are full of action, battles, flying dragons, and collapsing structures. It’s all here. Each of the three characters introduces you to their combat. The three characters are Rannek, a warrior, Illius, a sorcerer, and Zhai, a rogue. Each can perform the typical tasks associated with their respective classes. Rannek is a powerful fighter with a large sword and heavier armor. Zhai is able to turn invisible for a brief time and sneak attack foes. She is also the fastest with dual knives. Illius can attack with his staff, but he’s best at long-range magic shooting at enemies. This sounds great and all, but the combat quickly falls apart, and its problems show long before the first level ends.
You can switch between each character at any time. Each character’s health meter is located in the lower left corner, as well as a power meter. This meter fills up, and the characters can do a powerful AOE (area of effect) move to clear out enemies. If they all have their power moves ready, you can make an ultimate attack and have all three do theirs at the same time for maximum damage. The initial drawback is that receiving a hit causes your power meter to decrease. This makes no sense. The combat system’s configuration, where groups of enemies relentlessly assault you, lacks a method for evading or parrying. There are two and three hit combos, as well as a ground stab, which is completely useless because enemies don’t fall to the ground outside of a single stage.
This made combat feel like a mindless button masher. I didn’t bother with combos, as they held no significance. The areas are also so cramped that I couldn’t get Illius back far enough to use as a range support. Most of the time, Zhai felt completely useless. Enemies will drop health and power meter bottles, and occasionally you will find treasure chests with coins or maximum health upgrades, but most of the chests are empty. Again, another pointless gameplay addition. I had to exploit the health system, as AI-controlled partners will not die about 99% of the time. When I was down to my last hit, I would switch characters, as it would always seem that health potions would drop more for the AI characters than for myself. The boss fights feel epic in scale and are indeed cinematic, but they feel janky, and most can replenish their health for no apparent reason other than to prolong the battles.
The game is also full of unfair checkpoints. At times, you are forced to replay entire sections with dozens of hordes pursuing you, and you cannot skip cut scenes. This became increasingly challenging as the game progressed. Demon Stone steals the only RPG elements from the D&D setting, offering moves and attributes that you can purchase with either gold or experience. There is an auto-buy feature that I used because it didn’t matter what you bought; you always felt underpowered, or only a single character would feel more powerful. Everything is incredibly imbalanced. To make matters worse, the game only has 10 levels that can be completed in around 4 hours if you don’t die a lot during the last couple of levels. There are some extras to unlock, but they aren’t worth it.
With that said, the story is lame and pointless. We know we need to trap Ygorl, the main antagonist in the Demon Stone, but there’s no lore here. The characters have no backstory at all. There’s the occasional one-line quip about Zhai’s half-breed roots, but the length of the game doesn’t give you enough time to develop a deeper story. Despite the inclusion of well-known voice actors like Patrick Stewart, Michael Clark Duncan, and B.J. Ward, I found the game lacking in depth. They each have a couple dozen lines, as the cutscenes are incredibly short. Despite the obvious high production values, impressive visuals, and good sound design, the overall impression is one of shallowness and flatness. The game could have benefited from additional time to develop into a more expansive adventure, rather than a rushed and cramped corridor hack and slash.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…