Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

Action and adventure galore, just make sure not to play this one in the dark.

By: Eli Green

Developer: Silicon Knights

Publisher: Nintendo

Rated: M

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is the first release on the Nintendo Gamecube by Canadian developer, Silicon Knights. The story follows the lead character, Alexandra Roivas, as she tries to uncover the mystery behind her grandfather's death. She soon discovers that her grandfather had been leading a secret life, involved in the study of the dark arts. Finding a strange book in a concealed room in her grandfather's mansion, Alexandra comes to discover  the focus of her grandfather's research, a plot by ancient powers to destroy the world and the stories of the people who have tried to stop it.

That's when things get scary. As the gameplay follows each character's personal chapter within the storyline the player is faced with monsters, magic, deathtraps and the slow deterioration of their characters' sanity, resulting in enough hallucinations to drive even the most well balanced gamer off their rocker.

Gameplay

The control system is very simple and easy to use, including customisable buttons for quick  spell use. Aiming and attacking is the same for each weapon, long or short range. Simply use the A button to attack freely, or use the R button to aim at specific limb on your target before pressing A to attack.

Magic, or Magick as they spell it in the game, can be executed either by assigning quick spells to the buttons of your choice or by going into the menu and selecting and casting spells by their category.

One of my favourite parts of this game is the Sanity Meter. The more afraid your character is, or the more monsters you encounter, your sanity level drops, causing your character to hallucinate. Silicon Knights was extremely creative with this feature using sanity effects like the random head explosion, bleeding walls, upside down rooms and much more. This feature, alongside the rest of the frightening gameplay will be sure to freak anybody out.

Environment and Graphics

The locations in Eternal Darkness are quite lush and well detailed. Even though the game only uses indoor locations, there is still a sense of architectural design in place, not just a linear level system. Many of the locations in the game also have a dark feel to them. Decaying ruins and old church halls have a  frightening look. The ability to have the characters interact with objects, whether they simply give information on something or have accompanying actions, is a nice touch and adds to the feeling of the environment itself. The fact that characters also react to certain things in the game, such as crackling fires is also a really nice addition.

The character design is very nicely done and each character is well detailed. The characters' bodies move with fluidity and appear very close to real human movement. Admittedly, there are some things with the characters which could have looked better. On some of the characters the texturing on some areas, such as skin or parts of clothing, is quite noticeable. As graphic technology advances it's highly probably that that kind of problem will be seen much less.

The use of FMV for the cutscenes is understandable. While seeing them in real time video would have been very cool, there are just some things that wouldn't have looked quite as nice, or might not have been possible at all. Things like the ancients wouldn't have had quite the same effect if they were shown in real time. And frankly, the FMV just looks beautiful.

Sound

One word can be used to describe the sound for Eternal Darkness. Creepy. The sound on this game is just plain creepy. Keep you up in bed at night, huddled in a little ball with a flashlight creepy. I give it two thumbs way up. As such an integral part of the scare factor, it was necessary to make the sound as good as possible, and Silicon Knights did not slouch on that. Echoed voices in the background, blood curdling screams, a good mystery soundtrack including great voice work for each character push the level of fear to higher heights.

As an added bonus, if you have a surround sound system or, better yet, one with Dolby Pro Logic II, you can get the full surround experience. Every single bone chilling voice will haunt you from all around you. If you somehow weren't scared before, you will be now. Just don't turn off the lights.

Conclusion

It's nice to see that some developers actually have the guts these days to step up and make something original. Silicon Knights put a lot of work into this game, and it shows. I'm making sure to play this game again.

Gameplay: 9.9

Environment and Graphics: 9

Sound: 10

Story: 10

Fun: 9.5

Overall: 9.8