What is Eternal Darkness? This game had been in development for a long time and was initially billed as being the Gamecubes first adult title. Then all information regarding the game ceased. Finally it was realeased in June where its launch was a quiet affair. So it brings us to the answer. Eternal Darkness is a survival horror romp, with a twist.
You start the game as the daughter of a wealthy family, being informed of the death of your grandfather. You being the nearest living relative are required to identify his body which has been brutaly mutilated. Once you have established that the body does belong to your grandfather you learn that the police have no leads what so ever. You become increasingly frustrated by the lack of any leads from the police that you decide to embark on your own investigation. This begins in your grandpas now empty mansion where his body was found. The game begins............
Eternal Darkness plays very similar to Resident Evil but adds so much more to the genre. Firstly the game is broken down into chapters. Each chapter puts you in the shoes of a different character with each having his/her own story and goals to complete. The formular stays the same as Resident Evil where you find object A and place it with object B. Each chapter is set in a different time period so in one chapter you could be in the middle ages and the next, World War I.
The combat involves the usual guns, but also melee weapons such as knives and swords. You can even use fists. Each weapon is relative to the time period which you are in. The combat system also features hit location, so you can aim for head, arms, torso etc. This adds some basic tacticts to the combat as opposed to positioning yourself correctly and shooting then moving (as in Resident Evil).
Eternal Darkness also adds a feature which is new to the genre ,magic abilities. These range from the usual healing to offensive and defensive spells. You can also summon various creatures to do your bidding which is fun. You have to discover the spells by finding scrolls and tabs throughout the game. You can also gain spells earlier on in the game by using a spell edit feature.
Lastly we come to another quirk in the game, the FEAR. Each charcter has a bar of fear which decreases when there are enemies around. Killing enemies recovers that bar. If however, you play like you would in Resident Evil and avoid combat or are low on health and you avoid combat this bar reaches zero and you literaly FREAK OUT. I wont spoil it for you but I can say that there are some weird and funny momments in there to confuse you during play.
What we have here then is an accomplished game featuring a sinister story incorperating some new combat styles and magic abilities. The chapter format works well and the Fear meter is tense and fun. The game utilises realtime graphics as opposed to Resident Evils pre-rendered. This comes to my first criticism. Although the graphical style is smooth and detailed it lacks the punch that you get from pre-rendered backdrops. Also most of the locations are pretty boring and repetitive favouring indoor catacomb and temple enviroments. The speed of the character sometimes feels too slow. I can see that the designers wanted to incorperate realistic character movement but this often hinders the gameplay as you want to press on, but move slowly. It seems to take an age to get from A to B. Finally the difficulty seems a tad too easy but maybe thats me being picky. On the replay front you have 3 different overall story settings which change elements of the same story such as enemy types. Also once completed you are then able to choose any chapter and play it at your leisure. Overall this game is going to be compared to Resident Evil and 1 on 1 I'd have to say the big Resident Evil Wins. That said Eternal Darkness has its own merits, the combat, chapters, fear and magic and is a good game in its own right. So if your looking for something to feed your craving for a survival horror fix and you've eaten too much Resident E then Eternal Darkness will definitely Entertain your inards until the next. Resident Evil 0.
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