I played Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

Have you ever wanted to play a game based on the writing of HP Lovecraft that still wasn't a rehash of one of his stories. Well, this is the closest I've found so far. There are games based on his stories, and games that use his stories as a script, yet, to me, this game gets the feeling so much closer to reading one of his stories.

There are some very great mechanics in play here, as well as a method of story telling that you don't see often. Your primary character is Alexandra Riovas (obvious name is obvious) who just inherited her grandfather's estate and is looking around, trying to figure out what happened. As you uncover the truth you find that maybe the truth was better kept hidden.

She is the primary character. You play as quite a few people in different eras, even overlapping with other characters. Each character is important to the story as they each contributed something to the over all ending. But besides the woman you play, another character that's very important is a Roman Centurion.

Three Ancients are in a state of war, stuck in a stalemate as one over powers the other. But the Centurion changes that. Near the beginning of the game you choose an Ancient to dedicate the Centurion to, leaving another for your character. This is important as there's that three way rock-paper-scissors dynamic to the Ancients.

As you experience other characters, guiding them towards their goal, they learn magic that gets passed to the main character. You use this magic to expose new areas in the mansion and find secrets. Breaking old magic to get closer to the truth.

And the truth has consequences. Sanity is a big part of this game, and has it's own dedicated bar. Most enemies can deplete your sanity just by looking at you, and when your sanity runs out they start to deplete your health.

But that's not all losing your sanity does. There are a lot of in game effects that result from losing your sanity, literally coming to pieces, the map flipping upside down, empty inventory. And even 4th wall breaking things. The Blue Screen of death, deleting your data, resetting the game.

Now, all of these are the result of lost sanity and not actually happening, which is reinforced when the character often screams as much. But these are all touches that made the game more interesting and immersive to me, even the 4th wall breaking effects. The first time I saw these things I had to question just what was going on myself. Truth be told I really messed up the first time with one of those and turned off the game before it could “delete” my saves.

The magic system in this game is interesting, you get runes and use combinations of these runes to form spells in circles of power. Starting with the name of an ancient, and then two runes to make the spell. These spells can be enhanced in five and seven slot circles of power, but it's the same spell as the three rune spell, you just repeat “Pargon” a lot. The game does keep a list of the spells you've sussed out so you don't have to memorize the whole list.

The name of the ancient used determines little other than in a rock-paper-scissors type of power dynamic. The one time it makes a big difference is healing. One ancient heals HP, one restores sanity, and one just gives you a refund on the mana you used to cast the spell.

As you go through the mansion you find items to take back to the hidden study where reading the Tome of Eternal Darkness moves you back and forth in time, telling the story in a more comprehensive manner than if it were directly linear. But this also plays into the disjointed nature of the narrative. Leaving you to wonder just when you'll be next, and just what will be happening. It's a very appropriate method to follow for the tone of the game.

One of the particularly interesting parts is the run down of the monsters from the journal (autopsies). The first time you look at the entries they're narrated by their author and, credit to the actor, you can hear his madness as he talks. Those voiced entries creeped me out more than they should have, but they were very well done.

This game is a trip, but a fun one if you like madness horror games. It works well with the graphics available to it and creates some unsettling creatures and atmospheric settings. The story is interesting, involved and compelling. All in all well worth playing, and underrated if I may say so myself. There were once plans for a spiritual successor, but they were unable to raise the funds to do so, but I would love to see more games in this vein.

Mantorok Nethlek Redgormor Pargon Pargon

There's a fourth Ancient. One capable of defeating the other three Ancients. But it is weak and needs you to accomplish it's goals.

You can only aid Mantorok by beating the game three times, once with each of the other Ancients. Not that you have much choice, each time you start a New Game + the Ancient you claimed last time is unavailable, eventually leaving only one.

Mantorok has been manipulating time, rewinding it, making you repeat it to build your power and exhaust the power of the other Ancients.

But Mantorok cannot summon creatures to aid you, and the magic cost is heavy. Use your knowledge from the earlier timelines to overcome Pious and the Ancients. While Mantorok's motivations are unknown, it is at least not hostile to humans. This may be the best that can be hoped for.