Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem -- Game Review Written by Nicholas Mezza
System- Gamecube
Genre- Survival Horror/Puzzle
Play Modes / Features- Single Player Story
Rating-M

Survival Horror games have been trying for a while now to distinguish themselves from the cookie-cutter titles of the genre. Unlike so many others, this one has implemented an interesting story while still offering a unique and entertaining gaming experience. This game's unique aspect is that it introduces your character's sanity into the mix. This means that as you blast your way through monsters, you start going 'nuts'. This is pulled off well, as you start 'seeing and hearing things'.

The story starts with your grandfather (who lives in a mansion... c'mon, what's spookier than a mansion?) having been murdered by an unknown person. And you, his granddaughter, are drawn to his mansion to discover the secrets of his dark life and to ultimately find who or what killed him. As you progress, the dark spirits slowly show themselves in several adventures, which you take by reading an ancient magical book your grandfather has been studying. As you start losing your sanity, the game gets spookier, and presents some shocking moments.

The graphics that will be presenting you this game's ghosts and gore are only adequate, and could have been polished a little more. The character models, while well made around the face, are somewhat boxy with sharp edges on other parts of the body. Overall the game has no revolutionary effects, but picks up no glaring deficiencies.

The ambience in this game is what makes it shine. Music is fitting, with drums and chants in temples, and creepy, slow-paced music in the mansion. Seemingly trying to freak you out, the mansion music also contains moments with sudden whispers and background noises. More obvious sounds make their appearance as you lose your sanity. I particularly enjoy the sudden loud knocking on a door when you are in a small, dark room. The weapon sounds are only decent, but since this is not a pure action game, need no improvement.

Creatures in the game behave simply, and have no reason to be intelligent, as they are zombie-like. Therefore, while the AI is rather simple, it is not a problem. What I do find interesting is the fact that when creatures lose body parts, they lose their function. For example, when a zombie loses its head, the creature wanders aimlessly or sits still, randomly attacking anything that touches it.

The controls are fluid and very easy to use. The control feature I like most is the game's selective targeting, where you can choose where to strike the enemy, to disable specific body parts. The only complaint I have is the slight sluggishness of the controls during battle. Another great fact about the game is that I never found an area where the camera is poorly placed. The cameras that don't give you a good view are placed for effect and don't occur where battles take place. The camera will, though, be placed in more poorly chosen places when your sanity drops, as well as being tilted, or have things like blood dripping down the screen. However, there is no difficulty setting, and the game is rather easy, so there is little challenge. The puzzles also are not very inspired.

As far as I can tell, there are no special replay options, so the replayability of the game would have to base upon not knowing when you'll get freaked out. This is good enough though, as there are so many places where you could have sanity problems, there is no way to predict them. For example, soon after I finished one of the adventures, the game stops for about ten seconds and shows a "To be continued" screen with ads for the 'next' game! Also, your character tends to imagine events that don't happen, and then appear a room or two back. Some of these are really freaky. One time, in the middle of a healing spell, I suffered a gruesome death only to realize my character was imagining it. This may sound annoying, but never significantly affects your progress through the game, and really makes the game unpredictable.

An interesting approach to the genre of survival horror, adding more 'horror' to the far to common 'survival'. If this has been your criticism, I definitely recommend trying this one out. But don't bother if you didn't like survival horror already. Oh, and make sure you play it with the lights out. It might scare the... ahem... It'll be spooky.

Ratings (Out of 10)
Graphics - 7.5
Sound - 10
AI / Programming - 7
Control / Difficulty - 6.5
Replayability / Depth- 7.5
OVERALL - 7.7