Amnesia: The Dark Descent Review (LordSithaniel)
Review
There is the type of horror game that is just a different type of walking simulator and those that play like a survival horror one, where its action and resource management, sometimes puzzles. Amnesia is more like the latter despite having no combat to offer. It’s a famous game due to custom mods and youtube but in itself I found it one of the best horror games I’ve played.
Gameplay
Your main character suffers from fear of darkness therefore you not only have a health bar but also a sanity meter that decreases slowly when standing in darkness too long. The way it works is that your characters vision will slowly deteriorate, adding visual effects like insects crawling over the screen or in the last stage will make movement completely sluggish like the protagonist being drunk.
This system is super fun although not balanced that well. I really love this idea but in practice it’s a bit too easy to plummet to the last stage when an enemy is around and you have to hide in darkness. Additionally looking at the enemy or seeing scripted disturbing events gives it a negative hit aswell. Some balancing might be better as the only proper way to restore it is to solve puzzles or hit a certain objective.
There are health potions if you get hit by monsters or from other damages although I didn’t really use any of them in my playthrough. The main resource is tinderboxes (matches for light sources in the environment) and oil for your lamp.
Since you have no combat the main goal is finding items and resources to be able to push past obstacles. There is an elevator not working? So, find a key in another room to find the parts in another one and repair the elevator in the machine room. The games length and the diversity of the gameplay aspects between puzzles (while being luckily not that complicated), hiding or chase sequences from monsters to more environmental or storytelling moments is pretty great.
This culminated in a satisfying ending after 4-6 hours of playtime if you take it slow. Before anything in the game got stale or boring it finished which left me wanting for more but completely entertained throughout.
There is also a sort of loosely collected new story called Justine that is short, 20-30 minutes long and ramps up the horror element even more although does not offer saves so can be hit or miss.
Story
I think what’s great about its story is how it starts with a super intriguing intro sequence that wants you to know why your character drank a potion to let him forget everything. The story slowly reveals itself through letters found in the environment and without resorting to guides I completely understood the story and it also left a lot of mystery making it absolutely memorable.
Sound
While I think the voice acting of the protagonist can be hit or miss the whole sound design is absolutely not. I especially love the feature that when enemies are around the music distorts, if you look at them the screen too. Making the beings scarier and more monstrous than they actually are. Especially when chasing you and the violin string noise that accompanies their sound gets more and more shrill and louder the closer, they are, making for some great chase sequences which the game rarely puts into so it doesn’t lose its effect.
Graphics
The game is quite old but due to its phenomenal usage of lighting it still holds up today. Especially great is the number of objects placed. You can pick up anything a normal person would be able to carry around, heavier objects can only be pushed. Wheels must be manually turned via the mouse and levers pushed down or up. This with the great effects and variety of set pieces that feel credible yet otherworldly make a truly immersive piece of software.
Conclusion/TL;DR
I feel like amnesia absolutely nails the defencelessness in a horror yet a high amount of player interactivity is present due to its neat puzzles, gameplay and set piece variety and item/resource management. It has so many great ideas that after that many tried to copy it and failed. Even the developers themselves but that’s another story.
Absolutely fantastic horror experience with survival horror elements.