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The Indie Style Resident Evil 1

When you awake, you find yourself in a mansion, where was the secret research center, is now a maze full of horrible zombies and deadly traps. You'll have to escape by overcoming your fears, collecting items, solving innovative puzzles and revealing the cruel truth.
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About
Description


💾Graphics
The graphics are pretty unique. It’s cartoony, but has this top down view which looks nice. It’s not a graphically demanding game or looks amazing, but it sets the tone nicely and well enough to have a solid atmosphere. The UI is clean, simple, and impossible to get lost in. One issue I really had was the in-game map to an extent. The map does have flaws. For example it doesn't show you which doors are locked/require a key, and what items in a room you missed. Besides that minor gripe, it’s really well design and has a great minimal style to it (in terms of the map). One other gripe I does involve the artsyle of this game. The top down view in this game makes it where you can see other rooms, even ones you haven't been through. This takes away the mystery and dread of "what's behind that door" feeling, if that makes any sense. It can take away the sense of mystery, and fear of not knowing what's on the other side. They could have blackened those rooms until you explore them, or something to make it where you can see them immediately before exploring them.


🎮Gameplay
The gameplay is your standard survival horror game, well in terms of mechanics. There is nothing new here besides the art style. Now that doesn’t make it a bad game. Having safe rooms spread around the mansion with your iconic safe room item box really brings in that classic Resident Evil 1 feel. Going through the damp and tight hallways filled with the undead never really gets old for me. Reading journals around the mansion and solving tricky puzzles to advance through the story is your classic Resident Evil style gameplay. Now I’m not gonna say the puzzles are good here. They can be really confusing especially since the journals don’t really have the greatest English if I’m gonna be honest. Also the directions at times on how to solve these puzzles are vague at best. I personally had to watch videos to solve multiple puzzles (and I never had to do that with many RE titles and any other Survival Horror titles). This can slow down the pace and get pretty frustrating. Another frustrating thing about this game is just how repetitive it gets. You only have one gun, which is your handgun, and only one enemy type. Killing the same slow zombie over and over again with little to not much variety can get boring. The only variety you get is that some zombies move a little faster, that literally it.


📜Story
The story is pretty interesting. You will only learn about the story by reading journals around the map. I guess I’m willing to let this slide since it’s a really small team and a cheap game. The lores are actually pretty fascinating. Knowing how the virus was created and where it came from was unique and I can appreciate that. Trying to find your way out of a mansion and learning about the dark secrets of the occupants that used to live there was actually fun and I had a good time with it. Sadly the boss fight (as fun as it was) just felt underwhelming in terms of buildup. There wasn’t much to know about this tyrant-like creature before you fought it. You do have multiple endings as well to complete. You have your good, bad, and special ending.


🕛Playtime
The playtime is super short here. Averaging at around 1.5 - 2 hours. You do have some replay value with achievement challenges and multiple endings to complete.


🎧Sound
The sound of the design is alright. Nothing really special. There are problems with the soundtrack loop when you are roaming the halls, or sitting in the safe room. The loop/cut of the sound track before it repeats is so sudden and doesn’t blend well. It's just like an instant cut of the theme and repeats again. It’s pretty jarring at first but you will forget about it after a little bit. I just never played a game with that issue before. The gun effect sound okay, and the zombies are alright I guess.


❗Bugs❗
I had some weird audio glitches here. For example a zombie would be on the left, but the noises would be on my right. I found that to be pretty annoying. Besides that little complaint, I never really had any other issues in terms of bugs.


🔅Performance
The performance is what you would expect especially with these graphics. The game runs perfectly fine. I had no issues with stutters, frame rate or crashes. You can play this with a old PC and have no problems at all.


✔️Pro’s

Multiple endings
Reminiscent of Resident Evil 1
Pretty unique artstyle and graphics
Cool top down view style gameplay
Really cool lore build into the game
Great level design and atmosphere
A good game for people with low end PC's that want to experience survival horror
Nice survival mechanics (safe room, item box, space/ammo management, and more)
Vending machines can give you clues to puzzles and buy upgrades, gunpowder, etc. Also requires a currency to use




❌Con’s

Puzzles are way too vague at times
Combat is extremely barebones and bland
Can’t move items around in the inventory menu
Music has an obvious cut/loop (possible bug)
English translation is not the best in the journals
No special zombies or different guns (just a simple pistol)
Wish the map had more detail in terms of unlocked doors and cleared rooms
You can see through other rooms, even ones you haven't explored yet. This removes any sense of mystery or fear of danger




🏆Rating
6/10
I’d say it’s worth full price.


🔗Conclusion
If you are a fan of survival horror or the classic Resident Evil game, then you may really enjoy this game. It does have some issues and found the puzzles to be frustrating. Also the gameplay loop is not there (besides achievements). You won’t find much variety here in terms of weapons, enemies, etc. It’s almost like a mediocre Resident Evil clone in my opinion, but for the price and passion behind this game, I’m gonna give it a thumbs up. If you are needing that itch for a survival horror experience or a similar feeling to the RE titles, then give this a try.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1032590/Heaven_Dust/
Links to help you in Heaven Dust:

100% Achievements Guide

Specs for Review:

GPU: ASUS GeForce GTX 1070 8GB ROG Strix
CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.9 GHz
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 3200MHz