The Mortuary Assistant Review (Atarun)
Description
The Mortuary Assistant is a first-person puzzle horror game. You play as Rebecca Owens, a quite unlucky mortuary assistant who just finished her training and must now take on a night shift... but, among the bodies to embalm, one is possessed by an entity very intent on switching from that corpse to Rebecca's body.
You cannot hide, run, or fight back. There is but one way to survive:
Perform occult rituals to reveal the entity's name
Identify which corpse is possessed
Banish the demon
There are many randomly activated events, plenty of information to uncover, items that move around to keep you on your toes, and 6 (5 unlockable + game over) different endings depending on how you perform and what you find and/or unlock during a shift.
The game saves automatically. You can restart the current shift from the main menu. To witness the introduction cinematics again, however, you must erase all your data.
Warning: Embalming bodies is a somewhat gruesome activity. Even outside horror events, just performing your ascribed tasks as a mortician, there'll be enough gore and graphic images to make a weak stomach churn. Buyers beware.
Pros
Extremely creepy atmosphere
Tension that keeps building through each shift
Diverse bone-chilling encounters
Encounter placement adapts to your camera angles and movements for maximum effect
Haunting music
Great voice acting
Immersive approach to exorcism
Embalming gameplay that stays fresh for a good while (mainly because items keep moving between shifts)
Cons
Unwieldy controls, especially when moving the gurney
Annoying inventory management system (though it does up the tension at times)
Lack of variety in bodies (you keep embalming the same ones with different names)
Somewhat confusing save system (and without save slots)
Lackluster graphics and animations
Verdict
It had been a while since a horror game surprised and haunted me this much. It is tough to believe that this game has been made by a solo developer (excluding voice actors and asset providers)...
The experience feels really fresh and unique. If you like horror games and the idea of embalming bodies does not make you squeamish, I heartily recommend this gem to you.