Review: Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Silicon Knights
Origin: U.S.
System: Nintendo GameCube
Genre: Adventure, Horror
Released: June 24, 2002 (Domestic)
ESRB Rating: M

I heard of this game before its release and recently decided to buy it when I found it at a local gaming store, and boy was it a good find. Before its release, the game was very hyped since when it was announced to weeks before its release. A lot thought of it to be the next big Resident Evil rival, but its not exactly that, read on to find out.

Eternal Darkness is a game you’ll want to turn your lights out at night and unravel the amazing and well thought out storyline and puzzles. The story follows Alexandra Roivas, a young and beautiful woman in her mid-twenties. She is called up late one night to discover her grandfather has just been brutally murdered, so she quickly runs to the scene at her grandfathers dark and moody mansion. When she arrives, the police explain how her grandfather was brutally murdered, even missing his own head. They explain how there are no clues, so she decides to stay and uncover what clues she can. So begins the scary and fascinating story of Eternal Darkness.

The story is so complex and entertaining and above is just the start of a great adventure.

For those who put this in the same world as Resident Evil, its much more then that, a more complex and in-depth game then Resident Evil.

The games foundation consists of the main character of Alex, solving puzzles in the mansion to find chapter pages.

These chapter pages are the main goal of the game, you must collect each one. Each chapter page consists of an actual in-game story where you control that character from that chapter.
This is the best thing about the game, each of the 12 characters from the chapters all have their own story, personality, background, and ending. Each character and chapter spans through centuries, from 1400’s to the 1900’s.

You’ll control a Roman soldier, or even some Roivas ancestors. After completing each chapter, you’ll be brought back to Alex’s story as if she finished reading it, afterwards you might be able to use info or Magick (Read below) to solve puzzles in the mansion as Alex from that chapter.

The games gameplay is much easier and in-depth then any Resident Evil game. The characters control and movement aren’t as sluggish and robot like, and more agile.
The gameplay is made up of different puzzles, perhaps you’ll need to unlock a door by finding the key, or a missing doorknob, or maybe a hidden book.
But that’s the most simple the puzzles will get, some puzzle solving will have to be solved by using Magick, the most important and interesting part of the game.

Magick (Yep, Magic) is very important to the gameplay and puzzles of Eternal Darkness (ED).
After awhile in the game, you’ll begin finding Runes and info on creating new Magick Spells.
Most of you might get turned off at this, but its not as complicating and boring as it sounds to those who are turned off on magical spells and such.

The spells will get more interesting and fun to discover as the game and chapters go on. Some spells can be used to solve puzzles in the game. For instance, lets say you find a puzzle in Alex’s story, then you start a chapter.

During the Chapter, you’ll uncover a new Magick spell or two, these spells might be used to solve that puzzle in Alex’s story.

The combat system in Eternal Darkness is much more easier to use then in Resident Evil, you’ll run into monsters of all types, from Zombies to other strange beings like BoneThieves who’ll jump into a persons body and control them.

The weapons in the game are in a lot of varieties, from two-handed swords, maces, shotguns, Magnum’s, and other different things to hack away at monsters. The combat in the game will allow you to target specific areas of the enemies, letting you able to hack off limbs or even their heads.Afterwards, you’ll need to finish them to keep your insanity from running low.

Insanity is one of the most creative and original areas of the game and gameplay. The “Insanity Bar” (Yep, the green one)
Shows how much sane you are, if its very low, you’ll be very close from going crazy and insane.

Every time you meet a monster and enemy in the game, your insanity bar will lower itself, you can get the bar up again after each finish of a monster.

As your bar gets lower and lower, your character will start to hear noises at first, soft screams in the background or knocking doors. After awhile, they’ll begin to see blood trickling down the walls and even objects move. Once your bar is very low, that’s when the fun begins, your character might kill itself and then find out it was all in their head, or the room might be upside down. I wont go into full detail, its something you’ll have to see for yourself.

The areas and design of them are very friendly on the eyes, such as the last sight of sunlight coming through the windows, or the dark shadowy hallways. The areas in the game go from large churches and temples to dark and shadowy underground tombs.

The best thing about some of these areas is they might appear in several chapters of the story, so you’ll be able to see what hundreds of years did on these locations. For instance, after running around in Alex’s grandfathers mansion, you’ll be able to see what that mansion looked like in a future chapter, the chapters mansion will be 100 or so years earlier and
doors might not be in the right places or other strange things.

After playing through most of this game, it seems to get more interesting and deep as it goes along, so you will be playing for weeks on end, trying to uncover the stories strange secrets.
Remember, this is not for the squeamish or someone who wants a game he can blast through very quickly, it takes thought and concentration to complete this game.

My final thoughts on this game is its definitely worth it as it can be found around $20 dollars nowadays, though back when it was more expensive I’d buy it if I knew it was this good.
The games complex story and great puzzles will keep you playing to solve more and more of the game, so you definetly must check it out if your into this type of genre.