Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem Review

Boy oh boy. Where do you start a review for a game like Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem? Well, first let's dispel any similarities to Resident Evil for the GameCube. Sure, you are in a mansion for part of it, and yes, there are a lot of zombies around, but that's about it.

In Eternal Darkness, you play through history. Yes, the Roivas (Savior backwards) family is one that has an accursed heritage. You see, ever since that damn Roman General, Pious, discovered a weird tomb in Persia it has all gone downhill. Your job, as you play through 11 different historical characters, is to figure out how to stop the Eternal Darkness that is going to consume mankind. Most of the characters are unsuccessful, thus allowing you to try again in a different time period with a different victim...oh, I mean character. It isn't until you play as the modern day, Alex (the girl in the screenshot), that you have a chance to destroy the darkness. This is all a little confusing until you actually play the game, but here's a rundown of what you need to know if you're considering buying or renting this game.

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PLOT/STORY
As I alluded to earlier, Eternal Darkness (ED), has a twisted and convoluted plot which spans some 20 centuries of human existence. As long as there have been humans, there have been "Ancients" who desire to destroy the human race and wreak havoc. The game tells you that every horrible event in human history has had an Ancient nearby. For example, WWI or the Gulf War.

Starting as a Roman general in 26 B.C., you get to play through many historical periods including, the Inquisition, the Angkor Thom era of Cambodia, the Holy Roman Empire, and 1950's America. You'd think that all of these different locations would be confusing. Well, the brilliance of this game is that you only play in 4 different settings (a church in France, an underground tomb in Persia (Middle East), a temple in Cambodia, and of course, the Mansion in Rhode Island). You play each setting several times as a different character in a different time period, so, for example, you will visit the church in France in the 800's (as a squire to Charlemagne), in the 1400's (as a priest in the Inquisition), and in the 1910's (as a soldier in WWI). Each time you visit the same place, it has changed a little bit and, although you know the area pretty well, there are many surprises to be found.

GAME PLAY
ED is an action/adventure/survival third person platformer with some RPG elements which is one of the most innovative and fluid games I have ever played. As mentioned above, you play through many centuries of time. So how does it all get handled? Well, I'll attempt to explain. You can think of the modern-day Mansion as your hub or homebase. You look around the mansion for chapter pages which belong to the Tome of Eternal Darkness, a Magickally enchanted book which contains the history of the human endeavor to squelch the Eternal Darkness. Each time you find a chapter page in the mansion, you are whisked away to play as a particular character in a particular era. When you complete that historical character, you are whisked back to the mansion, where you search for the next chapter page in order to continue your quest.

The camera system is absolutely phenomenal. Dead spots are hard to find, and the camera is almost always where you want it, except when you're crazy. "Crazy?," you say. Ah, yes, a remarkable game play innovation...the Sanity Meter. The sanity meter is much like your average health status bar, except it controls how sane you are at any given moment. When you enter a room with monsters, you're sanity takes a hit or two. This results in various "sanity effects." Without spoiling too much for you, some effects include: hearing babies cry, watching your character lose his/her head, getting bad/odd camera angles, and not being able to control your character for brief periods of time. There are many more sanity effects, but you should experience them for yourself. Let's just say that Allison almost killed me when a sanity effect made it seem that I did something very bad to the game. Of course, nothing was wrong with the game...I was just insane. The Sanity Meter adds a whole new dimension to game play and is why ED is termed a "Psychological Thriller."

In addition to your health and sanity, there is also a "Magick" system. As you progress through the game, your characters gain valuable spells and various levels of power. All of the spells are nicely categorized and simple to understand. The "Y" button and all four directions on your "D-Pad" are able to have spells assigned to them for quick access. This makes for some great gameplay...gameplay which requires some strategy. For example, do I fill up my Sanity Meter with a spell right now or do I enchant my weapon so I can do more damage? But, wait, I need to cast a defensive shield around me so I can cast a spell in the first place...d'oh! As you can see, there are infinite Magickal choices to be made throughout this game which helps it to remain very interesting, and appeal to each player individually.

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So, what do you actually do in the game? Well, basically you have to solve puzzles by finding different items and making sure those items go into the right spots. This is one way in which ED is similar to RE. But, unlike RE, where everything is done in the area in and around the mansion and thus became extremely complex and multi-layered, ED is much more straight forward and dare I say, simpler. In other words, it's hard to get stuck in this game as most of what you need to accomplish has been shown to you in a cut-scene or is fairly obvious to begin with. There's very few head-scratchers in ED. That's not to say that there aren't people who'll get stuck, but, if you're an avid gamer who is used to games like this, you shouldn't have a problem. That doesn't take anything away from the game either. ED is so huge that you'll be thankful that you haven't gotten stuck in a while. In fact, it took Allison and myself upwards of 20 hours (in-game clock) to finish the game. That's actually more like 30 hours since the in-game clock doesn't count when you die and have to restart a level.

GRAPHICS
To be honest, I was expecting the graphics in this game to rival Resident Evil...that beautiful gorgeous game which caused me to scream 9 distinct times. So, when I noticed that the edges of the characters were a bit jagged and that Alex's hair was not as free-flowing as Jill's (RE), I was slightly disappointed. Then, after about a half-hour with the game, I didn't even notice the graphics. You see, ED's brilliance is that it offers the whole experience. Sure, the characters are lacking, but the rest of the game's graphics are remarkable. The lighting truly gives a chilling effect and the settings are amazingly detailed with bas-reliefs and murals galore. So, soon enough you are emersed in ED's world and don't think twice about the graphics...you are simply part of the game.

TECHNICAL MERIT
The developers at Silicon Knights really did their homework on this game. All of the weapons and costumes are historically accurate. The settings themselves are vivid and detailed. The story lines are also based on historical happenings. No stone went unturned in this game and it shows.

SUMMARY
Eternal Darkness, in my opinion, should win every video game award this year. It is familiar enough so that it's not entirely confusing yet offers many new features, like the Sanity Meter, to keep game play fresh. The Magick system is pure brilliance and offers unlimited options as to the way you play the game. You can save almost anywhere (as long as there are no monsters in the room) and loading times, well, there aren't any to speak of. Once you put Eternal Darkness into your GameCube, it stays there...living and breathing, taking on a life of it's own, patiently waiting for you to succumb to the best gaming experience of any next-gen console to date.

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