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Post Mortem: Eternal Darkness~Sanity's Requiem

SuperAndroid17 said:
I remember playing as Dr. Maximillian Roivas , such a old slow fatass... he couldnt run and got tired VERY fast when he did. Not only that , but his Gun = :lol :lol 1 shot per 1 reload( Reloading his 1760's pistol was a BITCH TOO) !! :lol

Great times indeed.

It was great seeing
all the servants he killed around the mansion
though.
 

sphinx

the piano man
XHitoshuraX said:
Yeah the bathtub scene, for whatever reason, put the fear of christ in me :lol I screamed lol I would have to say the chapter that effected me the most was Anthony's. Seeing him slowly decay was so creepy...

:D the first time I thought I was doing something wrong with Anthony and that I was going " to die" before completing the chapter, it was very stressful because every time I went through a door he would look worse and every time i'd say " damn, what am I doing wrong? ". the curse thing wasn't that clear to me.
 
Loved the atmosphere and sound in this! Unfortunately the last part seemed stretched to make the game longer.
The storytelling was superb, though. When was the last time you played over ten characters in a horror game?

I'd love to see a sequel on curr-gen consoles. Didn't Silicon Knights state they want to do it? Some time ago.
 

Kosma

Banned
beelzebozo said:
i read a ton of lovecraft short stories/novellas a few years ago precisely because of this game. i think his work is full of fantastic ideas, but i think he was maybe a little too baroque for my tastes. i'm much happier when his fucked up ideas inspire other people, who can sort of interpret them into something more manageable.

funny enough, i actually just got my copy of i have no mouth and i must scream by harlan ellison in the mail today, inspired by hito's last post mortem. really excited to get crackin' on it.

Well the dude was from the early 20 century so it's not really his fault. I see where you getting at and although I can relate, I just love his style.
 
XHitoshuraX said:
It was great seeing
all the servants he killed around the mansion
though.

lol oh yeah Definitely , thanks for reminding me. Sad how he ended up in
Prison/or the crazy ppl asylum

Now... Martin Luther's fate was
JUST FUCKED UP ... my god.. all of that exploration trying to uncover what the hell was going on in the chapel.. just to get STOMPED ON by a fucking ABOMINATION
:D
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
I did enjoy this game ... not enough to play through it three times, but enough for a solid single playthrough.

I'd love a sequel with a more balanced sanity system -- or perhaps I mean an unbalanced one? The sanity effects were great, but if you were a good player, you didn't get to experience them as much.

If I remember correctly, Nintendo owns the rights to this game, so a sequel isn't entirely impossible... rather unlikely, I suppose, but not impossible. Perhaps let Retro take a swing at it...
 
DavidDayton said:
I did enjoy this game ... not enough to play through it three times, but enough for a solid single playthrough.

I'd love a sequel with a more balanced sanity system -- or perhaps I mean an unbalanced one? The sanity effects were great, but if you were a good player, you didn't get to experience them as much.

If I remember correctly, Nintendo owns the rights to this game, so a sequel isn't entirely impossible... rather unlikely, I suppose, but not impossible. Perhaps let Retro take a swing at it...

Well Nintendo owned the rights when SK had an exclusitivity contract with them.

Oh yeah lol
Definitely , thanks for reminding me. Sad how he ended up in Prison/or the crazy ppl asylum

Especially since there is one part in the exploration of the mansion that completely forshadows his fate.
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
XHitoshuraX said:
Well Nintendo owned the rights when SK had an exclusitivity contract with them.

An exclusivity contract isn't the same as owning the rights. I meant that, last I checked, the copyrights for game, scenario, music, etc.. were all held by Nintendo.
 

chase

Member
Great thread.

I love this game, despite its problems (notably with gameplay pacing; some sections were tedious). People who complain about the combat system can die in a fire. This game with some kind of button-combination-based combat would be ludicrous. It's basic and is the better for it.

My favorite video game story. You get something new out of it each time you play it. It's wonderfully presented and it has, easily, the best voice acting ever. MGS sounds like the cartoon it is in comparison. The guy who did Augustus gave the best single VA performance I've ever heard. It is word perfect (5.1?). I wouldn't change a thing about it. Last time I looked him up, this was his only VA performance and what a shame.
 
DavidDayton said:
An exclusivity contract isn't the same as owning the rights. I meant that, last I checked, the copyrights for game, scenario, music, etc.. were all held by Nintendo.

And to think
I work in the industry
>.<

Ill look into that.
 

jjasper

Member
Cyan said:
For me though, the biggest flaw was that every sanity effect that tried to mess with your mind ("haha, wait for the sequel!" "uh-oh, the volume in your tv is turning itself down!" "look, we're erasing your memory card lol!") only served to take you out of the story, and remind you that you were just playing a video game. Stuff like the bathtub scene was far more effective, but those were quite rare.

I too think the sanity effects were the biggest problem b/c of what you mentioned. The ones that didn't break the 4th wall were the best, also b/c the sanity meter dropped slow in comparison to how much it would refill when you killed something off you had to actively try to get the sanity effects to happen.
 
If I had one actual complaint for the game, besides the fact I thought it was going to be scarier, which just means I was misinformed, was that Sanity returned almost totally when you killed an enemy. Of course, this may have changed later, I didn't play as far as I should. It would have been cool to watch you slowly grow crazier and crazier even if you were owning the enemies.

I have the urge to go back to this now, after thinking about the bit I played... Must have been the slap. :lol
 
crowphoenix said:
If I had one actual complaint for the game, besides the fact I thought it was going to be scarier, which just means I was misinformed, was that Sanity returned almost totally when you killed an enemy. Of course, this may have changed later, I didn't play as far as I should. It would have been cool to watch you slowly grow crazier and crazier even if you were owning the enemies.

I have the urge to go back to this now, after thinking about the bit I played... Must have been the slap. :lol

/nod
 
A great thread to a decent, albeit overrated game. The voice-acting and the story were good, but the gameplay and the actual scare factor was pretty disappointing. The sanity effects (something I was looking forward to at the time) were also pretty lackluster, with only a few memorable instances. Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth did these much better and was also a better horror game, even though it had plenty of bugs.

Darunia said:
The sanity effects were really something else, and I fell for some. Like the one your character starts sinking through the floor, I really thought I hit on a bug. The other parts of the gameplay were pretty standard fare but the writing, sanity effects and voice acting made this one a must have, at least for me.
Concerning the sanity effects: you should try out Call of Cthulu on the Xbox (also backwards compatible). The ones in Eternal Darkness pale in comparison.
 

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
yeah, i can't even begin to address people not liking this game. i'm not sure what anyone expected, but if you go in with an open mind i think it has plenty of unique, great things to offer.

but that's cool if people didn't like it. plenty of purportedly great games i think are dog shit.
 

firex

Member
It had good concepts and action that beat the hell out of the RE series (at the time), so I liked that. And it was actually a decent psychological horror game, instead of a zombie/slasher/gore type of horror game (despite the zombies and ancient god monsters). The problem is, right after this I played a real psychological horror game (System Shock 2) and it blew it away in everything but graphics.

But I did play ED enough to get the "true" ending. Like Cyan said, the gameplay was too broken... I would have preferred they swapped running around recovering magic as a way to recover sanity, but only if you kill all the monsters in a room first. On the other hand, I liked that it didn't have tank controls, and the dismembering was cool.

Like everything I've played by SK, it was a decent game that could have been better, but it wasn't bad at all. I do think it's the least scary horror game I've played, though.
 
firex said:
It had good concepts and action that beat the hell out of the RE series (at the time), so I liked that. And it was actually a decent psychological horror game, instead of a zombie/slasher/gore type of horror game (despite the zombies and ancient god monsters). The problem is, right after this I played a real psychological horror game (System Shock 2) and it blew it away in everything but graphics.

But I did play ED enough to get the "true" ending. Like Cyan said, the gameplay was too broken... I would have preferred they swapped running around recovering magic as a way to recover sanity, but only if you kill all the monsters in a room first. On the other hand, I liked that it didn't have tank controls, and the dismembering was cool.

Like everything I've played by SK, it was a decent game that could have been better, but it wasn't bad at all. I do think it's the least scary horror game I've played, though.

yous=shite

jk

I think when one plays this game it has to be approached carefully. It isnt a shock and awe type of game...its subtle....ya know terrifying.
 
beelzebozo said:
yeah, i can't even begin to address people not liking this game. i'm not sure what anyone expected, but if you go in with an open mind i think it has plenty of unique, great things to offer.
I know this post probably wasn't addressed to me, but I'll say that Eternal Darkness just failed to live up to its potential. All I expected a good survival horror game and after finishing it, I realized it wasn't all that. Especially after experiencing Call of Cthulu.

Mind you, I replayed the game threice to see the real ending (which was weak), so I obviously didn't think Eternal Darkness was bad. It just could've been been a whole lot better.
 

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
no, it wasn't directed at you. it was really directed at the faceless group who doesn't see anything special about what's here, and just admitting that because i enjoy so much about it i have a great deal of trouble thinking much more than that they're nuts.

i've played cthulhu, actually. it had some good spots, and is certainly scarier than eternal darkness. ultimately i enjoyed the latter much more, though.
 

Crushed

Fry Daddy
One of my favorite games of the last generation.


I have a response to all of the haters out there:

eternaldarkness_050702_4.jpg


May the rats eat your eyes! I am now lost to your cause! The Darkness comes! It will damn us all!
 
:lol
One of my favorite games of the last generation.


I have a response to all of the haters out there:

eternaldarkness_050702_4.jpg


May the rats eat your eyes! I am now lost to your cause! The Darkness comes! It will damn us all!

Because of this and the thriller bit last night;

I dont hate you* anymore

Excellent thread inspite of the fact that I couldn't stand Eternal Darkness.

I appreciate that, even though I know these posts never hit mass appeal but I enjoy doing them



*as much
 

Jme

Member
I played and beat this 1 time, when it launched back in 2002. Haven't touched it since. I plan to fix that immediately. 5 years and countless games later, I've probably forgotten most of the story (I skipped your spoiler section) so it should be nice and fresh while comfortabley familiar at the same time. Can't wait.
 
This is one of the only games that I have ever beaten, and then immediately replayed (twice no less) in order to truly finish the game. It's not often that I get truly hyped for a game and it does not disappoint, and Eternal Darkness was one of those games. I'm an enormous fan of Lovecraft, so the setting and mythos were right up my alley. The voice acting was top-notch and the characters were fairly well-developed. I will say that the gameplay was slightly cumbersome, the objectives were repetitive, and the graphics rudimentary, but the atmosphere was perfect.

Eternal Darkness was not a Resident Evil-style scare-fest, nor was it a Silent Hill-style psychological thriller, and I think that's why it receives so much negativity. It truly is a homage to Lovecraft, embracing the idea of insanity, destiny and the struggle of man against the cosmos. I think it's best to consider it the "third tier" in terms of style among survival-horror games, joining the pantheon among the aforementioned Resident Evil and Silent Hill.
 

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
you know, i think something that should be explored further should they ever do a sequel are the historical connections. i remember while listening to the retronauts episode about adventure games they talked about a series called "manhunter" that was sort of like a sight-seeing scifi/horror game where lots of arcane things were going on at famous places in different cities.

not that e.d.2 would be wise to rip off that formula, but taking the concept of "weird, occult-type stuff going on amidst familiar historical happenings" and running with it is a winning formula. roanoke colony, anyone?
 

Jacobi

Banned
That game was brilliant I replayed it four times (one time without saving).

I really loved the fresh characters and the unusual scenarios.
 

benjipwns

Banned
Mifune said:
I really really enjoyed the game up until the last couple chapters. Creating the massive spell or whatever was so so tedious that I've never finished the game. Played up to that point twice.
Yeah, I keep meaning to finish it, but that just saps the strength out of me.

On the other hand, I agree with almost everything people are saying in here. Would love to see a less cartoony looking sequel. (Someone said Retro...hmm...yes...) Isn't there already a plot written for it or something by SK, involving another ancient?
 
benjipwns said:
Yeah, I keep meaning to finish it, but that just saps the strength out of me.

On the other hand, I agree with almost everything people are saying in here. Would love to see a less cartoony looking sequel. (Someone said Retro...hmm...yes...) Isn't there already a plot written for it or something by SK, involving another ancient?

Not on this planet unfortunately...
 

Rufus

Member
I recently watched all the cut scenes again and the atmosphere is still somewhat captivating.

The biggest reason I got interested in this game was the prospect of playing many different eras, from ancient Rome to modern day America. The Sanity Bar seemed like a nice concept, too. Although it's nothing more than a bonus. After a handful their effect (on you as a player) wears off drastically. Seeing those once is enough.
And it's the only horror game I've ever played. :lol Three times, to see the true ending.
 

Goldrush

Member
Excellent game. Only really have 2 complaints.
1. The spells are overpowered. In an already easy game, it felt like I was cheating every time I use it (so, of course, I avoid using it).
2. The insanity effects do not effect the gameplay. I admit, I fell for the "to be continue" and the "delete save file". However, I can't really think of an effect that was anything but a mini-cutscene.
 
ED is a fine game. It blew me away. But in the sequel that will probably never appear, they need:
1. a summon bone thief spell
2. explain who or what the yellow ancient is
3. really let you make custom spells
4. keep the load times really short
5.
Bring back Pious Augustus somehow, he's badass
6. have more "bathtub scene" scares in the game
But really, would Nintendo ever bring ED back? I hope they do.
 

plufim

Member
If Silicon Knights ever finished Too Human (lols), I'd love them to remake this and do the whole trilogy they had planned. A lot of content was dropped from the original, so having the extra stuff put back in would be awesome (there was initially going to be a Templar Knight character, and possibly a chapter centered around Mantarok's avatar, plus there was potentially a fifth magick allignment (yellow)). As for which system, I'm not entirely sure there's a choice if nintendo owns the IP as has been said, but a wii version could even look a heck of a lot better, since this was just a beefed up N64 game.

ED was my 2nd favourite cube game, after RE4. Finished it 6 times, and damn the story is fantastic. Maximillion's descent into madness at the end of his chapter blew me away, it's still some of the best english voice acting I've ever heard. Infact, IMO there was one one weak voice actor in the game, that for Ellia.


Edit: oh yeah, bathtub. Even after the 6th time, I was still all D: when I saw it. It's brilliantly done.


Double Edit: the voice actor who played Maximillion (William Hootkins) died in 2005 from pancreatic cancer. RIP.
 

Prospero

Member
Another person who played through it three times to get the true ending. Then I sold it. I kind of wish I had it around, though. I'll have to pick up a used copy.
 

Capoeira

Member
Awesome game. Probably the favorite in my Gamecube collection.

It was the first time when I felt the game was playing me more than I was playing it.

I almost drove out to my EB from where I bought the game to kill the sales drone who sold me the game after that 'Thank you for playing Eternal Darkness. Buy the full game on...' screen popped up after the first chapter. After about 30 seconds of blank staring and confusion, I finally figure out what I had just happened. Holy shit that was awesome :lol

Call of Cthulhu is definitely scarier (although that bathtub scene in ED got me good), I still think the insanity effects in Eternal Darkness were far more effective. Not only did they fuck with the character, they fucked with the player too. Effect spoilers:
Walking into a room full of zombies only to find you're out of ammo when you were positive you had a stack of rounds, then promptly being torn apart by said zombies, saving your game resulting in the formatting of your memory card, even the BSoD (Oh fuck! Wait, the Gamecube doesn't do that... does it?)
. Those are only a few examples of why this game is a one of a kind experience.

I'm on my third and final run through of the game and have been for the last, err... year.

I'll get that true ending one of these days.
 

benjipwns

Banned
plufim said:
A lot of content was dropped from the original, so having the extra stuff put back in would be awesome (there was initially going to be a Templar Knight character, and possibly a chapter centered around Mantarok's avatar, plus there was potentially a fifth magick allignment (yellow)).
Yes, that was the stuff I was thinking of.
 

Somnid

Member
The controls were a little wonky but it was a good game with some interesting twists. Some of the sanity effects were a little lame and too easy to catch but others genuinely confused me. Some noteworthy ones were when I started sinking into the floor, I though it was some sort of glitch, and there was one when I entered the next room there was ammo all over the place, I started to pick it up and then the screen flashed and I was back where I started. All I could think was "dammit."
 

Beezy

Member
I don't remember much from this game, but I do remember one cutscene where
this giant monster smashed some guy and all that was left was a smudge on the floor. It was so fucked up, but I couldn't stop laughing. :lol

Anyway, I thought ED was a good game. The spells were fun to mess around with. I don't know if I would play it again though. It wasn't very scary except for a few points (i.e. bathtub), but I was creeped out the whole time that I was playing it. I'm not good with horror/scary shit. :(
 
crap mechanics, crap graphics, crap plot, crap game

why does this thread exist

oh well, i'll wait for the xenosaga post-mortem in this ongoing series titled "games only gaffers could love"
 

Witchfinder General

punched Wheelchair Mike
Such an amazing game. Scary, but less of a jump-out-and-scare-you way and more of a fucking-with-your-mind way, like when
you're in the mansion and periodically a loud banging noise on the door bursts through your speakers
. Used to creep the hell out of my wife.

Also:

Eternal Darkness = Art

One of the few videogames that I've played (mabye the only one) that can claim this.
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
Drinky Crow said:
crap mechanics, crap graphics, crap plot, crap game

why does this thread exist

oh well, i'll wait for the xenosaga post-mortem in this ongoing series titled "games only gaffers could love"

Eh. Some of us liked it. The control was stiff but worked, the plot was interesting, and the game was fun enough for a single playthrough. Was it perfect? Nope... but it wasn't a bad game. You'd be the first person I've met who played the game and actively disliked it, to be honest.

(Watch 30,000 folks folks who hated ED appear now.)
 

Hunter D

Member
One of my favorite games last gen. The production values in this game is excellent. The plot, script, cut scenes, and voice acting are some of the best ever done. Any company that his making a serious cinematic game should take a look at eternal darkness. No one last gen could touch those elements of the game.
 

Mifune

Mehmber
DavidDayton said:
Eh. Some of us liked it. The control was stiff but worked, the plot was interesting, and the game was fun enough for a single playthrough. Was it perfect? Nope... but it wasn't a bad game. You'd be the first person I've met who played the game and actively disliked it, to be honest.

(Watch 30,000 folks folks who hated ED appear now.)

Funny thing is, Drinky didn't even hate ED when it came out. But then revisionism is all the rage here.
 
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