I knew this game had a reputation for being both excellent and very scary. I got it quite a while ago in a Humble Bundle but have put it off because I was all too aware of it's reputation. Even when I did get started, I couldn't really play it for more than 30-60 minutes at a time because it was just so mentally exhausting to play. But I had to push through. For the Backlog! It's worth noting at the start that this game has no combat mechanics whatsoever so any monsters you do encounter you have to either run or hide from. And if you get stuck where you can't run or hide, then it's pretty much always game over. This is where a lot of the fear comes from, that feeling of total helplessness and not wanting to have to restart if you get caught. That and the fact that the monsters are freaky as all hell and when they spot you and start coming at you and the creepy music is throbbing loudly, it's exceedingly un-nerving and you really wish you had some kind of fire-arm to blow their misshapen heads off or at least a stick of some description but all you can do is run or die.
The sanity effects are another big part of it. Witnessing weird/unsettling events/objects, seeing monsters and being in the dark will reduce your sanity. And then the screws start to come out of the world. Your vision goes hazy, you start to see and hear things, things can move of their own accord. It's quite like being drunk only you get a sense of deep fear rather than general well-being. One particula sanity effect involved a door slamming suddenly for no reason. And I would be lying if that one did not damn near make me jump out of my seat. The static screenshots shown here can do little to convey the atmosphere of helplessness, intimidation and how all you want to do is run away rather than keep pressing deeper and deeper down. It's something that needs to be experienced to be believed.
The puzzles are very well crafted and not usually following common game logic and will often require you to do some inventive thinking to solve them. They all seem well put together and thought out. And thankfully, you do not have to do these in a hurry and can take your time to solve them. The story is also one of interest in that you have lost your memory totally (hence the name) and have no memories of anything. But as soon as the game is started, you find a letter from your former self (before you got amnesia) telling you that you have to kill a guy called Alexander and you are being chased by an unstoppable shadow. So that being the sum of your knowledge, off you go to do some murdering. The rest of the story is pieced together from flashbacks as you visit places you have already been and from notes left around the world by both yourself and others. A common mechanic, yes, but it all comes together quite nicely at the conclusion and there are multiple endings depending on actions taken.
To have come from a relatively small developer, the graphical engine and art direction is also quite superb. The atmosphere of slowly descending through this dark and foreboding place is aided greatly by the feeling of immersion and the attention to detail put into your surroundings.
This is definitely an experience that I will not be forgetting anytime soon. It gives even the likes of Silent Hill a run for it's money in terms of true psychological terror and atmosphere. And I would recommend it to any fans of the genre. Just keep a stack of clean trousers close to hand so you can swap them out quick when they are inevitably soiled. But at least in Silent Hill you could fight back against the things that lurk in the dark....
I will leave you with an excellent example of why this game is so scary from the wonderful comic site hejibits:
My feelings echoed this exactly every time I would come across one of the game's many many monsters.
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