Every reviewer prides himself on his or her sense of rugged individualism. Like the stubborn nonpartisan independent voters who "vote for the man, not the party," we who share our opinions about games with others always hope that our reactions to games are purely our own. Free from hype, free from the dreaded evils of fanboyism, and (more tricky) free from the kind of desperate jadedness that can set in when you've perhaps seen too many games in a given month.

I frequently love or hate the same games the crowd loves and hates. I was a huge fan of every Baldur's Gate game, which were popular favorites. And I championed The Longest Journey and Myst 3: Exile, also very popular titles.

However, there are plenty of times when I'm that awful guest you wish hadn't been invited to the party. For some reason my contrary nature goes against public sentiment. And I'm afraid this is one of those times.

Yes, I'm talking about Eternal Darkness, an unusually adult game for Nintendo's GameCube. And perhaps I'm just suffering from overhype, because this game has many virtues. But in the end, I found it be a surprisingly unsatisfying gameplay experience.

The game was developed by Silicon Knights (famous for their Blood Omen games) over a period of four years. It tells the story of a young woman named Alex Roivas, whose New England family has been mysteriously tied to a titanic, centuries long struggle between good and evil. After her grandfather is murdered, she returns to the family's ancient homestead to learn more about his work. She uncovers an enormous book called The Tome of Eternal Darkness. In it she reads about the 2000-year family saga of which she is now a part.

As Alex reads, you the player relive various chapters in the story, which begins in the Middle East 2000 years ago with a Roman soldier named Pious Augustus. It's a very appealing feature of the game that you get to visit so many interesting historical situations: the court of Charlemagne, France during the Inquisition, the bowels beneath the temple of Angor Wat in Cambodia, and Alex's ancestral mansion as well. In all, there are twelve of these episodes.

The graphics in the game are not only simply gorgeous, but they create environments that feel exceedingly real. The game takes place virtually 100% in indoor environments, so things get pretty claustrophobic, but it's claustrophobia in extremely attractive surroundings. And since we're talking Survival Horror here, perhaps claustrophobia is appropriate.

The controls are also excellent, for the most part. The left analog stick makes moving your character around easy as pie. The A and B buttons are generally used to select and cancel, and a comprehensive in-game menu keeps makes it easy to gain access to loading and saving, reviewing cinematics, inventory, magic, and even a map.

What the heck is this game, then? Well, you'd have to call it Survival Horror, but Survival Horror of a very classy variety. It's basically a really, really good-looking adventure game with lots of undead thing to kill.

Which is where the problems start. Eternal Darkness has a really cool combat feature: with the click of the right button, you can target various body parts on the monsters you're fighting. It's a great idea, and it's frequently helpful. Knock a zombie's head off, and it's so much harder for him to follow you around and continue to attack effectively. But this feature is very much a double-edged gladius. Frequently when you're attacking a particular kind of foe, it's not merely advisable, but vital, that you target a particular claw, beak, eye, or other body part, in order to successfully vanquish your foe. This can get extremely difficult as you're getting batted around by several creepy bad guys at once. It becomes quite difficult to even stand up, much less aim properly.

No problem, you may be thinking. Since it's a game with combat elements, surely it's got a game difficulty setting you can adjust, right? WRONG! Everyone has to play this game on HARD, because there are no difficulty settings whatsoever. I found this omission rather shocking, and at times, downright defeating.

In fact, this problem got me to thinking that this game isn't really what it pretends to be. It wants you to approach it like a serious action/adventure. It's got rich surroundings, what at first appears to be a deep story, a fascinating magic system (more on that to come) and a story that crosses two millennia.

However, the more you play the game the shallower it reveals itself to be. Even though you play twelve characters over the aforementioned two-honkin'-thousand years, you only fight a small number of enemy types. After awhile, blasting through the very same zombies you've been fighting since AD 823, you begin longing for some new kind of beastie to dispatch.

Also, the locations begin to get monotonous, since there are only a few of them that you visit over and over and over and over. Even the plot becomes repetitive. Virtually every chapter follows this template:

1. Player Meets Character.
2. Character Conveniently Discovers Tome of Eternal Darkness, Thereby Learning a Bunch of Cool Magic Spells On the Spot.
3. Character is Charged With Fulfilling His/Her Part of Quest To Keep Ultimate Evil From Consuming Humanity. Said Quest Solution Lies Beyond a Gaggle of Zombies.
3. Character Stumbles Around Attractive Dungeon While Hacking At Zombies With A Period Weapon.
4. Character Finishes Quest, Dies Horribly For His/Her Trouble.
5. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Twelve times.

Finally, after all your trouble, you are thrust into the game's final "boss" battle. And since it's the final boss battle, it's got to be hard, right? Unfortunately, before you can play said battle, you have to watch a very long cutscene. And since it's a really, really, REALLY hard battle, you'll die lots of times. And when you do, THERE'S NO WAY TO CLICK THROUGH THE LONG CUTSCENE. Now, it's a nice cutscene. It's a very nice cutscene. But how many gamers want to watch it twenty times? I suspect that the combination of a ludicrously overpowering fight and the necessity of sitting through the movie upon every reload, that many gamers will just give up at this point.

However, it's entirely possible that my player bias is skewing my judgment of this game. As much as I like horror stories (and games), I'm not a particular fan of the particular sub genre of Survival Horror. Yes, it's true, I've never played a Resident Evil game (sue me).

And let me mention one more thing in the game's favor. The magic system is complex in a way that is actually fun. You have to build spells from scrolls, runes, and tomes. Aligning spells with different ancient gods create different effects that can specifically target a particular type of enemy. It's a very unusual and fun system.

I have a feeling if you LOVED Resident Evil, you'd probably enjoy this game a lot more than I did. I found myself wishing that the designers had made an actual adventure game, rather than a very pretty, well-written adventure game with a LOT of ultimately tedious combat thrown in.

Still, the game is undeniably attractive, slick, smooth, and well-crafted. Is it for you? Is it worth buying a GameCube for? Dear Reader, this time around that's going to have to be your call.

Final Grade: C

System Requirements:

Nintendo GameCube, memory card.

 

This review is copyright Ray Ivey and Just Adventure and may not be republished elsewhere without the express written consent of the author. Republication of said review must also contain a link back to Just Adventure.