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Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (Nintendo GameCube) Reviews:
In development for a near eternity, which happens to be the game industry equivalent of four years, Eternal Darkness shines as a refreshing twist on traditional survival horror. Instead of focusing on one or two characters in a specific setting, Eternal Darkness features 12 distinct characters to play across several time periods. This aspect is cleverly introduced by acquiring "pages" in a dark history book called the Tome of Eternal Darkness, which is composed entirely of human flesh.

The lead protagonist, a young blond named Alexandra Rovias, finds herself alone in the family mansion investigating the mysterious death of her grandfather. As she explores the lavish but largely vacant rooms, she'll eventually stumble upon the tome as well as its hidden pages, which are found in a linear fashion after some minor puzzle solving. Once activated, each page turns into a playable chapter featuring an unlucky character linked to the ancient tome, struggling against a mystical power. You'll play as a Roman centurion, an archeologist, a priest, a WWI soldier, a firefighter, and more as the story weaves its way to the present.

More ominous than scary, Eternal Darkness has little to do with its logical counterpart Resident Evil, although both feature zombies and begin in a mansion. While Resident Evil generated scares based on its fixed camera angles, slow pacing, and limited ammunition, Eternal Darkness does almost the exact opposite. The game is much more action-oriented, encouraging you to fight enemies instead of running away. As a result, the game lacks the palpable tension of Capcom's classic, but the variety and brisk pacing will likely draw more casual players to its gameplay.

The combat system is one of the more interesting aspects of each chapter, as players can isolate a head, torso, or individual limb by pressing down on the right trigger and selecting a specific body part using the Control Stick. Each area will start flashing white, and once the desired region is targeted, a quick press of the A button will carry out the blow using the readied weapon. All characters will be able to find a sword or bludgeoning instrument for melee attacks as well as a projectile weapon, such as a crossbow or blowgun, for long-range attacks.

The enemies you'll encounter generally fall into three or four types based on the color of an artifact you select early in the game. Unfortunately the zombies and their slight variants aren't difficult to kill (some even do the work for you by attacking others of a different color) and you'll wish for more variety as the game progresses. There aren't any skeletons with swords to fight, for example, or similar enemies requiring different tactics other than lopping off their heads. There are some huge bosses to fight, especially late in the game where magic comes into play, but the majority of enemies aren't much of a threat due the responsiveness offered in combat.

While fighting is fun but a little disappointing with the repetitive enemy types, the environments keep things interesting and offer slightly new twists the deeper you delve into the game. The first time through an underground temple immediately calls to mind Indiana Jones, as players carefully avoid special tiles in the ground lest falling blades, poison-tipped darts, and crushing walls become activated. Puzzles are logical but easy, and generally involve sticking an item in a slot or performing the ol' switcheroo made famous by the opening scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Another chapter revisits this area but gives you a more complete Indy experience with a character that comes equipped with a revolver, shotgun, and fedora. The archeologist even has his own dusting brush used to sweep away cobwebs found along the ground to uncover needed items. The traps become more intricate, the puzzles more involving, and the story more clear as you progress. Despite the constant use of a handful of specific locales, Eternal Darkness does an excellent job in keeping things fresh by mixing up the characters, weapons, spells, items, scenery, and puzzles for each chapter.

Of course, one of the touted features going into the game was its use of sanity to help offer a change of pace from traditional survival horror titles. Each character has a vertical sanity meter of varying size that gradually diminishes upon entering a room filled with enemies. While it can be replenished by magic or performing finishing moves on a fallen enemy (which isn't as involving as it sounds, with players simply pressing a single button while the enemy is on the ground), most will find themselves running low on sanity as they progress.

This will either annoy or make the game more interesting, as there are many genuinely unsettling events that toy with your mind. These scenes not only occur within the context of the game, such as blood dripping down the walls or the room suddenly appearing upside down, but they play with the user as well. A bug will crawl across the TV screen independently of the action, making you reach for the Raid, the sound may suddenly go silent as the word "mute" appears in the corner of the screen, a "no controller found" message will appear while in a room full of enemies, and perhaps the scariest thing of all: saving the game may "accidentally" erase all of the stored files on your memory card (you'll watch in horror as a percentage bar gradually informs you of the delete progress).

Fortunately, these are all temporary tricks that last maybe ten seconds before the character yells "this...is...not...happening." It's surprising just how many new and different experiences you can have. Dwindling sanity also affects the ambient sound you'll hear, making it something you don't want to experience even if you find the tricks to be fun. There are constant moans, cries, whispers, and disturbing screams that almost sound as if a woman is undergoing some sort of torture. Very unsettling. This is one of the rare games worth playing solely based on the quality of sound -- hook the game up to a Dolby Digital receiver and prepare to be blown away.

While the overall production values are high, Eternal Darkness disappoints in its linear gameplay and low difficulty. You won't be able to obtain more than one chapter page in the mansion at a time, as finding the next one generally requires a specific spell or item acquired by playing the previous chapter. Even the spell ingredients are generally laid out in a straight line during play, so it's virtually impossible to miss an important item or weapon. Of course, this keeps the action moving at a swift pace, but at the expense of exploration.

Eternal Darkness is certainly worth playing and has the potential to become an excellent franchise in the same vein as Resident Evil. The enemies are repetitive, the puzzles are simple, and players aren't given much freedom to explore, but what is here is fun to play -- thanks to an interesting story, excellent sound effects, and well-animated visuals. Those who want to be scared will likely prefer Resident Evil on !GameCube, while others who are sick of traditional survival horror titles will find the new environments and characters enough of a plus to keep them playing through all 11 chapters. Scott Alan Marriott, All Game Guide

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