#no but i am not excited for this silent realms are spooky as shit

[merriclo]

oh motherfucker there’s a fourth silent realm?? i have to do this shit in skyloft too????? wtf man i thought this was my safe space =(

[jellyfishrambles]

The Evil Within

When the game first came out, my initial excitement came from the fact that it was a horror game and I’m all about a good horror game. Playing it for not even 10 minutes, you could tell that there’s very heavy influence from both the Silent Hill and Resident Evil franchises. Both of those series’ have redeeming factors, and a large following for good reason. I had really high hopes for this game. Like- reallllly high hopes for this game. But before I get too far into the bad of this game, I do want to touch on what Bethesda did really well with it.

·         Enemy design. Holy shit the enemy design. Some of the coolest zombie/monster designs I’ve seen in a long while, with what I can only describe as a very ‘Purge-esque’ aesthetic. Porcelain masks with cracks and holes and eerie smiles. As well as a twist on the classic zombie design; barbed wire and shards of glass wrapped around and protruding from the skin. Similar could be said about the boss designs, however they’re not nearly as creative in my own opinion. The Keeper is the most memorable, but it’s very clear that The Keeper is a reshaped ‘Pyramid Head’ from Silent Hill.

·         The Concept. All in all, I think the idea of exploring the darkest crevices of ones psyche is amazing. I feel like this game had a lot of good concepts and went in a decent direction, until it would take a random left turn and all structure was lost. 

·         The Setting. I adored the visual appeal of this game. Mental wards, spooky run-down villages, haunted and abandoned mansions. I was in horror game heaven with how lovely the atmosphere was. 

Ok, so, your basic synopsis of the game (Or, my synopsis of the game; i.e. what a stupid person can gather), is a detective, Mr. Sebastian Castellanos, is investigating…something or other…and ends up in the mental ward type psyche of a young man named Ruvik, who flew off the mental rail and went on to perform inhumane and immoral experiments on patients to research the brain. At least that’s, what I gathered from playing this game. Oh also his sister or something like- died in a fire, I’m not really sure. So Sebastian ends up in this weird limbo between the real world and this poor messed up kid’s mind.

So there’s your basic outline. Throughout the game there are admittedly great atmospheres and visual settings. I have a thing for macabre and dark aesthetics. So mental wards, and creepy sewers are right up my twisted alley. However, they get stale rather quickly. I got so bored of exploring and wandering through the same area for what seemed like forever. But honestly, that’s the least of my issues with this game.

The first big ol’ red flag I got was the difficulty curve. It was monstrous! And- if you’re not sure what I mean by difficulty curve in this context; I basically mean that- some parts are insanely difficult, while some are toddler-level easy to figure out. I started my first playthrough of The Evil Within in December of 2014- just a few months after the game’s release. I was havin’ a grand time, playing my game and enjoying myself. And because I’m not a filthy casual- I set the difficulty to ‘survivor’ (Or rather- this game’s version of ‘normal’). It was fine, that’s where I usually play games at. The standard difficulty. And them chapter 3 happened.

Your basic rundown of chapter 3 is- you’re in this zombie village, and you need to get through this hoard of monsters to reach the gate on the other side. There’s houses to explore for ammo, and items, and the all-important crossbow. To finish off the chapter- your boss battle is with the Sadist (I always just referred to him as ‘Chainsaw Guy’). Now- Playing this particular chapter on a STANDARD difficulty, was enough to make me drop the game for years. Literally. Years. I don’t think I picked it back up to start it again until January or February of THIS year (2017 for reference). And- because I didn’t want to deal with that shit again, I swallowed my pride and played on ‘Casual’ (aka, the pussy easy mode). And from there- it was a fucking piece of cake. Finally getting past dreaded chapter 3, it was smooth sailing from there on out pretty much. I did get stuck on chapter 9, because Ruvik’s an asshole and I got frustrated with his random spawning. But that was more /my/ lack of ability to play the game.

My next ‘drop-the-controller-and-give-up’ moment was at the end of chapter 10- with spider lady Laura chasing me through the fire. I’m pretty sure I was stuck on this part for months (And between you and me- I didn’t even beat it. I threw the controller at my friend and he did it for me). So, that was the next stump of difficulty. Chapters 11-15 were beyond easy, and the ending wasn’t rewarding in the slightest- but we’ll get into that later.

This- is when things start to go downhill. Now as I mentioned before- I greatly enjoyed the beginning of this game. The first few chapters set up a great platform to build this into a fantastic game. But it’s like…they gave up. Literally. Gave up like 3 quarters into the game. Textures were slow loading, dubbing was off, and they rushed the last few chapters so much it was like I blinked and it was over. For Christ sake the last ‘boss fight’ was one head shot that was scoped for you. I remember vividly waiting a good two and a half minutes of loading time into an end-chapter cutscene, only to have the textures still loading- while the cutscene was rolling! My friend and I were dumbfounded. And maybe it would run better on PC. As, I played it on the PS4. So while I’m counting it as a game flaw, I can’t 100% blame it on the game, because I’m not sure if it’s the game’s problem in the first place.

My second biggest issue is definitely the plot. Or lack thereof. My synopsis given above was LITERALLY what I took from this game. And maybe I’m just an idiot- feel free to let me know if I am. But I felt like there were SO many loose ends, and gaps that were never closed. It got to the point where I had no idea which realm I was in at any given moment- and perhaps that was the point? But it was executed rather poorly in my opinion. And at the end of the day- that’s all this little ‘review’ is; my opinion.

And- tied into the plot- there were a lot of characters that just- seemed to be there. I know they all served a vague purpose, but all in all I felt like they could have done something a lot better with all these characters. Kidman was about as bland as you could get- I don’t even remember her first name.  (I just googled it- her name is Juli…) Anyway, I know she had the whole betrayal thing going for her, but it was revealed so late in the game, I had lost interest in her and her character because her appearances were so sporadic throughout the game. Similar could be said about Joseph- even though he had a stronger presence than Kidman did. And admittedly I do have a soft spot for Joseph for whatever reason, but that doesn’t stop how….’there’ his character is. Systematically, what was Joseph there for? I understand he’s supposed to symbolize Sebastian’s consciousness, and all that cool metaphorical jazz. But what was his literal purpose? Other than to be a companion AI. And then there’s Ruvik, Leslie, and the doctor guy. These ‘antagonists’ were….ehhh. Motivations were hazy and because I’m an idiot I didn’t quite grasp their reason behind doing whatever it was they were doing. What was their goal? What were they aiming for? Hell if I know.

Perhaps, the game was going for ‘vague and mysterious’ and ‘open ended’. But it was left very poorly open ended. Like someone ripped a hole in a plastic trash bag. It wasn’t clean, or put together. And with the announcement of the second installment of this series, I felt I should spill my thoughts and opinions on the game.

Will I play the second game? I hope not. I may watch a playthrough, but I can’t imagine dedicating more time to The Evil Within. It was a hot mess, to be quite frank. But the visuals and atmosphere alone is what will probably have me coming back to this game. Not to play, but just to look at.