Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, GC, 2002

Published by Nintendo

Developed by Silicon Knights

Story- 8.9/10

Gameplay- 9.0/10

Design- 9.0/10

Control- 9.0/10

Sound- 10/10

Fun Factor- 8.9/10

Overall- 9.0/10

There’s scary games, and then there’s watching helplessly in horror as a game delete save files without your doing so. Welcome to the mindtrip that is Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem.

Cthulhu lore, skewed camera angles, the walking undead, an accursed book mended from flesh and bone, and a soundtrack that will haunt you forever, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (the first of three “Mature” rated Nintendo games in existence) will wreck any part of sanity you thought you had left.

Story- 8.9/10

Because of how the game is laid out, it makes the explanation of the plot extremely difficult. The game is played out through the historical events within an accursed book bound by skin and bone- the Tome of Eternal Darkness.

The story is told through 12 different characters over the course of 2,027 years. I need to be discreet with the story, because if I say anything about 11/12 of the characters, then I’d unintentionally give out spoilers; every character’s story is intertwined with another. All I can go with is this:

Alex Roivas, the granddaughter of psychologist Edward Roivas, is summoned to the family estate upon hearing of his grizzly death. Searching for clues in the mansion, she stumbles upon the Tome of Eternal Darkness, the accursed time-transcending book of The Ancients, four gods locked in war who plan to conquer all of humanity and purge the world in (get ready…) eternal darkness.

Gameplay- 9.0/10

Eternal Darkness plays like an early Resident Evil game; fixed camera angles, many claustrophobic areas, and plenty of undead. That’s where the similarities stop.

As far as staying alive goes, your primary concerns are health and magic (“magick” in game). I’d include sanity, but then the game isn’t as nerve-racking. Plenty of weapons are bestowed upon you; anything from scimitars to rifles are at your disposal. Magick is used for spells, which do anything from healing to summoning a Horror (See Design below) to do your bidding. The strength of a spell is based on what’s called the “Circle of Power”.

Spells are created by combining runes found throughout the game. There are three types of runes- Ancient, conditional and “Power”. The Ancient runes correspond with health, magick, and sanity; conditional runes are “Area”, “Self”, “Protect” and such. The “Circles of Power” work as thus: Circle of Power Level 1 uses three slots for rune input. A spell needs an Ancient rune and two conditional runes in order to work. For example, to cast Shield Level 1, the runes required are the Ancient rune for health (Chattur’gha), and the runes for “Self” and “Protect”. Later on, you’ll find level 2 and level 3 Circles of Power, with 5 and 7 slots. Let’s say you want to cast Shield Level 3. You need the three runes for Shield Level 1, but you still have four empty slots. This is where the “Power” runes come in (or “Pargon” in game). Shield Level 3 uses the Shield Level 1 runes, plus four Pargon runes. This yields a much stronger shield, but uses much more magick.

Now then, let’s talk about the real reason people are drawn to this game- the sanity meter. Many games, like Conker’s Bad Fur Day, break the 4th wall (where the player is addressed by the game) for comedic effect. Eternal Darkness breaks the 4th wall to #%$& with your head…..and #$& it does. To this date, Eternal Darkness is the only game to screw with the player’s mind as much as it does. This is where the sanity meter comes into play. When enemies see you, the sanity meter drops. It isn’t by much, but it adds up fast. When the meter reaches the halfway point, welcome to 4th wall hell. The first of the effects is a slightly tilted camera angle, enough to where you need to cock your head to the side to see straight. When the meter drops a little below that, the music is replaced with a woman and child crying. Eventually you’ll hear screaming, followed by the sound of blades hitting flesh, and something hitting the floor.

By this point, you’re freaked out enough as is, but the game isn’t done toying with you. Here’s a list of a some of the effects I had to put up with:

walking on the ceiling

using a healing spell, only to watch the character explode

the infamous “blue screen of death”

having random limbs fall off until death

watching save files delete themselves

being told  Controller 1 is disconnected while fighting a horde

footsteps (this one is scarier than you think)

knocking coming from behind a door that you just walked through

watching walls and ceilings drip blood

watching the game reset itself

pausing the game only to see that your inventory is gone- ALL OF IT

watching a fly crawl across the screen only to have it multiply into 100 more

simulated volume control and channel changing

sinking into the floor as if it were quicksand

“the bathtub scene“

Believe it or not, there’s still more effects, but some of them contain spoilers…

Design- 9.0/10

As far as levels go, deja-vu is at hand in the extreme. There are only a few landmarks in the game (4 to be exact), but each time you revisit as a new character, you’re in a different area. To clarify, let’s say Character I is in a temple. Her “level” consists of the western and southern areas of the temple. Character II’s story places him in the same temple, but his “level” may be the northern and eastern areas of the temple.

Each setting is beautifully detailed and scaled to perfection.

A good portion takes place inside a massive cathedral. There’s an area on the second floor where you have an option to look across the sanctuary from a balcony. It serves no purpose as far as gameplay goes, but the view of the architecture and the gigantic stained-glass window is simply astounding.

The two beefs that I had; you never see the outside world (the game is either indoors or underground), and draw distance.

There’s a city-like area underground that you explore a few times as different characters. Although it’s underground, the scale is immense. You can see that the buildings practically go on forever… and then you notice it; the foreground is in beautiful, textured 3D, but the backdrop….is a wall. Eternal Darkness was released in 2002; the technology was there- Metroid Prime did it, and it was a GameCube release title. A game with fixed camera angles shouldn’t need to have a flat, 2D wall as a background. I could understand if it was a boundary (a la Ocarina of Time), but this was 2002.

The game has three different endings, depending on which route you take at the beginning of the game (technically four, but the last one is interchangeable). Aside from the few mid-bosses that there are, enemies are the same no matter which path you take. The five enemy types are Trappers, a blind, bizarre cross between spiders and scorpions that will send you to what’s called the “Trapper Dimension” if approached; Zombies, lumbering brutes who are vulnerable to fire; Horrors, a combination of spell-casting and brute force; Guards, giant bird-like guardians with impervious wings; and Cloaks, headless possessors who take control of other humans.

Control- 9.0/10

The control scheme takes some getting used to, but it’s functional at best. The fact that the B-Button is used for interaction, instead of the A-Button, took quite a while to get. I was a little surprised the the C-Stick isn’t used. Spells can be mapped to the D-Pad and Y-Button, but the C-Stick has no use. The X-Button lets you sneak around, but you don’t really need it except for maneuvering around Trappers. The shoulder buttons are put to constant use; the left shoulder allows the character to run, while the right shoulder activates targeting, allowing the player to shoot off limbs and heads of enemies. It’s worth mentioning that you can also shoot friendly NPC’s, but I don’t condone it: doing so empties your sanity meter.

Sound- 10/10

What this game lacks in graphics, it makes up for in the sound department. The fact that it uses Dolby 5.1 Surround makes it even better. Most of the music is somewhat ambient- not real exciting. The situational music however, is awesome. The screams and other sanity effect sounds really get to your core. The voice acting, though cliché at times, is excellent. There’s plenty of talent to be recognized here; voice actors include Neil Dickson, Kim Mai Guest, and the legendary Jennifer Hale and Cam Clarke.

Fun Factor- 8.9/10

Eternal Darkness, though intense as heck at times, is actually a pretty fun game. There are moments however, where it’s unclear of what the game wants you to do, and it becomes very frustrating. There are plenty of magical puzzles that will grind your gears, but there’s a sense of accomplishment once you finally figure them out.

Overall- 9.0/10

While it may not be the scariest game of all time, it’s definitely one of the scariest titles for any Nintendo system. Eternal Darkness took breaking the 4th wall in a whole new direction, and set the standard for seriously terrifying the crap out of players. Well done, Nintendo. Well done indeed. Not bad for your first M-rated game.