Developer: Silicon Knights
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Horror
Format: Nintendo Gamecube
Released: November 1st 2002
Eternal Darkness is one of my favourite Horror games of all time. It’s one of those gems which flew under many people’s radars and should be a crime to have not played it. Let me start by asking you, how many 3rd person horror games can you name where the controls are stiff and take a long time to get used to? It’s a pretty high number right. Well Eternal Darkness has possibly the most fluid and easy to learn combat systems of any game, no matter the genre. You can target an enemy’s head, body or arms easily. Want to be known as Decapitator Dave or Armless Andy? Be my guest.
The camera is also never an issue, how many horror games can you say that about? Eternal Darkness doesn’t rely on jumpscares but a beautifully eerie atmosphere and a second guessingly clever insanity system which changes the game depending on how low your character’s sanity is. As you’ve probably guessed by now I am keeping any spoilers to an absolute minimum. I want everyone and their Cat to play this game.
There is also a spell system in which you collect runes and place them on power level grids to discover spells or power up spells you already know. It’s super easy to do and you can even stumble upon spells you haven’t found a scroll for. Spells and enemies have different effects to them depending on what element/godly power they are. Each of which have their strengths and weaknesses.
There are also puzzles for you to solve, some of which can be a little challenging but nothing you need to Google the solutions for. The characters in the game are all unique and their story are told incredibly well. Whether you agree with a characters motivations or not you are still sucked into their story and care for what happens to them.
There are some downsides to Eternal Darkness though. There are very few boss fights and to get the true ending you have to complete the game a certain number of times on the same save file. Playing the game again isn’t an issue but there are no added bonuses or differences in the story during the other playthroughs you do.
Personally I would have loved to have an option to go either the good or evil route for your characters. These would have made some exciting battles if you were to control either side and battle for supremacy.
Jumping swiftly into the rating for Eternal Darkness, I am going to give Eternal Darkness a 9/10. It’s not a perfect game but it gets incredibly close. Give me more enemy types, more bosses and alternate story paths and you have a ridiculously great game… Such a shame that there will never be an Eternal Darkness 2.
One of my favourite games of all time. - Mamushi
An absolute 11/10 game, best on the gamecube. Mario and Luigi got nothin' on r girl Alexandra.