Eternal Darkness is quite possibly the greatest Survival Horror ever made, giving a sensation of fear some fail to do.
User Rating: 9.5 | Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem GC
Eternal Darkness is a game released by Silicon Knights. It has been in development for some time, and it shows as you play the game. Its easy to at first glance think of this as a Resident Evil Rip-off. But as you actually play the game, you will find that it isn't at all. In the game you play a total of 12 characters, each having their own chapter and different time period, though the main character is a woman named Alex Roivas who's grandfather was recently murdered. She decides to go to his mansion home and find out just why he was killed. What she finds however, is something that spands a whole millenia and will show her just what fear is. Graphically the game sort of goes for an old-fashioned style, in that it looks better as it progresses. It looks good in the beginning though its sort of a first generation gamecube game graphic wise, however as it gets further there is more detail in the enviornemnt, characters, and effects. This comes together for a really great looking game that gets better, adding some extra inscentive to keep playing. The sound for the game is also a highlight. The music is well done and fits each mood perfectly, the ambiance is creepy, the sound effects are cool, the voice acting is top notch. Its just simply a great sounding game. Now gameplay wise. Its easy to think its just some copy of Resident Evil. However, there are many things here that Resident Evil doesn't have. The key feature of the game is the sanity effect. As you encounter creatures in the game, your character's sanity will start to decrease. As it does this, you will start to experince strange things occur. The first is blood seeping down the walls, but as you really lose your sanity, some very creepy thing occur. I wont give any away, but I will say, they are scary. Its a good idea to maintain your sanity though because when it gets very low it could start having an effect on your characters health, which is obviously bad. If you lose sanity, you can gain some back by doing a finishing move on an enemy, when they are about to die you can do this to finish them of and regain some sanity. Eternal Darkness also has a complex magic system. You find runes throught the game, and you use these runes to create spells. Theres 3 different alingments and each alignment is powered over and weaker than one of the other two. Some may think it a bit odd to use magic in something like this perhaps, but it actually really adds to the setting of the game perfectly. In terms of overall control, it may have a slightly Resident Evil camera, but it controls much better. One notable thing is this game has limb damage in which you hold the R button to target a specific joint of any enemy and attack them there. The Camera does sort of get in the way of things occasionally, however for the most part you get a fair view of the ongoings. The story of this game is also very well done. Its both fresh and origional, and good enough to make you want to keep going. Anouther cool thing is that, while I want reveal exactly what it is, there is a choice you have to make between 3 options in the first chapter. Depending which you choose determines the alignment of the enemies (The 3 Magika alignments) and who the main enemy will be. The story is still basically the same but this does add some great replay value to it. Overall, this is a great survival horror and definantly one of the best games on the Gamecube. If you like horror games and have a Cube, do your self a favor and get this game. Even if your not into horror games, its still a great adventure game and may get you into the genre, and for the low price it is now you cant go wrong. 
