Fear Effect was actually one of the best games of the PS1 era; it's a shame it didn't get the attention it deserved.
(Review may contain minor spoilers)
GAMEPLAY: To sum up Fear Effects actual gameplay style I usually describe it as old school Resident Evil meets anime, which really is how it plays like. The presentation is sort of like a mature anime film with the gameplay of a survival horror game like the PS Resident Evil games. For example the characters don't move all that freely; meaning you must turn your character the way you wish to move, and then press a button to make them move that way. I know that some gamers don't like that survival horror style, but it works in this game.
The action mostly consists of three things:
First, I'm gonna mention the puzzles. The game features some unique challenges in this department, with some easier ones and there's a couple very difficult ones that WILL require the player to write some things down to remember them.
Second, there's some very brief stealth moments that, while not very realistic, are different then the usual; for example, there's one moment when one character (you switch between the three) must navigate himself through a kitchen filled with the restraunt's chefs, but he mustn't be seen. Along the floor of the kitchen near the chefs' feet are these mats that represent the chefs' field of vision and during the sequence (because of the pre-rendered backgrounds and some of the characters, the chefs' actions repeat every 20 seconds or so), the chefs' will turn around for a few seconds, meaning that as long as your not moving in their "field of vision" you won't get caught. Otherwise you'll see one of the games many scripted "death scenes" which are always fun. Sometimes I find myself making a crucial mistake just to see what happens!!
Finally there's the meat of the game: the gunplay. Once again the gunplay controls like a survival game of the PS1 era, with the usual assortment of handguns, shotguns, sub-machine/machine guns, and each character with their own unique close contact weapon. The enemy AI is pretty basic and also each character has a 'fear meter' instead of a health meter which ends up serving almost the same purpose anyway.
Just to mention, I consider the story of a game to be part of the gameplay, and that's one of the things that stand out so well in Fear Effect. The game does such a good job of presenting a progressing story, by that I mean basically you don't expect the story to end up like it did after where it had begun. The game starts with two of the characters (Hana & Royce) while they're ontop of what appears to be a skyscraper in the bustling environment of Tokyo taking fire-fights with just normal mafia-looking henchmen; however, I most certainly wouldn't expect that by the end of the game I would find my characters in "Hell". Literaly. Like Gamespot's review said there are so many twists and turns in the plot to keep the player wanting to find out just what happens. One good twist in particular is revealed at the end that a very unlikely character was the head honcho behind all this tangled conspiricy involving the King of Hell, Hell itself, demons, and the mysterious girl that the Trio set out to look for in the first place.
GRAPHICS: I'm a gamer that so happens to love pre-rendered graphics in a game once in a while and Fear Effect is most definately no exeption Every piece of the environments in the game seem to really be living and breathing and gives players a sense of realism, for the most part anyway.
The only slight complaint I have about the graphics is some of the enemies can move a little 'stiff'.
SOUND: The sound is all top notch in every department. The gunshot effects are what players would expect, and the voice work is fantastic, but what is perfect in particular is the ambiance in the game's levels. While during the actual gameplay there isn't any music, the background noise works even better, so while the game isn't quite as 'scary' as one might expect with a game with Fear in the title, the environments' ambience should give some at least a feeling of 'creepiness'. Also, what ever music there is (pretty much only in the cutscenes) well done enough to at least note its presence.
VALUE: On average the game should last at about five to seven hours despite the fact the game is on four disks, but I'm sure it's a good enough game to play through again once every so often. Fear Effect also features three different endings (or five if you count what happens if you lose the final battle) and while two of those can be experianced with simply making a different decision after the last save of the game, the third (and best) ending can only be optional after a playthrough on the hard difficulty, which isn't too much more difficult than one might expect.
ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE:
- Some might complain about the Resident Evil-style controls
- If players get the best ending on the first playthrough, they might not have
much else to do
BOTTOM LINE: Fear Effect is fantastic just to experiance the different presentation and most especially the story and its twist-heavy plot. Fear Effect was such a great game and it simply didn't get enough attention, so now I can only hope that a third installment in this great series finds its way back to home consoles.