Heart of Darkness

The Good
Fantastic animations and presentation for its time. * Imaginative world and level design * Clever, challenging puzzles * Orchestral soundtrack

The Bad
Sluggish controls * Frustrating combat sections * Weak ending

The Bottom Line
Heart of Darkness might be better known for its lengthy, troubled development than for the game itself. Designed by Eric Chahi along with his team at Amazing Studio, it was a spiritual successor to his pioneering cinematic platformer from 1991, Another World. Originally meant to be released in 1995 on the 3DO, it was delayed so much that it ended up being released on the Playstation in 1998. By the time Heart of darkness released, it couldn’t help but feel dated next to games like Ocarina of Time, Half-Life, and Metal Gear Solid. Despite that, and somewhat middling reviews, it has become a cult classic for many who played it.

The two games are remarkably similar in terms of gameplay and plot. You control a protagonist who finds himself in an alien world with strange technology and magic, and must solve puzzles and fight numerous enemies to survive. While Out of This World had a 70’s sci-fi vibe, Heart of Darkness is more in the mold of a Spielberg 1980’s fantasy adventure.

Heart of Darkness follows the adventures of Andy, a typical suburban kid who doesn’t get along well with his teacher and has a fear of the dark. One day after school, a solar eclipse occurs and Andy’s dog, Whiskey, gets sucked up into a black hole. After racing home, he packs his things, grabs his gun and helmet, and hops into the spaceship he invented to head to the Darkland where Whiskey was taken. Along the way, he’ll have to face many enemies, but also make friends. That plot’s a lot to swallow even for a video game, and you kind of have to just roll with it as it plays out.

The plot may be paper-thin, but I actually really like its presentation. For one, the voice acting is actually quite good, and I don’t think there was a single character that sounded flat or out of place. The orchestral score by Academy Award nominee Bruce Broughton, one of the first orchestral scores in a video game, really heightens the cinematic fantasy feeling of the game during the cutscenes. Only a cop-out of an ending keeps me from absolutely loving the way this game tells its story. While I don’t necessarily hate where the story goes and what it suggests, I will say that it seems to cut itself short just as things are getting really interesting, and the way it transitions from climax to denouement will be incredibly jarring for most players.

Fans of Another World will feel right at home once they finally get to control Andy. This is a platformer with step-based movement, meaning that actions are delayed after you push the button in order to accommodate complex player animations. Andy can sprint, jump. Unusually for a cinematic platformer, Andy can also double-jump. This is very useful for dodging some projectiles and getting over gaps.

While Andy has invented an lightning gun, its not something that you’ll be using for most of the game. Instead, Andy’s primary means of attack is magic, which he acquires by touching a glowing rock at the bottom of the lake. You can either fire single shots or charge up for a more damaging shot, which is really only useful on certain enemies. The charging shot can also be used to manipulate certain objects in the environment, such as making plants grow from seeds, or destroying obstacles in your path.

The game’s puzzles are very well-designed, often forcing you to come up with clever solutions to get past obstacles. You’ll frequently need to manipulate the environment and the creatures inside of it to find ways around them, or take advantage of Andy’s size and agility. Admittedly, though, there were a few times when the game just flat-out gave me the answer because I was dying on a particular screen so much, but its understandable since the game wants to keep up its pace. Still, I wish that the hints were something that could be optionally turned off.

Where the game falters a bit is when you have to actually start fighting the darkness. Much of the game’s combat encounters can be completed by standing in one place and simply firing away until all enemies are dead. You’ll occasionally need to jump and duck to dodge projectiles, but most of the time its about making sure that any enemies on all sides of Andy are killed. Enemies seem to take an inconsistently long time to kill, and there’s no cancel button for firing animations, meaning that quickly dodging something can be a challenge unless you see it coming from fairly far away. It doesn’t help that the frame rate is only about 15 frames-per-second to accommodate the game’s animation. All of these flaws are exemplified by the game’s combat-heavy final chapter which features numerous such encounters, including a unique enemy type that respawns two more of itself after you kill it. It was quite a slog throwing myself against this wall over and over again, and at times it felt more like luck rather than skill when surviving some of these combat sections, even after I got reasonably good at it.

Another issue is the game’s lack of scrolling. This is a flaw that many cinematic platformers unfortunately have, and Heart of Darkness does absolutely nothing to solve it. Screens can sometimes take some time to actually load. As a result, some of the more fast-paced sections of the game have to be replayed over and over again until you beat them, because you cant see a deadly monster or gap coming up after the screen flipped.

The graphics were a major selling point for Heart of Darkness. While the pre-rendered graphics and environments may look similar to games such as the Donkey Kong Country series at first glance, the lighting, textures, and animations are far more detailed than in the SNES platformers. It’s honestly amazing how fluid and realistic the animations for Andy look, and it still impresses even to this day.

What really stands out is the art design. The tone of this game is truly eerie and otherworldly. These environments are simultaneously beautiful and frightening to behold, and there’s quite a bit of variety. You’ll traverse canyons, swamps, caves, and volcanoes to track Whiskey down. Similarly, creature design is fantastic, with some genuinely creepy and foreboding enemies to face and friends to meed.

One of the things that contributes to the game’s atmosphere is also arguably Heart of Darkness’ most notorious feature. You see, despite having a family-friendly rating from the ESRB, this game has some of the most shocking deaths you are ever likely to see in a game rated as such. There may be no blood or guts, but that doesn’t make the deaths any less disturbing. The first time you see a flying creature pick Andy up and snap his spine in twain, complete with a loud crack, it’s hard not to wince and question how this could have possibly slipped past the ratings board. You’ll also see Andy get incinerated, crushed, and eaten alive by numerous creatures, leaving behind nothing but his shoes. Even some of the villains characters have painful-looking deaths. These deaths make the “darkness” of the game something that feels like an actual nightmare, giving the game the feel of a dark fairytale.

While the gameplay flaws are frustrating, I have to say that I really enjoyed Heart of Darkness while it lasted, which admittedly wasn’t long. There simply aren’t enough games like this that get made today, and Heart of Darkness is overall an excellent, if dated example of its genre. One of the most underrated games of the 32-bit era, this dark, atmospheric title very much deserves a re-release or even a remake on modern platforms. Despite its initial kiddie appearance, this is a game with some real bite and challenge, and will appeal to older gamers arguably more than children.

The Good
(Note: I am talking about the PS version when I played it, but the PC version is still identical to its PS counterpart, so what I say about it is true to both versions of the game. So please forgive the console sounding overtone.) One day, I was looking for a good Playstation game to rent, like any other Friday. Unfortunately for me, Final Fantasy VII was out, the one game I had bought a PS to play. Then I spotted a copy of Heart of Darkness. Whats this I thought, another cheap animated Disney-type kid's game? A closer examination revealed that this was that game more delayed than Daikatana, in development for four years. Without wanting to go home open handed, I picked up this game and never knew about the awesome ten hours that would follow. HoD is very much like underrated and unknown SNES and PC classic, 'Out of this World'. It's a 2D, side scrolling adventure through a land of shadows about a kid named Andy and his dog that stumble into a fatasy world that could make a better movie than Jedi Knight or the console game Metal Gear Solid. It's THAT good. Cinemas are of course 3D CG, and some of the best acting and overall time Amazing Studios took to make this game. Cinemas are so good, and fit perfectly into the story; you won't know what the heck is going on without these cinemas; you'll WANT to know what happens next in the seamless Gameplay to Cinema transfer. Of course gameplay is the meat of any game and HoD has got it in spades. It's 2D side-scrolling, one-way-to-get-passed-obstacle gameplay with puzzle elements that are excellently put in the game at the right time. Some people will call it very hard (which it is sometimes, but you keep playing to advance the storyline) and demanding in making you do exactly what the designers want you to do may sway some players from it, which is unfortunate, because the game is so good, its one of the finest games ever. I would say more about it but it would ruin it. So good, Steven Speilberg wanted to make a movie based on it. Anyway, if you like Out of this World, or like good games, buy this, even though its too short, you WILL want to play it again, because the characters and storyline are very memorable. For the sake of all things good, buy it! It even revives and pays tribute to the long dead side scroller genre, and does the genre justice. Possibly the last great side scroller.

The Bad
Hmmmmm.......too short, although I'll go backto it again, I smell a sequel. Also, sometimes you will hate the do-what-the-developers-wanted-you-to-do gameplay, but aren't other greats like Half-Life the same way?

The Bottom Line
2D/3D side scrolling goodness with an EXCELLENT storyline and cinemas.

The Good
Heart of Darkness is an excellent game, disregarding 3D accelerated graphics, complicated interfaces and all that mumbo-jumbo, Heart goes back to the basics and delivers a gaming experience based only on the ingenious and inventive machinations of these 2D gods that used to be Delphine soft. It truly is one of those cases when it's "so old, it's new"

The story is inconsequential (which is unfortunate, see "the bad") but the gameplay is nothing but genius. It combines excellent level design with simple yet interesting puzzles, and some of the most beautiful 2D artwork ever to grace a platform game. The game uses the time-honored super-fluid animation Delphine was known for in their previous games, and also includes breath-taking animated backgrounds which makes the game stand firmly as an example of how great, detailed art can enhance a game experience. The music too is top notch, with an impressive arrangement of orchestral music that is so good it rivals some of the best orchestral music found on feature films.

Heart of Darkness is truly a game too good to be true. One wouldn't think that someone would actually do a game like this in this day and age. But it's simple yet inventive gameplay, it's attention to detail, and it's great production values make it a timeless jewel.

The Bad
Well, essentially the resolution is too small. The game uses only 80% of the screen and the graphics sometimes produce a startling amount of "pixelitis" which is a real shame considering how beautiful the art in this game is. Aside from that you have the fact that the game is too short, which isn't necessarily bad, but since it's so damn linear it makes the game take a real value hit. You can't really expect to pay more than 20 bucks for the kind of value you get here. Also the final confrontation seems downright cheap, it's "shoot everything and get to the last screen!"...

But those are mostly small gripes. The only real problem I have with the game is that sometimes it seems like a waste. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but I don't exactly enjoy the fact that it is so kiddie-oriented. I mean, remember Out of this World? If you look at both games they are essentially the same: character trapped in strange world, trying to get back (or simply survive) and who gets involved in native problems. Gameplay is the same. So what makes "World" better than "Heart"? The underlying maturity that was present in it. "World" had a clear message in it, and created an emotional storyline, with great characters and somewhat deep connotations without a single line of dialogue (well unless you count your alien buddy's grumbling). I can't help but think that if "Heart" had dared to be mature it would have been elevated to the category of all time classic like it's predecessor, now it is simply an excellent inspired platformer.

All that wouldn't imply a change in the game itself, the game can convey a somber and serious tone sometimes, which make it contrast a lot with the cutesy cutscenes. In fact, I often thought when playing it that those who made the game and those who made the cutscenes must have been thinking of different games altogether. In the game itself you have a more dark and moody conception of the gameworld, and you have some downright mature details like some exceptionally gory death animations (ps. If anyone wants to know how to convey gore and death without the blood just check this game and enjoy Andy's many deaths). But whenever you go back to the cutscenes, it's back to cutey-land, and if you told me that they told a nice storyline then yeah, I guess I could accept it, but the story here is nothing to remember.

...Ahh tsk, tsk. Well I guess you just can't have it all, huh?

The Bottom Line
Regardless of all my grumping this is a great-great-great-great game. Just don't dream about what it could have been and you'll be fine... or if you have no problems with the kiddie factor then dive right in!