Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

The Good
Eternal Darkness, from Silicon Knights, was originally intended for the N64 console. After years of lingering in developers hell, the game was finally released for the Gamecube. It was the very first game I got for my Gamecube, and it is one of the best for the console, and also one of the reasons that I wanted one.

In Eternal Darkness, you play as Alex Rovias, as well as 11 others, whom all play a role in defeating the Eternal Darkness. Which is an ancient evil deity, not unlike Lovecraft’s “Great Old Ones”. The game spans the world, from Ancient Persia, Medieval France, and Modern New England. And has a good 15 hours. The game also has pretty good replay value. There are also some unlockables. As in the beginning, you choose which rune to take red, green, blue. Each changes the game slightly. Red makes monsters harder, blue drains magicka, and green drains sanity.

Each playable character has there own weapons and quest. Weapons include melee and ranged. Each also has varying stats. But you must find the magicka. Which transfer to each new character. Runes come in three powers. Three, five and seven point spells. Spells have a wide variety of effects from healing to shields.

In Eternal Darkness you have to watch your health and magicka, and well as your sanity. The Sanity effects are one of the coolest features of Eternal Darkness. It does not have the subtitle of Sanity’s Requiem for no reason. The effect occur when your sanity gets to low. Effects range from grisly ones like characters accidentally shooting themselves, and goofy ones like the display of the volume being lowered. It does not actually lower. One of the coolest is when the game shows a screen saying Thanks for playing the demo!

The Graphics are pretty good. But not Gamecube power. But then again it was designed for the N64. And it was a launch title. It is the character models that suffer the most here. The spells and environments look fantastic.

The Sound department excels. The voice acting is excellent. Particularly the voice of the Ancients. The sound effects are all creepy as they should be. The music takes a backseat here but is still well done.

The Bad
Why do you have to create the spell every time you get a new rune? Like the five and seven point runes, once acquired you must re-make the more powerful spell. Which is a real pain in the arse. The game also suffers from many horror game flaws, such as constant back tracking. And having to use and item like a key instead of it being automatically used.

The Bottom Line
Along with Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth, Eternal Darkness is one of the best horror games of recent years. And the references to Lovecraft and Poe are cool.