Amnesia: The Dark Descent | a Review
originally published on 02/06/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the obscure and mostly mythical G.E.M.Simov, an alien (could be) who has found his way to an old castle in Prussia and is about to tell you a story pertaining to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, henceforth dubbed Amnesia.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Amnesia. That’s a cult-y classic, isn’t it? But then there is also a bit of a stigma attached to it, from what I recall, even if that’s related to presentation, rather than gameplay… Even if it is associated to gameplay.
First things first, this is a first person horror game. Do I call it a survival horror game? You do need to manage a set of resources and you do need to survive in the game - because you can die - but then which horror game is not a survival horror game? Maybe Amnesia is a survival horror game, in the truest sense of the word, because you do need to manage at least 2 resources, maybe even 3, if we count health as a resource…
Let’s get talking. There’s a Sanity mechanic, which needs to be managed. Sanity is a value that starts off at… Say, 100. The more the game is played, the more Sanity is drained, which drainage occurs thanks to certain things. Those things are events (scripted), staying in the dark and also enemies. The sheer observance of enemies depletes Sanity, so that amounts for something, which ought to be remembered for a bit later.
In any case, those things mentioned lower Sanity. Why does one care about their Sanity’s value? Because the lower your Sanity, the less visible things become. The movement of the camera (bound to your mouse) becomes unbelievably sluggish, a number of filters are applied to the screen and things become obscured and harder to make out. The sluggishness of the camera’s movement ties into the movement of your character, because you can’t really turn around without using the camera to do so, thus you become less maneuverable.
On top of that, on the big difficulty, having low Sanity can kill you - I don’t exactly understand how it works, but you don’t just die outright from losing your Sanity - or you did - but you become unbelievably frail, to the point that you can die from things that shouldn’t kill you. An example would be an event that occurs early on in the game, featuring a barrel that falls on top of the Player Character (PC) and knocks them out. On the ordinary (small) difficulty, this doesn’t do damage, or it did such a tiny amount of damage that it was nigh imperceivable. On the high difficulty, the big one, this barrel can kill the PC if they do not have high enough Sanity.
So, Sanity needs to be managed. Don’t look at enemies, stay out of the dark… How does it go up, though? Considering the fact that there are events that cause your Sanity to drain, then there’s a point at which, if you could not get it back up, you’d just die from playing the game. The answer is that progression increases Sanity. Whenever a ‘puzzle’ is solved, Sanity is restored. Whenever the PC reaches a new location, Sanity is restored. In short, playing the game successfully makes your Sanity come back to you.
Alright, but what’s that about staying out of the dark? This is a horror game, is it not? Doesn’t that mean that there’s a very obscene amount of darkness that needs to be considered? Why, yes, of course. The vast majority of this game is quite dark and spooky, and the darkness is harmful to the PC. However, there are tools to deal with that. In come Tinderboxes and Oil.
Tinderboxes are a resource, even if I do not really want to call them such, that can be used as a means of creating light on predetermined spots. There might be a candelabra, or a simple candle, or an unlit torch, all of which can be ignited through the use of a tinderbox. The light provided staves off the Darkness and makes things nice and almost safe.
Then again, you can beat the game without using tinderboxes. The big difficulty presents a challenge in the form of limiting the number of tinderboxes that spawn (from the usual 120~, if I recall correctly, all in predetermined spots) to a measly 25% of that. You can’t know which tinderboxes have spawned and which haven’t, so there might be a lot more dead ends than before.
On top of that, the big mode features another price - you need 4 tinderboxes to save your progress, and there is no auto-saving. That makes tinderboxes a resource, but on the normal difficulty, tinderboxes can be treated as almost obsolete. Why?
Oil. Lamp oil. The PC gets a Lantern at the very beginning of the game, and that Lantern is a source of light that can be carried by the PC. It does require Oil, though, so the player needs to find oil wherever they can, otherwise their Lantern will run out of oil and then… Then there’s darkness, and there’s death in the dark. Maybe, we don’t know what’s in the dark, do we?
So the Player has these resources that need to be managed, meaning that we could call Amnesia a survival horror game. In addition to that, we could call Amnesia a survival horror game due to the fact that this is the only thing the Player can do - survive. The Player has no means of fighting back against the enemies in the game. In fact, they are completely powerless.
That, in turn, increases the horror element’s potency (but more on that in the presentation section), whilst also giving the Player a real reason to be afraid of the enemies. The enemies will kill the PC, and the Player will lose progress. On the big difficulty, that’s amplified an obtuse amount of times, because you could have not saved your game in a very, very long time, so any time an enemy appears, you think of the 20 or 30, maybe even 60 minutes of playing that you’ve been doing so far, and imagine it disappearing. Not a fun prospect.
How, then do we deal with these enemies? There’s definitely a need to be able to avoid them, to survive, and if we can’t fight them, what’s the cure for this ailment? Hiding. Hiding where? In the dark, behind barrels and boxes. Here’s where the game becomes cheeky. The Player needs to hide in the dark, because if the PC is illuminated, they are incredibly easy to spot, making the act of hiding pointless. Then, there’s another thing - seeing the enemies becomes a lot harder in the dark, so they might pop out from nowhere. But the safety of them being unable to see the PC makes it so the Player is willing (or maybe forced) to take that chance.
In addition, the fact that the Player is forced to weigh their options: “Can I outrun this goon? Likelihood of that being the case is very low, but maybe I can…” versus “I’ll hide here, take the Sanity loss and hope I can sneak past him…” That’s really good, even if it is super simple. On the normal difficulty, you can take a hit or two, which makes the option of running through somewhat acceptable. On the big difficulty, though, your Sanity drops to a point where you die in one hit as soon as you spot the enemy, and if you’re lucky for it not to do that, you can last a whole 2 hits.
Either way, I feel as though there’s a lot of thought put into the devisment of this game’s gameplay, and it shows. These are, of course, not the only things you’ve got to consider, though. One of the most enjoyable parts of the game is the physics engine, and the fact that things can be moved around and held by the player. Pick up a chair, do things with it. Put it down on the ground, then grab another chair and put it on top of that chair, then grab a box, put it next to the chairs, jump on the box and then, from the box, jump on top of the chairs. That provides you with a measure of freedom that was really unexpected, and, frankly, underutilized in the game, but was subsequently made gorgeous use of in the expansion.
Did I mention the expansion? Well, yes, I did… I’ll keep it for another time, though.
In the meantime, I must say that what was presented, as gameplay, in this game, was quite satisfactory. The more I try to recall things that I dislike about the game, the more it becomes clear to me that there’s nothing bound with the basics of the gameplay. Maybe the way some of the levels were designed, in the later stages of the game, could use some work, as their maze-like quality becomes obtuse, but that’s not enough to take away from the game.
In fact, this game features something else. A means of playing around with those things. The developer has provided the Players of Amnesia with the tools required to forge their own levels, their own customs stories, and to share them with other Players. That allows for unfathomable amounts of ‘replay-ability’, because you are technically playing Amnesia, but then you’re actually not playing Amnesia. This is a very important part of what Amnesia is, and it is an incredibly valuable part of it, too. Fantastic stuff on that end is all I’m gonna say.
Now, back to the gameplay. It is simple, yes. But who said simple is bad? It does everything it has set out to do, and that’s all I need in a game, frankly. 3/3
Presentation
Now, here’s the big kicker, ladies and gentlemen, and maybe N-bees. The presentation is one of, if not the most, important part of any horror game out there. The gameplay can be uninspired and lackluster, but if the presentation has it all, then the game has it all.
As started in the previous segment, Amnesia is incredibly popular, or, at least, it is very well known. So much so, in fact, that there’s an association made between Amnesia and the concept of a ‘cheap jump scare’. Now, cheap jump scares are nothing new - they’re everything that shows up in 95% of horror films since the early 20th century, as well as the bread and butter of poorly executed horror games. However, the association between Amnesia and those comes not from the game itself, but from the things that surround the game. There’s PewDiePie, who gained popularity by playing Amnesia, even if not Amnesia itself, but modified versions of Amnesia, and screaming at the top of his lungs. Why? Because he was getting scared. That’s that.
But he was getting scared while playing the custom stories, the modified alternatives, the Player-made levels. Amnesia itself does not have the intent to provide the player with a cheap jump scare. Why? Well, let’s get to the way Amnesia does things.
First, we set the scene. There’s a limited amount of light, and there’s an obscene amount of unknown. The Player knows nothing, the PC, too, knows nothing, the setting is incredibly alien to most people (because I doubt anyone lives or spends a lot of time in medieval castles). There is almost no music, and what little music there is is quiet and more ambient than anything else. It serves to create an unsettling atmosphere.
That unsettling nature of the game - both visually, what the Player sees, and audibly, what the Player hears - is what makes it scary. The unease that is generated by the darkness and the unknown, the way things sound and the things that are presented to the Player - that all serves to put one on edge.
Then something happens. Be it a ‘spooky’ occurrence, or the appearance of an enemy, there is a sound, but it isn’t sudden and loud from the get-go. It starts off silent, distant, and picks up in volume and intensity. Then, when the event is over, or the enemy is no longer interested, having lost the PC, the sound and music fades out, leaving you with ambiguity. Is it over, or is this a momentary pause?
That lasts constantly, until you end up finding a safe place, or progressing. Whenever that happens, the game makes sure to let you know that things are now good, doing so through a sound or a bit of music that serves as a means of urging you to calm down or relax. It’s intriguingly well done.
So, then is this game filled with ‘cheap jump scares’? Nope. In fact, it is one of the few horror games that ends up being a horror game for the good reasons - it fills the player with dread, rather than being filled with ‘SCARES’. It is… Intriguingly well done.
The presentation of this game is that - intriguingly well done. There’s voice acting, and it is all done quite well, there’s UI that works, there’s well-written stuff in the game, too. In fact, there’s a lot of goodness in this game.
The visuals of the game are also quite good, even if there are moments where whatever limitations were in place can be seen, clear as day. I can let those flow by, because the art of the game is phenomenal. Conceptually, everything is astoundingly pleasant to behold, even if in reality it is a corpse or some other unsightly thing. There’s a vast number of interesting things, steampunk-esque creations and other intriguing objects to observe. The monsters are also incredibly neat. Thus, 3/3
Story
This game is fantastic. Why? Because the Gameplay’s simplicity lends itself to the telling of a story. Because the wondrous sights and presentation lend themselves to creating an interesting world. And, guess what Amnesia does? It takes those things and rolls with them so far down the hill that it ends up gathering enough momentum to jump over the next!
The story in Amnesia is a mystery. The PC, at the very start of the game, has… Done something and has ended up with an amnesia (roll credits?), so the PC and the Player know as much as one another. Everything that gets done, and that gets uncovered, serves to explain what’s what. And the facts pertaining to what, here, are scintillating.
There’s an astounding amount of goodness in this. So much so that I do not want to spoil absolutely anything, because it was just that sublime to experience first hand, but then I also really want to talk about it, because this concept is monstrously interesting to me.
So, here’s the deal - you go play the game right now (or watch a play-through of it, no judgment), experience the story yourself, and then come back, okay?
Right, so you’re now back. The story features a humongous number of references to antiquity, I suppose, and presents us with a truly ancient character. So ancient, in fact, that it is not certain how ancient he is. There is also the fact of the matter that said character is actually an alien - or something along those lines. Perhaps he is not an alien, but a spirit of sorts, maybe an angel?
In any case, there’s a monstrous amount of curiosity to be had. As the mystery is revealed, more and more questions pop up. What are those spheres, I wonder, and there is truly no real answer in the story. They remain unknown, which maybe prompts me to be that infatuated with them. Then there’s the question of what is Alexander, and I remain lacking in knowledge. What, truly, is he?
Why is it that he wants to do what he is doing? Why is it that he has ended up being forced to do these things? What has happened to have him forcefully removed from wherever it was that he was prior? Still, what are these orbs, and why does it appear as though they are more ancient than the very world, only to be wield-able by individuals with this knowledge that Alexander possesses? The number of questions left in my previously vacant head is obscene, and I can’t shake it.
The fact of the matter is that I find things relating to the truly distant past of humanity, that portion of history that is dubbed obscure, incredibly interesting, because it features the greatest ability to go rampant and wild. It houses within itself the moment we became humans, rather than some kind of ape, and that moment features an insanely rich potential for storytelling. I’d wager that said moment was grasped by the authors behind Amnesia, and that they slid the spheres in there, came up with their own explanation to things and gave the Player a crumb and a half.
That monstrous mystery drives me forward, urges me to want more, to think about Amnesia and the concepts barely addressed in it. A good story, undoubtedly. 3/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Does this game, which I’ve so far been gently caressing and kissing gingerly in an effort to convey just how good it is, get the point? I mean… yes.
How can I not give this game the Legendary Point? How can I ignore the concept of this game, how can I turn a blind eye to the unbelievable association to the obscurity of human history? How can I not appraise it rightly when it features concepts that grasp me by the balls and yank me with such force that I don’t just lose consciousness from the pain, I awaken in an indescribable bliss?
The sheer sight of the inner sanctum, its walls carved of seemingly beige clay or the smoothest sandstone, appearing reminiscent of the earth worked by these Indian fellows in the ‘I make a house with a pool’ videos who advertise themselves as ‘primitive’. I can’t explain it, frankly, this incredible fascination I have. It could be why I also find myself drawn inexplicably to Clive Barker’s Jericho, even if I know it’s not that good a game, I just want to experience it.
The first human settlement, the obscurity of human history, these moments which are so distant we truly know nothing and can only guess… That’s what’s so special about Amnesia, because it features that obscurity, and it presents it in such an outstanding manner that I can’t not recognize it as a masterpiece. 1/1
Conclusion
10/10. Wow. Maybe I didn’t plan on giving this game a 10 when I played it, but now that I’ve had it wallowing in my brain soup, I suppose the rough diamond it was has ended up polished to perfection. This game is phenomenal, and I’d urge anyone with a strong enough stomach and an inclination to play games to play it. If not play it, watch someone play it, at least so that they can experience the story.
I place it in a frame, surrounded by lights. As though it were upon a king’s head on the day of his coronation, I extend my hands towards it, a wordless prayer on my lips. An achievement, undoubtedly, one that I can not fathom. And a copy of it I proudly tuck away under my belt, to be displayed as a treasure unlike any other.