Fractional Games the company behind SOMA that released late last year that reinvented the style of horror game where you cannot fight back and only run. They were also behind the Amnesia series, In 2016 they released a collection on the ps4 of all their Amnesia games including Amnesia : A dark descent, Amnesia: Justine and Amnesia; A machine for pigs. Now in 2018 it got released for the xbox one and how did it do?
A game i've wanted to play for a while, having basically papalized the style of gameplay making the player completely helpless and the only option is run and hide. Now this game has originally released in 2010 so there's not much that isn't know about the game now. From the start something I had noticed was the poor choice of font they used for the menu's and the collectible notes. It honestly made the game look like a mobile game at times and very cheap but as I said the game had come out 8 years ago and its understandable why this would be looked over. Even though this is a very small point to complain about, this is only the beginning to a whole host of problems.
I don't know why but at times there are video games that just feel like they were on pc before because they play like pc games on console. While there are others that makes this transition feel seamless and they try and build the game for consoles it makes the game that much more enjoyable. The game is also a few years to late in my option. With how popular the series is it needed to be on console 3-4 years ago. It clearly didn't age well even though certain mechanics still old up. It does do horror really well though, I cannot tell you the amount of times I got really scared when there was nothing there or my character was just having a flashback. The way sounds is used to scare you is just incredible, I have never been this afraid of nothing while playing a video game.
There are other mechanics in the game that didn't work as well, early on in the game there is a water level with an invisible monster that's attracted to the noise you make when entering the water. So you have to use boxes to get around and once you get out the first room you are then tasked with opening a door where you need to turn a wheel to lift the door and that takes forever to open. So what you need to do is use meat to distract the monster long enough for you to open the door, here's the issue with this the monster would ignore the meat and still attack me even though the meat went in before me. It was a nice idea and a cool way to combat this monster but please if you going to do this make it work properly. Commenting on the other games, the dlc Amnesia :Justine is way to short. Compared to the first game I easily finished this in under 10 minutes for the different endings. The sequel Amnesia : A machine for pigs was actually developed by a different studio and it failed to bring what made the first game so good, it was only good for one playthrough.
As well crafted as this game is, I was very disappointed to see that this collection was only a port and not a remaster. This collection could have looked amazing if it had been redone for xbox one and ps4. Apart from a few minor issues the games did exactly what they were intended for and that was to make you feel uneasy and like something was watching your every step. If these types of games interest you I think you owe it to yourself to get this collection and experience everything Amnesia has to offer.
I rate a 6/10
