Justin's Countdown To Halloween Day Ten: Sanity At Stake

October 14, 2022

Justin’s Countdown To Halloween Day Ten: Sanity At Stake

As we round out the second week, today’s game is probably the most restricted game on my list. One that has only ever come out on one console and is much sought after, and for a good reason.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

What a game! It’s really the one standout GameCube horror game if you don’t count Resident Evil 4, which eventually came to everything. Eternal Darkness is a wild one. It takes place over the course of four ages. The earliest being 26BC and leading to 2000 AD, with the story jumping back and forth between the four periods, but it isn’t too jarring, which is surprising. Each period has a primarily self-contained story, with threads that can be connected between the four.

What really stands out about Eternal Darkness, besides its great story, is the inclusion of the sanity system. While many of the effects of it may not hit as much as it did playing on a CR TV. Like the screen filtering or the volume being turned all the way down. Besides that, the combat system is surprisingly really good, and a lot of thought went into the detail of each period. For example, the weapons for each character are period accurate, like a character from 26 BC who won’t be running around with guns.

The biggest thing about Eternal Darkness is that it needs to be played around four times to get a sense of everything that’s going on. As you complete the first chapter, you pick a path, and then you’ll be locked out of that path the next time you play. There is a lot to say and enjoy in Eternal Darkness, but it is also a very hard game to talk about without spoiling anything. If you have access to it or something that can play it, it is a great time to pick it up. While we will never get a sequel after multiple failed Kickstarters, it looks like those sequels are on hold for now. But maybe one day, we can get a remake or something that makes it easier to play on modern systems.