Wow. While this game definitely looks dated (like a very early PS2 game, or a very late PS1 game with lips that move), it really does pull off a lot of atmospheric things. I've never really played much of the Silent Hill or Clock Tower games, but I definitely played a bunch of Resident Evil games, none of which, I'll admit so much scary as startling (IE: Nemesis jumping through the window, finding you in a hallway randomly, Crimson Heads popping up right behind you, Mr. X coming out of nowhere), though some of which (IE: 0 and REmake) happen to be very atmopsheric, they're not scary.

This game manages to ##### with your head like a first playthrough of MGS2 inside Arnsenal Gear, except moreso. Much more so. Of course you aren't naked the whole time. But remember the random Fission Mailed? This game does that by randomly turning off your console, muting the game, turning the screen upside down, making your character explode into pieces out of nowhere. The less your sanity meter is, the more creepy the enviroments become, by tilting all over the place, and sounds of people crying, or laughing maniacally play. In the part with Anthony, your appearence keeps on deterriorating until you finally meet Charlamagne.

The story starts with a woman named Alexandra having a nightmare of fighting zombie like skeletonish beings in a mansion with a shotgun (lol Resident Evil). She wakes up to a telephone call from the Rhode Island police telling here there's been an accident with her grandfather. As soon as she can, Alexandra gets to her grandfather's home by plane, and the investigating officer shows Alexandra the body, which when she sees she almost vomits and asks why the hell he would show her that when to identify it they could simply check dental records. The officer says they can't because the head is missing. Says there's no sign of break in, but a lot of force was used. Alexandra decides to stay in Rhode Island until the investigation is over. In a week, however, she sneaks into the mansion to try and find some clues of what might have taken place, and she finds a book of the Eternal Darkness.

Reading it, you get to play as the characters she is reading about. Pious Agustus, a Roman soldier is the first, and they're all from different time periods and locations. Anthony is in France in the medieval times, the dancer girl is in Cambodia during the 1500s, etc.

The combat system is... rather lame. You aim at enemy's body part, and you shoot it/hack it/stab it depending on the weapon. It's not very exciting. You don't have to aim, and then you'll pretty much be keeping groups of enemies at bay, which is useful. You also have the magic making system, but for a while, it's very restricted. You don't get to use magic at all until the third chapter.

But, the game's creepy as hell. When you start going insane, the screams of the people just makes it feel very urgent, and when you play as Anthony, his deterriorating condition and walk just adds to it. However, keeping yourself sane is pretty easy, because you gain sanity by performing "Finishing strikes" on enemies, which is kind of similar to collecting sand from enemies in Price of Persia, except most of the time here they won't rise again if you don't do a finishing strike. Not being insane in the game isn't anywhere near as cool, though. There's also this one scene in the bathroom of the mansion.... UGH.


Did anyone here play that game?
What did you think of it?

I must say, that I havent played it (not too into horror games) but Ive heard that this game is really really good, so Ive been thinking about picking up a used copy of this and giving it a play, but I just havent gotten to it yet.

I haven't played it, but I saw it a loong time ago and just thought to myself "wannabe RE or Silent Hill" so I never picked it up.

But after hearing that....I just might pick it up. I'm sure it's cheap as hell used, probably around 2.99

Actually, I bought mine for about thirteen dollars. Huge bargain, but unless a game is Evergrace or another game by Software, it usually won't cost that little.

I dunno man personally I didn't care all that much for it... But I'm not big on the survival horror genre anyway. The game really didn't offer much more than you'd find in an RE game and the insanity meter really didn't make much of an impact on me.

The gameplay is pretty cut and dry and I didn't find it all that exciting. It's been a few years since I've played it, if not longer, but I remember just mildly enjoying the title.

I love a good SH game, I remember playing the first Silent Hill when I was younger, and RE2 had it's moments too, but weren't really 'scary', nothing is scary when you have a shotgun lol.

I've seen Eternal Darkness at EB...sounds pretty tripped out.

Hm... I've heard from many people that this is possibly the most underrated GC game out there. Hearing the context of it, and due to personal interests, I'm surprised I haven't played it yet. I'll have to look around, it sounds interesting.

I remember making a topic about this game when I was playing it the first time. XD

I love this game, hardcore. It was probably the first horror game that I actually played and beaten on my own without help from my brother, but it was indeed chilling. The sanity meter was such a nifty way to add to the experience and some of the effects that were more for the player than the character (like the Mute screen or bugs) were sometimes pretty interesting.

Especially loved the concept of playing as different characters in different time periods and how they didn't make the characters just carbon copies of each other just with different appearances. but I do agree with you on the combat system, Den-den. It is a little lame, but I don't remember very many horror games that had outstanding combat. :/

And OMG, the bathroom scene! You got that? XD That one literally made me jumped out of my seat. I remember one which had a maid freaking out in the library and the butler in the piano room. o_O; I wanted to see some of Alex's sanity effects and scared myself silly.

EDIT: Just a thought, but wasn't the game supposed to come out for the N64 and that's why the graphics look so dated? I think I saw something about that, once upon a time.

I didn't see the maid in the library and the butler in the piano room yet. Insanity has been avoided for a while because it kept killing off my characters. Though with Alex it's still always okay. When I kept hearing the knocking on the door I kept going to the front door to see if the cops showed up or whatnot. The footsteps also kind of creeped me out.

Though discriptions of characters like the maids who cook dinner and everything change when you go insane, and they're pretty cool. When I read the part about throwing a human organ into a pot, I killed the woman, only to find she was human, so I lost a ton of sanity for that.

>_< I ABSOLUTELY HATED the monk's ending though. Though the fight against SPOILER (from Chapter 3) was pretty cool. His ending was total lameness. "Pop. OH SNAP WHAT?"

Oh, those were always pretty freaky. I still remember that statue head that followed you upstairs. x.x That one was just freaky, and I think youget it even when your sanity is full.

Ooooh, you killed her, too? XD Maan, talk about total kick in the head when you do that; it makes your whole sanity situation worse. Though, I still can't stand it when the Bone Theives take over any of the people. It's no wonder what happened to Maximillian.

Ahaha, his ending, but then again. No one really had that great of one, huh? XD I think only Lindsay was the only fortunate one. I seriously felt bad after the Dancer's ending. That totally sucked. D8

Eternal Darkness is a pretty crazy game. The only thing I really have a problem with (albiet a very, very, small problem) is that the story totally hardcore borrows off of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.
As far as endings go, I think that Anthony's is the worse, especially considering that (spoiler)





you actually have to kill him later as the monk, which means that he has spent all that time trapped like that, never dying. It's no wonder he attacks you; the poor man has probably gone stark raving mad.



So, did anybody else miss the Mantarok rune on their first time through the game?

Ohmigosh, the zombie!Anthony fight. Ugh, that scared the crap out of me the first time I played.

The Mantarok rune, haha. I missed it, but I found out by my brother telling me right after I finished Lindsay's part. And he was watching me play through the entire thing. x.x I guess he wanted to see if whether or not I would catch it. Freaking lame...

But going back on endings; did anyone get the hidden epilogue after the ending when you beat the game on all three of the Ancients' sides? o.o

O_O You're supposed to get it during Lindsey's game? DAMN IT.

Lindsey was an awesome character. He was the one that went the least insane of all of the characters you play with. Plus his reasons for not leaving the dungeon were bad ass. Not some popping up wall. Not some feeling to stay or premention. Just like "That mother ###### shot me. I'm gonna ##### him up!" and then he actually succeeds. No one ##### with India... Err. Edwin Lindsey.

Yeah, it's in Linsey's part of the game. If I remember correctly, there's a small area somewhere and you have to summon a Trapper in order to grab the rune or something to that effect. I do remember the room with a few Horrors. (I'll have to ask my brother to be sure. XD)

Edwin Lindsey totally showed a true sign of awesomeness in the game. Most of the other characters were either drawn and curious about what's going on (Pious Augustus) or they were manipulated (Karim) or they had no other choice (Ellia, right? ...the Dancer), but to uncover what the heck was going on. Px

And pretty much, what you said sums up what's so rockin' about him, Den-den. Haha

To get the Mantorok rune:

As you go through the dungeon, you should come across three little altar things protected by the damage field spell. As you dispel each of these, it weakens a barrier in front of a portion of wall in one of the hall ways with the traps in them. When the barrier drops completely, go to where it was and summon a trapper. Go through the hole in the wall, across the bridge, and step on the little switch. A wall behind Lindsey will drop, revealing the Mantarok rune. Grab it, but be prepared for a little Horror interference. Also, be sure to go into where the switch for the wall was to grab the codex for the rune (not really important, but it's kind of annoying to have just the one rune which is unidentified).

As far as the Mantarok rune goes, it's really, honestly mostly useless. The only spell I use it for is the bind spell and the enchant item spell. It's okay with the restore spell, as it will restore both health and sanity, but the mana cost is large. Although if you use it with the reveal invisible spell, it makes YOU invisible, which is kind of cool.

I'm up to the last part of the game, the end of Alex's story. Still have to activate the towers, but the monsters popping up all over the mansion surprised me. And watching Maximillian kill the servants scared the crap out of me. It was a Shining moment there.

Still, the combat is kind of annoying. I hate fighting Guardians. They take forever to kill.

Hm, now I'm curious about something. Px

Had any of you managed to get the Enchanted Gladius for Alex? That thing was pretty dang nift y what with it's indefinite enchantment.

I haven't actually played this game, but I know my sis was thinking of getting it. I dunno, I rather enjoy 'scary' action/adventure games, so this one appeals to me at the moment...however I doubt I'll be playing it any time soon as I have a rather large back log of games to play...

I got the Enchanted Gladius. It wasn't very hard. I had to kill a couple of horrors before I figured out the way you had to set the effigies.