Topic: A Look Back at Eternal Darkness

[cubist]

IGN Weekly had a nice segment with Dennis Dyack when they looked back at Eternal Darkness.  Talk about a one-of-a-kind gaming experience.  He talks about hopefully hooking up with Nintendo again.  

2 things about the game:

(1)  It didn't sell well...maybe we should give the GCN a good send off and try and have people buy it.  What a great game!!!  Some people consider it to be the best ever.

(2)  It left a lot unanswered...Silicon Knights and Nintendo should hook up again.

[mantidor]

I thought the spell system was awesome, but it would've been nice if there was the possibility to make it more flexible, instead of having a set list of possible spells. The combat part was my only complain about the gameplay in general, but the game isnt heavily focused on that but rather in the puzzle aspect, so its not that big of a complain. I still play it, I havent finished it with all the alignments.

[ShyGuy]

I liked Eternal Darkness a lot, never played Twin Snakes.

Dyack has struck me as the kind of guy who will say what the person he is talking too wants to hear, so that makes him kind of a dink in my book.

[Nick DiMola]

Eternal Darkness was a phenomenal game and I would love to see a sequel in the future. Truly sad that the game didn't sell well. I did my part, I picked that beast up on opening day and I haven't stopped loving the game since. I believe I've beaten the game with all alignments 3 times (12 play throughs essentially).

Anybody have any cool ideas for an ED2?

[Pale]

My local Wal-Mart is still selling sealed copies for 50 bucks... sheesh.

They are also still selling Wave Race for 50 bucks.

[Ian Sane]

In retrospect I think I overrated ED when it first came out because it had a really cool atmostphere and it was a Nintendo game that wasn't all super-fun-happy-land.  The game has a really cool attention to detail.  The story is cool and scary and there's all sorts of neat details like murals on walls and such and the insanity effects are awesome.  The problem is the gameplay is largely just walking through corridors hacking and slashing zombies.  Silicon Knights has a fantastic attention to detail but I think they would benefit from working with someone more gameplay oriented.  It's a shame they only made one original game for Nintendo because I think a direct collaboration with Miyamoto would have been perfect.  Miyamoto is a master of gameplay but usually has pretty barebones stories.  SK however had a great story with ED but average gameplay.  The two compliment each other's weaknesses.

Though I find Eternal Darkness' attention to detail isn't as impressive after you've played Metroid Prime, which has incredible detail but also killer gameplay.

[EasyCure]

insanity affect where you hear whispers and screams coming from the wiimote!!!

[cubist]

Quote
Originally posted by: EasyCure
insanity affect where you hear whispers and screams coming from the wiimote!!!

That is a good idea.  It looks like the Wiimote speaker may also as a detecting device (i.e., tricorder in Star Trek).  

Eternal Darkness should just be left alone.  Denis Dyack and Nintendo should write something different.

[KnowsNothing]

What Ian said =s

ED at first seemed totally awesome.  The spellcasting was cool, the atmosphere was great, the storyline was cool, and the voice acting amazing.  Unfortunatley those things couldn't mask the boring gameplay.  Especially towards the end; the last leg of the game infuriated me so much I refuse to play any longer.  The atmosphere, like, died or something, and the environments and gameplay became extremely repetitive.  Plus, fighting with only magic is cumbersome and aggrivating.

Uhh, ED sucks.

[Hostile Creation]

I agree wholly with Ian.  He pinned it.

[Kairon]

Wait...so does this mean that we can criticize Eternal Darkness without being accused of Bashing Silicon Knights just because they left Nintendo? Really?

... Can we ... do the same thing for Rare? And Factor 5?

And just for the record, I reserve opinion on Retro Studios until I see what they can do WITHOUT NCL holding their hand on game design, and I have to say that NST's first original project, Project H.A.M.M.E.R. looks like it'll need some work to end up something other than "Hunter: The Reckoning" with a hammer included...

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[BiLdItUp1]

Kairon, what difference does it make, as there are no signs that NCL aren't handholding NST and will stop handholding Retro (both first parties)?  

[KDR_11k]

Kairon: All of NST's games look like they need more work.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Well even though the gameplay was a bit shallow the story, atmosphere, soundtrack and execution was exceptional and the game in general was worth the 50 dollars. This also reminded me of another game killer 7 gameplay was shallow but everything else was great and unique. Sadly Too Human right now looks a tad bit dissappointing especially with the bipolar camera system and the action seems subdued, dull and boring.

[rossi46]

does the game play from a 3rp person view like Tomb Raider, or does it have an isometric thing going on like RE? The screens make it look awesome.

[KDR_11k]

Fixed perspective most of the time and a nasty tendency to show you a closeup of your character but no enemies that are more than 2m away.

[Kairon]

This is a result of an intelligent camera system that shows the action from dramatic pre-arranged angles... I personally had no problem with the ED camera though. The enemies were quite easy to kill even when they were off camera.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Donutt007]

I loved that game....hell I might just go home and play it when I get off work. It is the only game that I actually had to put down and stop playing for a while. Not because I was stuck, or bored, but because it freaked the hell out of me.

I was playing and got to a boss and my friend hit "mute" on the remote. The sound killed off and it said mute on the screen. So I pause the game, turn around and called him a jackass. He looked at me kind of crazy and said "what?" Then I remembered, "wait, we don't have a remote for this TV" Unpaused the game and it went back to normal.

Gotta love it

[Svevan]

My main complaint with the game was that Insanity Effects occurred when you had a full Insanity Meter, making them totally obvious and not scary. There was only maybe once that the game actually fooled me. I find Resident Evil's scares (typewriter ribbons, bad control, bad item management system) to work far better because they affected gameplay, but were still non-diegetic. ED's non-diegesis was scary, then quickly meaningless.  

[Kairon]

Eternal Darkness' sanity effects were a GREAT idea, but like Svevan pointed out,k they were made obsolete by game design elements.

This is not because they're a bad idea. It's because Silicon Knights made the stupid decision of making them obsolete via gameplay mechanics, which allow you to tell when you're insane or allow you to easily, via the magick system, avoid them altogether.

Sanity was a great idea, which I blame Silicon Knights for dropping the ball on because they had very little grasp on quality game design. This is very mean of me to say, but I doubt I will miss them AT ALL now that they're hard at work on the X360.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com