Amnesia: Rebirth

As a huge fan of Fictional Games & their previous titles (The Dark Descent being my intoduction to the horror genre) so it's sufficed to say I had alot of expectation going into the sequel Amnesia Rebirth. How did it hold up? Its abit of an odd game to say the least! Lets go over some good things to start: What it does well is setting up great game enviroments with gorgeous lighting & amazing sound design that will help you immerse yourself into the game world & story. There are some puzzels in this game and most of them are simple to figure out and they help variate the gameplay abit. The story itself is great while losing abit of momentum around half-way point into the game, it's not bad but it works, plus the dialog makes you want to continue on just to see what happens next. Okay what about the bad? My main problems with the game can be summarized in two sections: - The Threat: Item management in this game works just like in TDD with light sources to help you see through the darkness and preventing you from losing your sanity, the problem is that most of the resources you have ( Lamp Oil & Matchsticks) run out so quickly to the point you where you rather rush through areas to minimize the light sources you have than trying to immerse yourself into the game. Also there is no game over in this, if you get spotted and knockout you respawn nearby the area with the threat not longer existing. - Immersion breaker: While I think the story is great in this game there are alot of scripted seqences in this that either takes away the control from you to play out a sceen or to simply show you an event that happen. Comparing it to TDD were you where always in full control this can turn off alot of people expecting something more like TDD. So overall I think that Amnesia Rebirth is a great experince but it doesnt reach the same level of horror that Amnesia The Dark Decent was. For what it is though it works as a sequel with some drawbacks to it. Play it at your own risk

If Soma was a perfect experience, this one feels lacking in the storytelling. There's so much exposition dialogue from the main character talking to herself that it feels like the writer wasn't sure the story was clear enough on its own. Apart from that, Amnesia: Rebirth is a masterfully crafted and innovative experience. I really hope Frictional Games can keep making games like this.

I feel like Frictional may have set expectations in the wrong vein by calling this game Amnesia. While there are ties to the Amnesia universe, the narrative driven game play and sci-fi horror settings will disappoint some fans of The Dark Descent. Amnesia: Rebirth uses the main character's flashbacks and comments to herself, ("What was that thing?!") to garner sympathy and help the player connect with her. This was very effective for me, and immersed me in the bleak, discouraging story unfolding in front of me. I do feel like the game could have leaned deeper into mechanics like managing Tasi's fear. I expected to need to be more careful about how much time I spent in the darkness. I appreciated when I entered a sunlit room and locked that Tasi said, "I feel safer here". But I also thought that would come into play, needing to find a safe room to calm Tasi down, but it didn't. While not as memorable or grand in story scope as Soma, I really enjoyed Amnesia: Rebirth and look forward to whatever Frictional works on next!

God, I have seldom played such a painful and boring "horror" game... nothing has any consequence. The overpowerful enemies get you? You just start at a random location in the current part of the level. But before you do, you'll have to endure a long sequence with flashing images (did no one tell the braindead developers, that most people play such games in dark rooms, where flashing images are absolutley hell?). This "sequence" gets tedious after the 1st time too; just give us a quick load... The story is an incoherent mess with characters you never give any shit about. Even the baby that magically appears inside you (or something like that; as I said, nothing makes any sense). But at least you can read an alien language and operate their machines... And this from a really great first game. I should've trusted the reviews on this game; although mediocre ratings are still too high imho. Even wasting time on this review is too much for this garbage. I know: this is a really harsh review, but that's just how I feel about it. I can't sugar coat it.

There are lots of negative reviews of this game which is fair because it's not what most people expected; me included. It's a pretty linear game with a story that's hit or miss depending on your taste and your relationships with the the characters. It can be difficult to get invested in a character that's very different to yourself and in the beginning of the game I wasn't hooked. However after playing the game a couple of hours as the creators intended and really soaking up the surroundings and the atmosphere it got a lot better. Storywize as well. It's a beautiful game even though the graphics themselves aren't amazing. The environments are varied and interesting but the textures are so so. The scarefactor depends largely on how you play the game and I recommend playing this at night by yourself in the dark and just allow yourself to get immersed. It is a scary game if you try not to run trough everything and I had a lot of fun with it. This game shouldn't be directly compared to it's predecessors because it is it's own thing but the name comes with expectations that can be ruined if you want Amnesia: The Dark Descent 2. As a standalone game I think you should give it a chance and you will still get the Frictional Games feel. Especially if you play it as intended.