The Beast Inside

Could not even solve first puzzle on my own (the Latin Letters) and got frustrated

The Beast Inside is an interesting game with some... quirks. At the beginning, it teases the idea of being more freeform puzzler where you acquire tools to solve puzzles. However, that stops and it's actually quite linear. While it does have some interesting environments and some minor lore to discover, the game gets really stretched out and less fun as it goes. Also, it makes no sense and even the answers to your questions make no sense in the end. Here the mystery was better than the discovery. The payoff isn't any good, and the game can't decide if it wants to be a psychological or supernatural thriller. Note: There are multiple endings, but the conditions for getting them may feel sort of random from the player's perspective. It doesn't change much.

What starts off as an effective horror game with creeping dread, jump scares and an eerie atmosphere quickly turns into a jumble of ideas that never manages to repeat the feeling of that first 2 chapters. It makes a few missteps, but what it lacks in consistency and quality it makes up for with inventiveness and volume. The game is very linear and heavily scripted with it frequently taking control away from you via jarring transitions. There’s plenty of interactive sections and puzzles with a basic inventory system but it frequently introduces an idea then forgets to use it again. The physics puzzles and combat are functional but weak and the fetch an item to progress gets ridiculously contrived at times. The later chapters include lots of chase and stealth sequences but due to the speed of the enemies or instant fail criteria, makes it frustrating rather than tense or enjoyable. There’s often too much light in too many locations, rendering the consumable light sources pointless, and items / signposts glow too much which whilst useful for game progression, spoils the setting. The story is good enough but would have been better had it focused on the horror of the psychosis of the character’s dual personality disorder and paranoia during the Cold War and historical periods. As it is, it shows too much too soon, losing a lot of its atmosphere and the constant leaping between the 2 protagonists makes it a bit of a jumble. The graphics are mostly good with only the occasional pop-in except for the character models which look a bit off. Characters vary from scary to comical due to their frequent appearances, visibility and quality of voice acting and the amount of swearing from the main character borders on immature. Couple of minor bugs with control prompts stuck on the screen, items glitch when moved around and having a chapter select to see the different endings would have been nice, especially considering how linear it is.

Somewhat interesting story, cheap jump scares, kind of unbalanced gameplay. Play and forget.

This game does not have the feature of custom key mapping. Therefore, you can't even change one single button with another one. That sucks.