Game Title: Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Genre: 3rd Person Action Adventure
Platform: Gamecube
Price: Varies depending on where you look...typically on the higher end of retro games.
Why It's Spooky
On paper, the story of Eternal Darkness isn't scary. The story begins with Alexandra Rovias going to her recently deceased uncle's mansion to uncover the cause of his death. Then she finds a book bound by human flesh. As you could imagine, things get a little weird after that.
The book contains stories on the lives of several people throughout history, who you play in the game. Some of them are good people, others are bad...and most all of them are super unfortunate to have been dragged into this situation. More often than not each character meets an ending that Edgar Allan Poe would've written about...in fact, I think some of them are the same.
The game is third person perspective and you'll be using a lot of swords (sometimes you'll have a gun) to take out the miscellaneous undead ancients that plague each level. It will definitely give you that retro Resident Evil vibe as you're working to defeat enemies.
A bulk of this game's fear factor is based in it's "Sanity Meter" which is completely opposite from your Health meter. Each level typically starts off with the character feeling fine, but then as monsters and traps continue to come at them the sanity level dips. The lower your sanity dips the crazier the game gets. You'll hear voices screaming and whispering, your character will start speaking gibberish, the walls will ooze blood, the screen will pulse...or even shut off.
Yeah the game will make you feel crazy alongside your character.
Of course, there are also times where the game will just scare you with some f***** up imagery.
This makes traveling the mansion a terrible task as you're forced to examine things and you never know when something may scare the s*** out of you!
Scare factor aside, this is one of the best games that the Gamecube had to offer. Its producers included Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata if that gives you any indication of the quality. It's one of those situations where you'll want to stop, but the game is so good you have to keep going and putting yourself through the misery over and over again.
TL;DR
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a top tier Gamecube game critically acclaimed by all who play it. It'll also mess with your mind with it's unique "Sanity Meter". If you ever find it...play it!
