A critical re-evaluation of Eternal Darkness part 1

A while ago a friend of mine on another IMDb board, in an attempt to understand why I obsess over a show he was a moderate fan of, decided to watch said show over again and this time go over it with a fine tooth comb. The end result was a series of detailed reviews that so far has led to him liking it more than he thought he would. So I got an idea. Do the same thing for my favorite game with the possibility that I won't like it as much as I thought. So now that I've explained what I'm going to do here's the review of the first chapter.

So the game starts with a monologue that I used to have memorized down to the letter but now can recall about 70% of it. "Flesh, bone. Bound together with the oddest magical incantation. My name is Edward Roivas, clinical psychologist. I am also dead."

There's a reason I felt a need to recall it on command way back when, it comes together perfectly. The actor Neil Dickson knows exactly how to say it, the Gregorian chanting in the background makes everything feel ominous without being forced, and the fact that all we can see are close-up shots of the titular tome of Eternal Darkness all create the perfect atmosphere of telling you just enough to make you want to know what's going on.

We are then treated to a sepia toned image of our heroine Alexandra Roivas (Voiced by JENNIFER HALE ^_^) in a mysterious bedroom, there are zombies, she has a shotgun. For the first bit of interactivity she defends herself before we realize this is all a dream. It is at this point I feel there are two noticeable flaws, the first being that we are absolutely ASSAULTED by Chekov and he's packing enough guns to make him dictator of a third world country. Alex's clock shows the time 3:33 (An important number) the dream takes place in a colonial era New England bedroom (Important room) the bedroom door is a prison isolation cell door (Will make sense later) and someone yells "MAY THE RATS EAT YOUR EYES" (We find out who said it later) Look I have no problem Chekov's gun, in fact I like it, but having five guns show up in thirty seconds is just pointlessly unsubtle. Once Alex wakes up and the color comes back, she gets a phone call. Here is the second flaw, she was apparently sleeping fully clothed over the blankets, I would say this was thanks to the game being made in 2002 and principal work on the game being done in 1999 but the tech to realistically render a CG sleeping character had existed years before that, would it have killed their budget to do just a short movie clip instead of manipulating character sprites? Anyway the phone rings and someone tells her that something happened to her Grandfather.

Fast forward a bit, she took a flight from college in Seattle to her childhood home in Rhode Island. There she meets inspector Legrasse (Nice reference) who turns out to be a right bastard. He hits on her just before asking her to verify her grandfather's headless carcass, and oh is it bloody. He does provide one bit of usefulness when he points out that there was no sign of forced entry or much of a struggle, which is definitely odd. When Legrasse says he's never seen anything like this in all his years Alex then swears she will be the one to figure this out.

The screen informs us two weeks pass. I assume a funeral happened, but they decided we shouldn't care about that sort of thing. Right then, first look at the house. I have to admit, it's better than any house I've lived in, but something that always bugged me is that it really doesn't feel like the kind of house it should be. This house is a mansion owned by a family of old money that came to the continent on the Mayflower, it's two stories with three bedrooms, a dining room, a living room, a study and a mini observatory. Don't get me wrong, big opulent house, but that's something an upper-middle class guy would retire in, not something that as late as a couple decades ago had no less than ten live-in servants.

So after some wandering I go up to the second floor, the key to access the top floor breaks in the lock for no reason (Read: we don't want you going here yet, sincerely, the devs) so I go to the study. By the way there's a visual gag here I just never stop laughing at, there's a picture depicting the Roivas family tree in detail, one branch of said tree has a GUY HANGED ON IT. Yeah no one would accuse the Roivas clan of being too mundane, I'm sure he had it coming. So I find an old clock at the end of the library that doesn't work, Alex finds this suspicious and I set it to 3:33 (Chekov) and a secret door opens. The end of the passageway reveals a room covered in unique antiquities including a painting of a tower made of human bodies, an odd looking leather bound book, a Gladius sword and some other stuff.

Alex sits down to read the book, it is in a strange language that suddenly becomes legible English the second she takes a close look at it. Immediately after this visions of haunting supernatural imagery invade her mind. We see them in lurid detail that I have to admit still get a rise out of me. What doesn't work however is Alex's reaction, she turns away from the book and this causes her to lean back in her chair, delivering a second shock when she falls back on it. NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR PHYSICAL COMEDY. At least that's what I think, though it is thankfully a very minor thing that lasts less than a few seconds.

So anyway, now the first Chapter. Alex reads the book and we hear the narrator switch from the older, deader Roivas to a Centurion named Pious Augustus in BCE23. Plot-wise it introduces us to the guy who will be the villain of this story before he went mad, gameplay wise it's a glorified tutorial so I'm not going to talk about that. Instead I'm going to skip ahead to the choice at the end of the stage where Pious has to pick up one of three idols, which one he chooses decides which eldritch god of insanity will possess him and use him for their bidding, which impacts the rest of the game at every level. His choices are the powerful Chathurga, the wise Ulyaouth, or the insane X'elotath. I pick the third one cause green is my favorite color.
He gets zapped, turns into something zombie-like in appearance and delivers a monologue just as classic as the opener.

Well then, first chapter and I already remember why this game had such an impact on my entertainment choices, yet at the same time I came across some blatant
flaws I could only realize after a few years of experience with other pieces of fiction.

I haven't been benign since 1968