This sounds really good and they might have achieved their ambitious goals of tying the gameplay to the narrative and horror in a brightly lit setting.
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Amnesia: Rebirth |OT| The sequel to The Dark Descent
- Thread starter Wollan
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I'm about to leave the area where the first enemy encounter has taken place. Was a nice hub like layout. Encounter was a bit too scripted for the most part but I'm guessing they will be leaning more on dynamic A.I later.
Not sure if its the same spot youre talking about, but one of my favorite little quirks abount Frictional games is when the tutorial pops up to tell you how enemy encounters work. Always immediatly puts me on edge
The fort has definitely been the highlight so far. That environment in general has a great layout between the rooms and the lore you gather in there which ups the psychological horror aspects. The game excels when it gives you these confined spaces you need to figure out the geography and puzzles of while peppering in scares as you progress more within that environment. It's the long windy repetitive cave/tunnel/desert stretches that feel entirely like filler. I mean yeah some traversal is expected in any adventure horror game like this but with something like SOMA the exploration between different areas felt more grounded with the different habitats and made more sense with the story. Rebirth in a way reminds me a bit more of Bloober Team's approach to throwing all these hallucinatory ever changing labyrinthine pathways at you that all kinda blend together after awhile. Less is more with this approach imo but I imagine that's a tough challenge design wise when you're trying to make a decent length campaign.
Like I said the story is pretty good so far and I'm looking forward to seeing it through, just wish the moment to moment gameplay was resonating more with me.
Unfortunately, it doesn't. Which is shame because this game would look fantastic with good HDR implementation. Let's hope Frictional is working on improving their engine, it's showing its age...
I wish I could disable those visions when you spend too much time in the dark. It's so annoying!! :(
Yeah they startled me the first few times but then its like we get it already lol. The more subtle visual hallucinations in Dark Descent worked better, with more emphasis on the aural component. The sound design in Rebirth for those audio hallucinations is a little weird too, especially that slopping noise that sounds like someone making tuna salad xD
Maybe there's a plot point that explains this specific sound later on but its pretty annoying to listen to so often.
This game really had a poor first impression, it was very slow, not scary, and I felt like it was being interrupted too often by story content.
Once you get to the fort area though, the game really started feeling like what I wanted it to be. And frankly, it was downright terrifying from there on.
If anyone is feeling pretty low on it at the beginning, maybe keep at it for a bit longer, I was ready to call it quits myself, but it proved itself in the end.
Once you get to the fort area though, the game really started feeling like what I wanted it to be. And frankly, it was downright terrifying from there on.
I recently did an escape sequence with a monster chasing me in a sewer/some water, that was the most tense I've felt playing a game in ages.
If anyone is feeling pretty low on it at the beginning, maybe keep at it for a bit longer, I was ready to call it quits myself, but it proved itself in the end.
I'm about 4.5 hours in and things are happening you wouldn't appreciate without playing Dark Descent
I think the first holds up well- still scary and absolutely worth playing.
This is a big let down so far. My partner got me into Frictional's games making me play Amnesia 1 which I liked and Soma which I absolutely loved. I was one of those dummies whining about walking sims after trying and hating that one where you walk around an island and the guy talks, I forget the name, but Soma proved me the fuck wrong.
This game is just.. corny and not really scary. It's pretty but besides that ehh. We'll probably finish it but not great so far.
This game is just.. corny and not really scary. It's pretty but besides that ehh. We'll probably finish it but not great so far.
I just went through that O.O oh my.
So far I'm really enjoying this.
Yeah, for people who are finding the beginning slow -- press on. This gets where you want it to go, but it does take a bit of time to get there. You must at a minimum get past the fort area.
Binged it hard last night and today.
Yeah the game is alright it doesn't touch SOMA in terms of its themes, sense of dread and just a completely hollowed out husk it leaves you with that ending, SOMA is one that clings to your brain late at night and has a lasting impression on you,. Amnesia rebirth has a more *personal* story but one that doesn't fully interest me nor am I as interested in the characters or *people* in the game as previous titles.
Not 100% sure where I would put it, the scares in the
are some of the best in the series simply because of how well they animated the movements of the monster and just how many god damn times you can often spot it at the corner of your eye stalking you or the brief glimpses while doing certain tasks. That alone puts the impression of the game way up along with a few other scares and high tense moments, while the rest doesn't reach the same highs.
SOMA -----> Amnesia ---> Frictional's Previous Games -----> Amnesia Rebirth -->Amnesia; Machine For Pigs I was expecting at least another SOMA in terms of quality at least hoping it could reach close to its quality but it falls short overall, alittle disappointing as I was so hyped for the game, but one Im still glad I played.
Yeah the game is alright it doesn't touch SOMA in terms of its themes, sense of dread and just a completely hollowed out husk it leaves you with that ending, SOMA is one that clings to your brain late at night and has a lasting impression on you,. Amnesia rebirth has a more *personal* story but one that doesn't fully interest me nor am I as interested in the characters or *people* in the game as previous titles.
Not 100% sure where I would put it, the scares in the
fort
SOMA -----> Amnesia ---> Frictional's Previous Games -----> Amnesia Rebirth -->Amnesia; Machine For Pigs I was expecting at least another SOMA in terms of quality at least hoping it could reach close to its quality but it falls short overall, alittle disappointing as I was so hyped for the game, but one Im still glad I played.
I can't even imagine what story and setting could top SOMA for me.
Some strange impressions in here. Expecting it to match, or top SOMA is already going in with the wrong expectations. Few games do, SOMA is a modern horror masterpiece.
Honestly, expecting it to match or top the original Amnesia in terms of scares is the wrong expectations. This game does not really care about scaring you for the first hour or so
I just wanted it to match or top The Dark Descent, and it has for me so far!
Made it to The Factory. At this point the game is really overstaying its welcome, particularly the encounter design. Unless the game does something to really wow me in the last couple of chapters, this is definitely weaker than SOMA overall.
Story feels super crazy so far. I'm enjoying it, although it somehow feels less grounded in reality than SOMA
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I saw people complaining about the graphics and was like "Are we playing the same game?". There were some dodgy textures but it looks really nice artistically throughout.
I think I'm about 2/3rd to 3/4 through the game. Really enjoying it but SOMA is hard to top.
This is probably a side-effect of people exchanging the term "technical art" with "art" -- the art in Amnesia: Rebirth is phenomenal. It's totally on-point, and is the best Frictional has ever delivered and, despite early indications of the opposite, provides the most varied footprint they has ever worked with. The art design, and decorations, and spacing -- the little flourishes -- they're all pitch perfect.
It's a little sad, then, that from a *technical* stand-point, the game doesn't impress. Frictional's in-house engine is failing to allow what are almost certainly high-quality assets and textures a chance to thrive; what is left is a low-poly game with low-resolution textures, capped at a framerate of no higher than 60 fps, with simpler surface details than one would hope for. It lacks none-to-little of the features that would come for free in the beastly Unreal Engine, or even in the Unity engine (as of today). There are some additions, to be sure, but the rest of the world is evolving technologically, and Frictional's engine team cannot keep up. It is by sheer force of will and an incredibly talented team that the game hides many of its nastier artifacts and relics that point to an out-dated framework, but they're still visible and very much have an effect on the quality of the final image.
The one great hurt of this game, for me, is the technical side. I dearly hope that Frictional has what they need after this release to move to greener pastures, but massively respect them for being one of the few indy companies out there who still roll their own tech, even if it's time to drop it. That's not easy.
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If I read-between-the-lines correctly from that hour long developer video (posted earlier in thread) it is that Rebirth will be the final game using this engine which they admitted was old but something they knew really well. I think that combined with Rebirth being a title in an established IP, they also wanted only a three year development cycle originally though it turned out five in the end, indicates that this was to be an economically sound release with less risk.
Just made some progress around 4-hour mark and I'm grinning ear to ear at the upcoming location. This game has more environmental variety than I had initially gathered, and I love it.
I loved Soma and while I liked The Dark Descent that's really what has me sold on this game sight unseen. I do have one question for people who have been playing.
How's the performance on PS4? Early videos looked really rough.
How's the performance on PS4? Early videos looked really rough.
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On PS4 Pro it's pretty much a locked 30 fps. I have noticed a couple of drops to ~25 but essentially it's locked at 30fps.
Woof, 30 FPS on consoles? It's not too surprising that their proprietary engine wouldn't be well optimized for consoles.
I wonder if the CPU bottleneck is the issue, given the engine's use of physics.
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It definitely starts picking up again after the area after the fort, the atmosphere was starting to get a lot more satisfying for me once you get to
Some of the set pieces in this area are pretty well done, and was surprised by the
The animations are pretty well done too. The descent portion of this area starts to retain the first game feel, of going ever deeper into more sludgy and bio corrupted environs. The environmental storytelling is really well done here. I do think this game needed some trimming down for certain areas in the beginning. Pacing is the primary issue with the game for me. But hey I'm getting more into it now so I'm happy its picking up.
the excavation area with the portal puzzle.
Some of the set pieces in this area are pretty well done, and was surprised by the
multiple human characters you briefly interact with.
The animations are pretty well done too. The descent portion of this area starts to retain the first game feel, of going ever deeper into more sludgy and bio corrupted environs. The environmental storytelling is really well done here. I do think this game needed some trimming down for certain areas in the beginning. Pacing is the primary issue with the game for me. But hey I'm getting more into it now so I'm happy its picking up.
I mean it don't think its wrong to have those expectations. Each Frictional Game's have been better than the previous, Amnesia The Dark Decent is better than the Penumbra series and SOMA is better than Amnesia Dark Decent, with Machine For Pigs not counting due to not being made by them, despite it being decent. How is it unrealistic to have expectations that Rebirth might as good or close to SOMA? Seems normal to want a developers next game to outshine its previous.
I also think its kind of insulting to Frictional to think they can't do better or at least match the quality of their previous games, we should always give a studio like theirs the benefit of the doubt given the pedigree. Sure some works of media are truly in a class of their own and are true masterpieces, and are hard to follow up with something comparable, but I'm not sure SOMA is in that category. Its one of my favorite games ever, but I don't think its some masterstroke of genius that they just happened to come to them in a vision whole cloth. Good art and particularly game dev takes skill and patience to achieve. Not to mention there's so many different moving parts throughout the production process with things always in flux its a wonder anything of quality ever gets released. Its hard. But we've seen other studios maintain relatively consistent quality so it obviously isn't impossible.
One thing I'll say re: Soma vs Rebirth is I think part of the disconnect for me between the two is the VO casting. I don't think the lead in Rebirth is bad, but the performance isn't really standing out too much either. Maybe its the accent I don't know, but there's a kind of hokiness to the performance where I'm not really buying the sincerity. Contrast this with the two VO leads in SOMA and right off the bat both actors seem like they're totally into what their respective character is about and it doesn't feel like acting, you buy into these characters as believable personas with their own unique psychologies. I don't get that feeling with the Rebirth lead, it feels like they're doing a table read, or a stage play. They just don't stand out nearly as much 🤷‍♂️
By the way. For people who are sad that this game doesn't have a "safe" mode like in SOMA, don't be. This game has a solution for the problem, it's built-in to the very core of the design.
100% Frictional are really fucking good at what they do, I have loved every single one of their games with the release of Prunumbra Overture when I was about 12-13 really helped shape my already growing love for Horror Games. But as you said SOMA while also being one of my favourite horror games is not without its fair share of problems, I mean hell alot of people modded the Monsters out because they thought they got in the way of the game (or some thinking they were too scary?). In a way that just shows how they really nailed the hell out of a particular theme/atmosphere with its relating story extremely well, to the point of the *Monsters* getting in the way of how some people felt about the flow of the game.
HARD to make a horror game at least a good one without cheap scares, Horror and Comedy are difficult genres especially when horror sorta requires you to essentially give yourself to it, dark room, head phones, ect. Its not easy and I don't expect even them to nail it every time, but as you said it would be almost insulting for me not to think they couldn't make something better than SOMA, even going back to the Amnesia name invoked alot of hype for me.
The VO work agreed wasn't working for me for the most part I didn't feel a large attachment to them as I did with Simon and Catherine in Soma, or hell even Daniel and Alexander are more memorable to me when I think back to them, Machine for Pigs despite its flaws also had some good VO work from the main character. It might be the setting getting in the way of the VO not working for me or it might be both, the long drawn out start definitely didn't give me a good impression or interest in them.
Interesting. I feel almost the exact opposite. The main VO in Soma sounded like he was doing a table read. He just sounded so nonchalant throughout the entire game. Maybe that was because of the voice direction but it didn't work for me compared to the direction in Rebirth. And I understand that was intentional because he was supposed to be naĂŻve but I didn't connect with him emotionally at all.
I respectfully disagree - I thought that the voice acting in SOMA was pretty average (except for Catherine, who was very well acted) but the voice acting on Rebirth has been very good indeed, particularly the voice actress for Tasi (Alix Wilton Regan) who is excellent.
Finished the game.
My final take. It has a few spoilers in it, so only read if you're unsure about purchasing or don't mind spoilers. I don't spoiler any major plot points sans a few that have to do with gameplay.
I highly recommend anyone with a passing interest in horror to play this. You can do it without playing any of the other Amnesia games, and it's great, and the price is excellent for the content.
My final take. It has a few spoilers in it, so only read if you're unsure about purchasing or don't mind spoilers. I don't spoiler any major plot points sans a few that have to do with gameplay.
Overall, I'm very happy with it. I think that for most people who see SOMA as an unquestionably superior title to the original Amnesia, Rebirth isn't going to dethrone it for you, but it will give you a lot of reasons to consider it an equal. This is an incredibly balanced game across the pillars of design Frictional has taken to over the years; it is *exactly* what you'd expect if you tried to consider SOMA and the original Amnesia as functions and composed them -- hilariously, the result, in a few ways, speaks a little to what A Machine for Pigs tried (and failed, miserably) to do. Take that as you will, but the DNA here is still strongly Frictional, and the end result, while not perfection by any stretch, is refined.
As people have said, Rebirth is a slower burn; it takes a little bit of time to rev the engine here, and mileage may very as the game appears to beat around the bush. In fact, there are meaningful things happening, but it takes some time to see value in it. Sometimes Rebirth says the loud stuff quietly, and the quiet stuff loudly, and it can feel at odds with itself when it does this. Monster sequences, for instance, are surprisingly restrained here, and usually are there to decorate and move the player moreso than feel like an event unto themselves -- maybe that's a problem coming from the older school Amnesia approach, but it lets the world and environments of the game breathe, and there's a lot going on in those moments. The story unfolds in a more visual way, and there are new gameplay mechanisms that push it forward still. Some beats, unfortunately, are easier to miss than they should be, but for the most part players are likely to grok the major thrusts of it.
I don't think Rebirth quite manages to make good on the promise of delivering a 'shocking' moment ala SOMA -- it's really a lot of smaller moments that add up to a surprisingly complex narrative with a lot of world building, and done in a way that is fair to the observant player: you'll deduce a lot of what is going on at, or around the time the game feeds it to you in more conclusive ways. It ends up feeling like the best kind of adventure story where you're mind keeps mulling over possibilities of where things can go, and then you actually go there. There's a lot of forward momentum and variety here, and inertia to boot once the story has heated up. This isn't to say there aren't any "what the fuck" moments -- there's plenty, and they're all a lot of fun.
Rebirth is a scary game, but the pull between ideas presented in SOMA and Amnesia means it falls closer to the former, ultimately. There's puzzle solving (and the puzzles are actually decent) and monster encounters, but they do take a backseat to keeping things moving forward in the story. Seeing some refer to the game as 'walking sim' is a bit eyebrow-raising when you consider the title holistically. Everything I expected to see here was definitely here.
The addition of the baby as a gameplay mechanic is a bit strange. It's cohesive, it works as advertised for being both a gameplay and storyline device, but it is a tad unfortunate that it kind of always feels like more of a device than anything else. Having the emotional core of the story end up in the backseat of my mind wasn't entirely unexpected, and I definitely need to consider it a con, ultimately. It culminates in an ending that just doesn't quite pull together, even though it's on firm narrative groundwork. If the story underlying everything didn't work so well, it'd be a critical issue for me.
What does work, and amazingly well, is Frictional's work to keep the game scary even when you're messing up: see, I never saw a game over screen. And I *think* that may be because there isn't one. Even though this a spoiler-ish breakdown, I don't want to talk about this too much in case the reader intends to play: the long story short is that dying in the game is treated almost as a plot point, and it reduces potentially frustration to almost non-existent levels. I can't say it's *impossible* to die, because I don't know for sure, but it sure seemed that way.
As people have said, Rebirth is a slower burn; it takes a little bit of time to rev the engine here, and mileage may very as the game appears to beat around the bush. In fact, there are meaningful things happening, but it takes some time to see value in it. Sometimes Rebirth says the loud stuff quietly, and the quiet stuff loudly, and it can feel at odds with itself when it does this. Monster sequences, for instance, are surprisingly restrained here, and usually are there to decorate and move the player moreso than feel like an event unto themselves -- maybe that's a problem coming from the older school Amnesia approach, but it lets the world and environments of the game breathe, and there's a lot going on in those moments. The story unfolds in a more visual way, and there are new gameplay mechanisms that push it forward still. Some beats, unfortunately, are easier to miss than they should be, but for the most part players are likely to grok the major thrusts of it.
I don't think Rebirth quite manages to make good on the promise of delivering a 'shocking' moment ala SOMA -- it's really a lot of smaller moments that add up to a surprisingly complex narrative with a lot of world building, and done in a way that is fair to the observant player: you'll deduce a lot of what is going on at, or around the time the game feeds it to you in more conclusive ways. It ends up feeling like the best kind of adventure story where you're mind keeps mulling over possibilities of where things can go, and then you actually go there. There's a lot of forward momentum and variety here, and inertia to boot once the story has heated up. This isn't to say there aren't any "what the fuck" moments -- there's plenty, and they're all a lot of fun.
Rebirth is a scary game, but the pull between ideas presented in SOMA and Amnesia means it falls closer to the former, ultimately. There's puzzle solving (and the puzzles are actually decent) and monster encounters, but they do take a backseat to keeping things moving forward in the story. Seeing some refer to the game as 'walking sim' is a bit eyebrow-raising when you consider the title holistically. Everything I expected to see here was definitely here.
The addition of the baby as a gameplay mechanic is a bit strange. It's cohesive, it works as advertised for being both a gameplay and storyline device, but it is a tad unfortunate that it kind of always feels like more of a device than anything else. Having the emotional core of the story end up in the backseat of my mind wasn't entirely unexpected, and I definitely need to consider it a con, ultimately. It culminates in an ending that just doesn't quite pull together, even though it's on firm narrative groundwork. If the story underlying everything didn't work so well, it'd be a critical issue for me.
What does work, and amazingly well, is Frictional's work to keep the game scary even when you're messing up: see, I never saw a game over screen. And I *think* that may be because there isn't one. Even though this a spoiler-ish breakdown, I don't want to talk about this too much in case the reader intends to play: the long story short is that dying in the game is treated almost as a plot point, and it reduces potentially frustration to almost non-existent levels. I can't say it's *impossible* to die, because I don't know for sure, but it sure seemed that way.
I highly recommend anyone with a passing interest in horror to play this. You can do it without playing any of the other Amnesia games, and it's great, and the price is excellent for the content.
Nice read, thanks.
Maybe you can spoil me a question about the story, I'm a bit concerned about.
It's about her pregnancy.
Is she ok with being pregnant? She knows the father? Or is this some "Oh shit, why am I pregnant?!" thing with it then being the devil's child or meant to become the vessel for the devil or other stuff like this?
Or any other gross stuff happening around pregnancy in general?
Is she ok with being pregnant? She knows the father? Or is this some "Oh shit, why am I pregnant?!" thing with it then being the devil's child or meant to become the vessel for the devil or other stuff like this?
Or any other gross stuff happening around pregnancy in general?
It is a desired pregnancy, and not only is the father known but he is a character in the story and oft-referenced. There are no 'gotchas' with respect to that.
Viewed out of context, there could be a little bit of trope-adjacency with regards to the rationale for child's 'function' in the game, but the game smartly avoids the common overt tropes typically associated with children becoming devil-spawn, or what-have-you. It is a slight concern, admittedly, for some portion of the game, but the final outcome is reasonable and, more importantly, supported by the game's narrative. Most of the time the child's function in the game is to reveal history for the main character(s) and provide a gameplay-related purpose, but the 'antagonist' of the story does have a rational interest in the child, so it is somewhat trope-y in that respect. The story is a *lot* smarter than it might appear, though, as regards all of that.
To be clear: the theme of the game is birth and motherhood, and to that end -- and given it is a horror game -- there are some uncomfortable moments in the story relating to this indirectly. There is, however, no scenes of violence towards children in an overt way, if that is a concern.
Viewed out of context, there could be a little bit of trope-adjacency with regards to the rationale for child's 'function' in the game, but the game smartly avoids the common overt tropes typically associated with children becoming devil-spawn, or what-have-you. It is a slight concern, admittedly, for some portion of the game, but the final outcome is reasonable and, more importantly, supported by the game's narrative. Most of the time the child's function in the game is to reveal history for the main character(s) and provide a gameplay-related purpose, but the 'antagonist' of the story does have a rational interest in the child, so it is somewhat trope-y in that respect. The story is a *lot* smarter than it might appear, though, as regards all of that.
To be clear: the theme of the game is birth and motherhood, and to that end -- and given it is a horror game -- there are some uncomfortable moments in the story relating to this indirectly. There is, however, no scenes of violence towards children in an overt way, if that is a concern.
Finished it. The ending has as much staying power as The Dark Descent, so nowhere near what SOMA achieved. Overall I think it is a mixed game with narrative ambitions too big for the team. Even with a consultant, they needed women on the creative team, especially because of motherhood being the main theme alongside trauma related to infant/child loss.
Also I wasn't a fan of how many AAA-esque near death sequences there are alongside some action setpieces. In terms of game design, I think this peaked early with the fort.
Also I wasn't a fan of how many AAA-esque near death sequences there are alongside some action setpieces. In terms of game design, I think this peaked early with the fort.
