Amnesia: Rebirth

You want an Amnesia game that forgets about everything that the first one did right? You want an Amnesia game where the main character constantly talks and completely ruins the emersion? Then this is for you. The characters are boring and the game constantly and consistently interrupts the game with flashbacks to interactions you had with these other characters that you have no reason at all to care about. The gameplay is there, yes. But the immersion is completely non-existing, might as well play without headphones in a well-lit room. I genuinely can't believe Frictional Game is behind this, they of all people should know what makes Amnesia great. This game is unfortunately a total miss.

At first I thought: This is really from Frictional Games? The makers of SOMA? Because the introduction is standard, the levels are initially thin and small, and it happens for a long time - "nothing". Only after two or three hours (of around 9) does it start to get interesting. Then the story picks up speed, the physics puzzles are sometimes really cool and the first few bastards enter the floor. If only briefly. It really gets going in the second half of the game, here Frictional is actually doing everything right. The other, from my point of view very big problem, are the sometimes pitch-dark levels. Yes, there are matches. With a little brain you can find enough of them. But they only burn for a few seconds, maybe ten. In the meantime, the surrounding torches and candles have to be grazed quickly (but please also not too quickly, otherwise the match will go out). Not that it would be light then. The oil lamp? Burns a little longer when the tank is full, but it is not always available, not at all in the last quarter. You may have to drag along walls in order to find an exit someday with luck. In the pre-release version, the status of the light sources was saved arbitrarily or not at all. Still: When the credits rolled through, I thought "good game". You can tell that the team has invested a lot of passion here. But it can't keep up with The Dark Descent or SOMA. Part of that is certainly due to the setting. Oh yes: The look is a mix of completely outdated (humanoids, outdoor areas) and very appealing (ancient underground systems, Ifrit). The sound, like the entire atmosphere, is perfect.

The general exploring/rummaging/puzzle-solving gameplay is pretty good, as expected of a Frictional game. I also appreciate the general aesthetic and art style of the game. The horror elements are generally weaker than the previous games. Not terrible, but the effects and wait time of the "fail state" were more annoying than simply dying and reloading a save would have been. The monsters are also poorer than in the previous games, and are demystified by the extended eye contact that occurs when the player is caught by them. There were some disturbing elements and plenty of spooky locations that were interesting, but mostly the game feels like a step back, horror-wise. But the lack of scares is far from being a deal breaker for me; the main problem with Rebirth is the story. Tasi is not likable at all, speaks too much during gameplay, and little of what she says is relatable. Previous games were tightly focused on helping us understand Daniel's and Simon's feelings about their situations, but Tasi's motivations stem solely from her husband and child, who we neither know nor have any reason to care about. The story is also muddy and scatter-brained in general. The constant jumping between locations is very disorienting, and makes the game feel more like a montage of scenes than a cohesive story. This is made worse by the baffling amount of time that's spent recovering from Tasi's "bad luck", which seems to steer her away from the main plot thread in every single hub area! The endings are also weak and unsatisfying, but I can't go into greater detail without entering spoiler territory. All in all, this one was a disappointment. But I haven't given up hope that Frictional could have another great game yet to come!

Every objective in the game is a red herring. Every time you do something then the floor will magically open up and you'll fall into a new area or you'll warp away or something. It's impossible to gauge your progression because of this. I didn't like really Tasi as she was very one dimensional. There were no great revelations like with Daniel in the first Amnesia game. She's just a caring mother who wants a quiet traditional life, that's it. The scares are a step down from the older games too. Overall, it's a decent game but a step down from SOMA and The Dark Descent.