NOTE: this review was written by me years ago. This is my first time posting this review at Giant Bomb, so enjoy!
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A long time has passed since gamers were waiting for the release of Eternal Darkness (ED)--since the days of the Nintendo 64, to be precise. When the game resurfaced as a 2002 title for the Nintendo GameCube, most gamers had all but forgotten about ED; the Sanity Meter was intriguing, but the game didn't look terribly exciting. Basically, there wasn't much hype surrounding ED. Comparisons between ED and Resident Evil were inevitable, and RE usually won. "ED is just a RE clone," is a statement you might have seen around Internet message boards.
Now that Eternal Darkness has been released (finally!), is it a mere shadow of RE? Silicon Knights have claimed that ED is not "Survival Horror"; to use that term to describe ED would be insulting. You know what? They're right.
Eternal Darkness revolves around the Roivas family, and the people chosen to do battle against the Ancients, and to fight the Darkness and preserve humanity. The latest and last person in the Roivas family tree is Alexandria Roivas, and it is up to her to defeat the Ancients after learning about the gruesome death of her grandfather. The story is full of twists and turns, so expect to not understand everything the first time through the game (there's incentive to play through the game multiple times, and not just to understand the story better).
Eternal Darkness is in a league of its own when compared to Resident Evil and the several "Survival Horror" clones out there. Where RE uses pee-your-pants tactics to get a rise out of players, ED targets the mind-it "plays the player," as one editor puts it. The player, too, will experience "insanity" during gameplay, so the game's characters are not the only ones subject to this deterioration of the mind. I won't mention any of the insanity effects-they're something that must be experienced, and they're more than gimmicks. You will be fooled at least once.
ED's controls are extremely well done. It breaks away from the typical RE controls; when you move the control stick up, down, left, or right, your character walks up, down, left, or right, respectively. Holding the L button while walking lets you run. Combat in survival horror games was almost always a lesson in ammo management; factor in the poor controls, and you had combat that was unexciting, tedious, and frustrating. Combat in ED, fortunately, is a breeze, and doesn't feel like a chore unlike the RE games. You can target any part of the body above the waist, including the arms, torso, and the head (always a favourite target), by first holding down the R button, and then using the control stick to target a body part (up for the head, left/right for the left arm/right arm, down/neutral for torso). Pressing the A button will make the character attack with an equipped weapon. Oh, about that ammo management thing-you never have to worry about running out of ammo, because chances are you'll be using a melee weapon as soon as you find one-they're quite reliable, and they can be enchanted to be even more effective. ED's controls are really intuitive, and developers would do well to duplicate what Silicon Knights have done right-use controls that work.
To add even more variety to combat, ED introduces a Magick system (yes, with a "k"). The Magick system works by combining runes, which consist of a verb, noun, or an alignment. You also need a Circle of Power, which determines the potency of the magick. In order to combine runes, you must first decipher the runes you find by finding the codex for each rune. Once you have deciphered the correct runes, new Magicks are discovered automatically, provided you found the scroll that teaches you the Magick. You can create your own Magick, but you won't know what it is you've created until you've found the proper scroll. The directional pad and the Y button are used to assign Magick to a button, i.e. "quick spell." You can assign the same spell (but with different alignments and/or different strengths) to every button. Using different alignments will make certain spells work differently; for example, casting the Recover spell with the Chattur'gha rune will restore health, while using the same spell with the Xel'lotath rune will restore sanity. Not all Magicks are used for offensive purposes; a great deal are required for puzzles, which are often straightforward and, like most survival horror games, out of place.
The hook of Eternal Darkness is the Sanity Meter. As previously stated, it is an actual gameplay element and not so much a novelty. When enemies are encountered, the Sanity meter drops a bit. The bigger and stronger the enemy is, the more the meter decreases. Performing finishing blows on the enemy will restore Sanity. Once the meter drops low enough, your character will start to see or hear things that aren't really there. The camera even tilts a few degrees for added effect. Be warned: if the Sanity meter is empty, then your character will begin to lose health. The game's sound really helps in achieving the belief that your character (even the player?) is going insane. Random sounds can be heard-a crying infant, a woman getting slaughtered, loud knocking on the walls, even your own character mumbling in fear as he/she loses his/her mind. As for seeing things that aren't really happening, try bleeding walls, a statue whose head follows you around, floating books--I haven't even mentioned the really good insanity effects...the ones that actually make you question what is real and what isn't. I'm sure I haven't seen all of the insanity effects the game has to offer; sometimes it's fun to deliberately reduce your Sanity meter just to see what you can discover! Kill an innocent for a quick loss of Sanity.
The graphics in ED are very nice; the game moves silky smooth, and load times are non-existent during gameplay. The only problem with the graphics is the in-game character models, which could look a tad better. (ED originally was a N64 game, after all). Character models have looked better in other games, and one would think that a game that has been in development for so long would have had more polished character models. The models are far from horrible, however. The lip-synching is done perfectly; the mouths move with the dialogue perfectly (take that, Shenmue!). The CG cinemas are grainy, which is odd considering (once again) the long dev time of ED. Perhaps the cinemas were compressed, and lost some quality--who knows. From an artistic standpoint, the game is beautiful to look at. Everything is nicely textured, and has a realistic look to it. The fixed camera is almost never a problem, and it's never an obstruction during combat. Sound is also well done; the voice acting is excellent, thanks to the recognizable voice talent (if you know your voice actors, that is).
Eternal Darkness is a well-made game, and it represents a refreshing change in the formulaic survival horror genre. Hopefully, ED will be used as the blueprint for future games of its kind. Developers don't have to limit themselves to using wacky controls, limited ammo, or the "usual" scare tactics for their game to pass as "survival horror." But ED isn't even "survival horror"...it's beyond that term, and to associate ED with that genre would be to shortchange the game. Here's hoping that future games are as well done as Eternal Darkness.