The 1990's were a peak time for horror games, thanks in part to the renaissance that began with Resident Evil. Through that, many developers threw their horror hats into the ring, with some trying to challenge Capcom with survival horror experiences that are as varied in their approach as they are in their quality of gameplay.
The horror games that stand out the most can also vary for everyone, but if there was one game that seems to have aged well over the years, it is the nowadays obscure survival horror action game Nightmare Creatures, by French developer Kalisto Entertainment. Kalisto as a company is relatively obscure, making a myriad of games, most of which are long-forgotten or incredibly niche; from the SNES Pac-Man platformer Pac in Time, to the god-awful The 5th Element tie-in game.
Nightmare Creatures is arguably their greatest success, even spawning an oft-forgotten and maligned sequel, Nightmare Creatures 2. Today, the two Nightmare Creatures games are held up as examples of games ahead of their time, simply because of their visual aesthetics and combo-based combat system, reminiscent of the smash hit Bloodborne, released over eighteen years later to widespread acclaim.
On the surface, it's not hard to see the comparison; both games are action-heavy horror games that focus on combos and fighting monstrosities in a Victorian-era setting. Truthfully, though, the similarities end there, as Nightmare Creatures is a game that, while there is great potential that one can respect in its design and scope, is harmed by a terribly half-baked execution that holds it back from reaching the heights it could achieve.
The game has you play either the martial artist priest Ignatius or the fencer Nadia to stop the mad doctor Adam Crowley, who has let loose horrors into the city of London in 1834. Drawing heavily on Gothic horror elements, Crowley essentially works with a mad cult hell-bent on bringing the world to his knees by ushering an army of mutated abominations into the streets, causing many Londoners to lock their doors and pray they don't be killed. Only Igantius and Nadia are brave enough to traverse the streets in search of Crowley, fighting through hordes of creatures to destroy the good doctor for the sake of humanity.
Nightmare Creatures has a simple premise, but it shines best in its presentation. The streets are pitch black with lower draw distances, almost echoing the foggy unknown that could plausibly be seen in London. Environments are a bit maze-like and feel claustrophobic, and while ultimately linear, offer enough twists and turns that allow for minor exploration for secrets that can aid you in your fight against Crowley. The hardware limitations of the era give Nightmare Creatures a quality that allows for your imagination to really run wild, which is an impressive feat to be sure.
The gameplay is anything but simple, however. True, the goal of the combo system is to allow your characters to showcase power moves as the game progresses. It also has a ton of pick-up goodies, from bombs to flintlock pistols to throwing stars and the like, which add dimensions to the combat. There is also a basic lock-on system that allows for 3-D strafing when fighting enemies, akin to Z-targeting in Ocarina of Time, but the combat is so mired by bad controls that it squanders these good ideas throughout the experience.
The biggest problem is the hit detection and the button detection. Hitting enemies feels loose, like a frame of animation is slightly off and you are instead vulnerable to attacks. In most cases, enemies can be stun-locked when they jump back, making a quick grunt or howl or whatever that indicates they took damage. The problem is you can do a flurry of five shots, and have only one or two hit the character properly for damage. Coupled with a slight delay when pressing buttons for combos, which require precision to actually do, this essentially means it’s easier just to mash buttons as fast as possible to take out multiple foes at once.
This is where Nightmare Creatures goes from a forgotten Bloodborne of the 1990s to a button masher. All strategy, all blocking, all combo attempts are often fruitless. Your best strategy in almost every situation, save maybe bosses, is to hit first and just wail on an enemy with fast flurries of attacks until they die. The combat is at best mediocre due to this, and at worst tedious.
It also doesn’t help much that you may need to use the combos to actually survive the game, because as you progress, so does the number of monsters you fight on screen. Taking down one foe is not too bad, but when fighting two, or four, or even more at later levels, it becomes almost impossible because of the control scheme. The auto-lock cannot be switched out on an enemy, so if you get locked into a fight with one, while another saunters onto the screen, you will have to pivot your character to even see who else may be attacking. Thankfully, bombs and guns even the odds, but using those breaks up the action terribly and can cause more damage to your character than to the monsters themselves if you are not careful.
Another odd and frankly broken feature is the “adrenaline” system, which basically acts as a timer for the entire game. If your adrenaline meter reaches zero, you slowly lose health and die. So to keep it up, you need to actively seek out combat or find special items to raise your adrenaline. I get the idea, but it breaks the flow of the game so badly it transforms Nightmare Creatures into a rush through the London streets fighting mutated hordes with broken combat just so you can keep playing.
Which is a shame, because the levels beckon exploration. Nightmare Creatures is visually appealing, though some snags are kinda jarring. The backgrounds are really detailed and actually look great. They also are fairly interactive, with secret doors and pathways littered throughout that add a sense of exploration in an otherwise linear game. The world also has minor details that are enhanced by the soundscape, which is fantastic here. The pulsing, almost heartbeat-like score in the early stages drives the tempo, sending chills up your spine as you stress over every dark corner for another enemy to jump from the shadows. Each monster has a screech or growl that gets louder as they get closer, enhancing that sense of dread in your direction even further.
When the game combines these, Nightmare Creatures truly shines. One of the mid-stages, in the blackness of the London streets, you hear a horse neighing in the distance with the sound of a crash of some kind. After a few moments, you come to a street where a carriage was smashed to pieces by one of the monsters, now waiting there as you see streaks of blood on the ground and a half-eaten horse body. It is this minor attention to detail that makes Nightmare Creatures actually click, but the game's design as a whole is actively fighting against you from soaking it in.
There is also only so far you can go with this too with the game's design. The monsters have a decent amount of detail, but all suffer from similar stances, either elongated limbs, outstretched claws, or simply just a human-shaped zombie with some maneuverability. The creatures in Nightmare Creatures also have lower polygon counts, which leads to blocky-shaped enemies. Plus, since the game is noted for dismembering enemies, sometimes it becomes laughable to see a polygon arm ripped off a monster's arm, suddenly sticking through the torso for no apparent reason. In truth, the dismembering system is another idea that, on paper, can make the game fun if the controls were more precise; as enemies can lose attacks, and in some cases, be permanently killed, if they lose a limb or are decapitated.
Overall, playing this game is more of a nightmare than the nightmare it tries to represent. Nightmare Creatures feels like a half-baked game when it clearly isn't, and has the foundations of something great in it. For whatever reason, though, it falls short of its expectations as a decent hack-and-slash-driven survival horror game. It is just a shame that the game mechanically falls short when it is clear there is both vision and passion put into everything surrounding it. At best, Nightmare Creatures is a curiosity for horror aficionados. At worst, it will just be a frustrating mess that is better left remembered for what it tried to do.