Dead of Darkness Review

From the moment I started Dead of Darkness, a pixelated survival horror title, I was taken back to playing games on my Super Nintendo. The game warns you that it does not save automatically like many modern-era titles do; instead, you will need to visit save points to record your progress. So it’s obvious that this is going to be a challenging title that may be frustrating at times.

Dead of Darkness offers multiple options for difficulty, starting at Very Easy, which is for players who want to enjoy the story, to enemies having much less health and dealing much less damage. It also has a much lower chance of shock, bleeding, and poison. Fewer and slower traps. Decreased environmental hazards, fewer enemies, and they are much slower. On the other end of the difficulty scale, Hard mode is for people who have experience with these classic survival horror games. There are harder difficulties available, but not until you have completed the game in the other challenging settings.

The story begins ominously on Velvet Island in October 1985, on a dark and stormy night; the rain is falling hard and lightning is flashing. We are introduced to Danielle Graham, a mysterious woman, who is hurriedly speaking to Giselle the maid. She has an envelope that needs to be delivered to Perry, who works as a sailor taking shipments back and forth between the island and the mainland. She states that it is incredibly important that he receives the letter as soon as possible, but Giselle needs to be discreet and make sure no one sees her. As soon as she takes leave, we meet William. A sinister undercurrent flows through the dialogue, especially with his veiled threats and evasiveness when questioned on the whereabouts of his father. There is a lot of family tension going on here!

After this great introduction, we see Giselle delivering the envelope to Perry. He is very confused as to what is going on, but she insists that he leave right now to make the delivery.

As soon as he runs out, William walks in, requesting that Giselle go to the cellar and bring up some Pinot Noir for the happenings of the evening. While down in the basement, she hears some weird noises, and we see shadows moving towards her. The screen goes black, and we hear Giselle screaming, bottles smashing, and liquid pouring. We are now taken to the title screen; so much has happened already!

We are now off the island and inside an apartment with a guy sleeping on the couch. This man is Miles Windham, who seems to be waking up with a nasty hangover. A postman shows up with a letter for the investigator. You take control of Miles; he walks very slowly, but we learn how to scan the environment for important items or intractable objects. Hold the left shoulder button to scan the room to see which objects are of interest and the bottom face button to interact with them. We learn that Miles’ life is very chaotic; he was a cop for ten years, but once his wife and daughter went missing, he now works as a private investigator.

The letter that was delivered is actually a mini cassette, and your presence has been requested on Velvet Island. You go to the docks and find a boat called Tangerine located on Pier 5. Perry, the young guy we met before, is there and mentions that the boat was his father’s and that they work for the Graham family. You just have to wait for another person before you can set sail, and a woman named Olivia shows up. These two are our main protagonists in Dead of Darkness, and a lot of crazy things await them on Velvet Island. You know this won’t just be a relaxing trip when no one shows up at the dock when you arrive; this is weird, something must have happened. You decide to have a look around with Olivia and see if you can find out where everyone is.

Right off the bat, the game tells you something very important: hold the left face button to run; guaranteed, this will be one of the most used buttons on the controller. The two of you can't find anyone, that is, until you find the body of a blonde-haired female and a trail of blood leading to a cabin. What the hell is happening here? It seems that everyone you encounter on the island is bitchy and hostile. Though the one guy named Owen is nice enough to warn you to stay inside tonight and to be sure to lock the door. This is just the beginning of some creepy and messed up stuff. You know things are bad when people warn you to lock your door when you are in your room.

To save your game, use the books placed around in the locations that you visit. The first one is on the desk in your room, make sure to record your progress whenever you see a book, as the game won’t save your game for you. We hear a loud sound, walk out of the room, and see a security guy in a pool of blood. It seems that something tore into him. So Miles volunteers to go to the mansion and inform everyone; luckily Olivia gave you a gun to protect yourself. To aim, use the right shoulder button and hit the bottom face button to fire. Keep in mind that you have limited ammo, so be sure to collect more whenever you find it.

When you try to leave the mansion, it's surrounded by creepy beings that look like mummified people, they are called Ghouls. They don't hesitate to surround and rip apart people. There are 13 different types of freaky monsters you will encounter during your time on the island, so you will have to figure out which weapon works best to take them down or if it’s worth running and conserving your ammo, as it is not always the easiest to come by. Guaranteed you will find painkillers, and mild antipsychotics on your search for bullets. These pills are incredibly helpful for encounters you have with these creatures as you not only get hurt physically, you also receive mental damage from every monster attack and interaction. The lower your mental health is, the more damage you will take. If the gauge turns to pure black, your mind breaks, and you will die.

While exploring the different buildings on the island, you have a variety of actions you can perform: Use, can be applied to a point of interest that's in the environment; Combine, take one clue and combine with another item or clue; or Ponder, to get more information about the clue. It takes a bit of trial and error to figure out which objects can be put together. The game doesn’t hold your hand in this respect. You will also find maps for each floor of the building you are exploring. The game will mark off the rooms you have visited and will colour-code the doors you found. Some open normally, while others need a special colour key to open. So if you need an emerald key, it will be green to make it easy to revisit areas you weren’t able to access before. I just wish there was some way to put a marker on the map so that you remembered to revisit that room later. You spent a tonne of time backtracking, trying to find a specific room you came across once before.

Like I had started in the introduction, Dead of Darkness is full of great 16-bit pixel art. The environments and characters all look great, and the creatures along with the blood and gore are done very well. The sound effects are what really makes this game freaky for me, the screams, blood dripping, and windows smashing are great. I jumped more than a few times when a window broke and creepy creatures started running towards me; it takes four or five shots to take them down.

Dead of Darkness tells a story full of betrayal, mystery, and madness that compels you to keep playing despite the challenges and backtracking you will have to do. As you advance, it feels like you are peeling back layers of Velvet Island’s dark and disturbing secrets; this game is messed up. Yet with every revelation comes a deeper, more unnerving question: how far will you go to uncover the truth?