Dead of Darkness

Dead of Darkness channels classic survival horror yet carves its own identity with a twisty story and sharp design. Combat and puzzles are serviceable but dragged down by cheap insta-kills.

It gets a lot of the things you love about classic horror games just right and presents them in a visual style that’s rather unusual for the genre.

While it takes its time getting into the meat of things, despite this being more of a 16-bit throwback affair, it’s one of the better horror games out in the eShop

Will you manage to escape the darkness before it eats you alive?

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and perhaps that’s why I have scored Dead of Darkness so highly. Nothing in Dead of Darkness is particularly flashy, but everything is done extremely well and faithfully to its source. If you prefer the Resident Evil series from 4 onwards, then this will not be for you, but fans of Resident Evil 1, 2, and maybe even 3 need a piece of this blood-curdling action!

Dead of Darkness's memorable characters, satisfying narrative twists, and thoughtful design elements left a strong impression.

Dead of Darkness is a creepy and challenging survival horror title with an interesting story that makes you want to solve the mystery of what is happening here.

All in all, Dead of Darkness is a great 2D Resident Evil tribute that brings plenty of its own ideas to the table. There could have been less reliance on instakills late in the game and the attempts to feed in some Eternal Darkness style sanity effects are underdone, but the core gameplay, the puzzles, and the twisting narrative are all well worth the price of entry.

A lot of love for the survival horror genre has been put into Dead of Darkness, which shows in every aspect of the design. However, repetitive combat, constant inventory management, and frequent backtracking undercut the competent puzzle design and solid narrative. As a game so beholden to genre tropes and classic design, Dead of Darkness feels like it never quite knows how to play into its strengths. If you are a die-hard survival horror fan you might get some enjoyment over the throwback vibes-but otherwise, it may be better left in the dark.

Dead Of Darkness is a love letter to survival horror games of the past, all be it with 16-bit graphics and better voice acting. It takes some of the best parts of games like Resident Evil, twists it into an SNES style package, and just lets it be what it is. In a world full of video game’s with giant open worlds that are big for the sake of being big it’s refreshing to play a game that knows exactly what it is and doesn’t try to be anything else. That said the lack of a system to track where you’re going did get me lost a few times after I shut the game off for the night. As stated above a spot in the menu to look at previous dialog in the game would fix this and it’s something used in this genre of game. If old school survival horror is your thing I highly, highly recommend this game.