A prime example of top-notch storytelling and total brilliance.
I can't figure out whether I'm upset or glad that I waited so long to play this game. On one note, this masterpiece was just lying around, on track to never have its shrink-wrapped removed for years. Then again, had I played this game in sixth grade, I would have probably hated it.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem tells the story of Alexis, a young woman who travels to Rhode Island to investigate her grandfather's death. Through many twists and turns, and a mysterious book called The Tome of the Eternal Darkness, the player plays as many characters from different times, ranging from a Mayan dancer, to a 1950's era firefighter, to an Egyptian man from the times of the pyramids. While Alexis investigates her grandpa's death and digs deeper and deeper into his creepy mansion, these characters all get tied together into a fascinating and unique story.
Eternal Darkness has often been called a survival horror game, which I find totally inaccurate. I feel that Eternal Darkness is better described as a creepy action-adventure game. There aren't many moments that make the player jump, all the scares are atmospheric, and they take back-seat to the gameplay and the story. The gameplay, while not all too inventive combat-wise, does a nice job mixing physical attacks, appropriate weapon choice, and magic to heighten the experience. There are some puzzles to be solved, but they're not terribly difficult and don't ever get frustrating. The mood of Eternal Darkenss is critical, so the relative simplicities of the puzzles are fantastic as they serve as a minor road-block and not as distracting annoyances.
The gameplay feature that Eternal Darkness is known best for, the Sanity Meter, is key to making Sanity's Requiem an experience unlike any other. Whichever character is being played has a sanity meter that depletes under different conditions, such as repeated damage intake or executing a finishing attack. Once the meter lowers, different, random effects start to kick in. The character's head may explode, your "television" may give you an error screen, enemies might appear only to disappear upon being attacked, or something totally different could happen.
Technically, Eternal Darkness is stellar also. The visuals are a great marriage between very good technologies and utterly great design. The detailed art is realistic and pretty without over-cramming items from each time period, keeping the art true to the times and keeping it away from coming across as Silicon Knights trying too hard.
The visuals of Eternal Darkness are outdone by the truly remarkable audio of the game. The music is fantastic and appropriate for each time period and atmosphere. The voice acting is also fantastic with each voice actor being equally great as the last. Accents are nailed and despair is wonderfully displayed. This game is a treat to the ears.
Another superb aspect of Eternal Darkness that deserves recognition is the camera. The camera of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is one of the best to ever be implemented in a video game. The camera stays stationary and moves to a different stationary spot whenever the playable character walks out of its sight. There are two things that make this so great. First, the camera still gives room to see all the enemies surrounding a character, something that usually hinders such a camera technique. Secondly, the images and angles produced by the camera's placement are epic. The choice of camera placement is unique and the images produced are genuinely interesting. The camera would be placed in the corner of the room on a ceiling, for example, and it successfully adds to the game's presentation, something that I've never seen accomplished by a camera in a video game before. This is something Resident Evil had been trying to succeed in for three games.
In conclusion, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is one of the greatest GameCube titles to be released, no question. The presentation is stellar, the mood and story (along with its fantastic delivery) are great, even if it can be a little confusing at first, and the technical aspects of this game are among the best from its generation. Fans of horror, action or adventure games should, nay, will find something enjoyable about Eternal Darkness, and even if you're easily creeped out, its engrossing enough to make you want to come back for more.