Sanitarium is an amazing journey into the realm of memories and madness
At first, the game does not reveal much about the main character, not even his name. All you know is that he's locked in an asylum and that he appears to have had some sort of accident as his face is all wrapped up in bandages.
The story of Sanitarium is told in chapters, each tied to the main character memories, dreams, fears or delusions. The chapters take place in small 2D settings - the wing of a hospital, part of an insect hive, a town's square - and have plenty of weird people to talk to. The main game play requires one to thoroughly explore all the settings - which does require some pixel hunting as some items and places are really hidden - and to talk to all the characters there until the objective is figure out. Most chapters have a clear opponent that has to be defeat by solving some rather difficult puzzles while others simply require you to solve a series of puzzles to advance.
One of the game's strongest points is the design of each chapter as an oneiric representation of the characters past or present situation. You'll be presented with grim settings with lots of blood and corpses but you'll also be taken to lighter and more colorful places. Though they might not seem to relate and probably won't make much sense to you at first, the whole story wraps up pretty nicely in the end.
The game play is simple in its execution but the story unfolds pretty nicely during all the dialogs and puzzle solving. If the pixel hunting gets in your way, be sure to try a little harder - or look in the Internet for an answer - because the ending is worth it.
The graphics are old and dated on today's standards but there's plenty of in game movies that probably were considered perfect in 1998. Each and every dialog has voice acting and the game's music fits well its mood, particularly the ones tied to moments of redemption.
It's an amazing story and even though the game play is simple, it'll probably keep you hooked to the end. I found hard not to let myself be absorbed by its story and to end up being pretty happy with the outcome.
It's an awesome game that kept me interested from the very beginning to the very end. Unless you've been spoiled by this gen graphics and can't stand old games, you should definitely give Sanitarium a try.