A survival horror game that could have been much better if the game didn't fall apart towards the end.
Basically you play as eighteen year old Fiona Belli, a walking cliché of a blond women in horror flicks, who has apparently inherited a castle. While most people would be happy if this happened to them, Fiona isn't since the inhabitants of the castle kidnapped her and are now trying to kill/rape her in an attempt to gain her Azoth, which apparently happens to be in her womb. Fiona's only line of defense is a white German Shepherd named Hewie, the most realistic dog I've ever seen in a video game.
Now who are the inhabitants who want Fiona? Well you have Debilitas, the large mentally challenged man with the mind of a five year old, who thinks Fiona is a life size Barbie doll, with bouncing breasts. The extremely unnaturally beautiful yet psychotic maid, whose name is never given in the game, although the manual says her name is Daniella, who believes that she is incomplete and wants the "essence of woman" which she believes she can take it right out of Fiona's body. There is also the annoying monk/scientist Ricardo, who wants to impregnate Fiona so that he can be reborn as some immortal god. And finally we have the ancient Lorenzo who seems to gives not only reality the middle finger, but death and logic as well.
The story and game play are not too bad and are certainly different from other games. Instead of fighting your stalkers using guns, you are forced to hide in very few hiding spaces which they will catch on if you overuse. If you can't hide, you can send Hewie to either bite their hands or jump on their back bite their necks. Of course if your stalkers hit you, your vision becomes blurry causing you to enter panic mode, which causes you to run around like an idiot, falling down, running into walls, and even running into thin air, although I may be imagining it.
Capcom manages or attempts to scare the people playing or watching solely through the use of stalkers appearing just to cause you to jump. It is surprisingly effective since their previous efforts, in their more popular series Resident Evil, failed as they are almost predictable. While this type of scare is effective, it doesn't take long for people to figure out when a stalker will jump at you. To me Daniella remains the only exception to this because I've been to a certain area three times, and each time, I managed to get Daniella to appear in a different spot each time.
There are a lot of good things about this game, mainly Daniella since she is just an amazing character, there are some bad things. While Ricardo uses the gun to scare Fiona, the moron sometimes uses the damn thing at pointblank range and kills Fiona. I don't know about you, but I'm preety sure that you can't get a dead girl pregnant. There is also a certain point in the game where you have to hide for nearly a half an hour while, your stalker runs in and out of the room constantly, unless you make a mad dash to the crypt.
The game really fell apart after, Daniella. Ricardo really wasn't that interesting, accept for one part which I won't say. I had to force myself to actually play through Riccardo's section, while with Daniella, I had a hard time putting the controller down. Lorenzo was by far the worst character, in the game, who managed to create so many questions for me that left me stunned in a bad way. The only good thing about him, is that the death scene where Lorenzo kills you is just horrific and disturbing. It disturbed me in good way and I have to say that, that was my favorite death scene, with Daniella killing you a close second.
While this game may not be for everyone, this game is a must play for anyone who loves the survival horror genre. It's got some of the best character development I've ever seen, and has some good cheap scares.