Review for Amnesia: Rebirth. Game for PC and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 20/10/2020
The end of October is approaching, Halloween is upon us and we are already seeing the first decorations around and we begin to carve the pumpkins that will give October 31 the evocative and scary atmosphere it deserves. Even the gaming world during this month is actively participating in the All Saints' Day party, through the release of Horror titles such as Remothered: Broken Porcelain and Re: Turn - One Way Trip.
It is no coincidence then, here, that we are talking about Amnesia: Rebirth, a game that fans must add to the list. It is obviously about a horror, developed and published by Frictional Games.
The game is set in 1937 in the desert of Algeria, about 100 years after the first chapter Amnesia: The Dark Descent and about 40 years after the second chapter Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. The player plays Anastasie Trianon, a French archaeologist who is part of the crew of an expedition to Africa.
The journey will not be pleasant at all, because at some point the plane will enter a state of failure and crash to the ground shortly after. Anastasie will find herself alone wandering among the desert dunes and under the scorching sun, with the aim of looking for her husband Salim and at the same time understanding what happened to all the other crew members. But do not be fooled by the experience experienced by the previous episodes of the saga because the plot is much more dramatic and complex than it seems at first, and tends to become more intense through a very slow crescendo that will find outlet in one of the three endings.
Anastasie suffers from amnesia, and for this reason she brings with her a notebook on which she writes and draws her memories. In particular, some traumatic events in the course of the development of the plot will awaken parts of his memory.
The narrative of Amnesia: Rebirth happens through different stratagems, such as short-lived past events that appear during uploads. Another mode is composed of the thoughts and dialogues of the main character, more direct than the previous iteration of the game. But surely the most boring way - and always repeated in video games of this genre - to allow the player to put together the pieces of the puzzle of the plot is that of the cursed pieces of paper scattered around all the levels, which make the gameplay more static and break. clearly the horror atmosphere. On the other hand, the glimpses of memory relating to the other characters are appreciable, which are recalled following a certain event such as approaching a particular place or after having collected a document or an object.
The gameplay of Amnesia: Rebirth is quite simple but still pleasant and very intuitive. From time to time there will be small puzzles that will be solved exactly like in any point and click, or by pressing buttons, moving levers, and finally using the objects in the inventory to proceed in the following areas. Other times, however, it will be necessary to escape from one or more enemies, and the tension during these moments will rise a lot.
Staying in dark places for too long or looking at certain elements such as corpses will increase the protagonist's fear, leading to a sort of game over. To avoid falling into madness, for this reason, it will be necessary to use matches and an oil lantern in order to use light as a source of comfort. In addition to this, it is possible to interact with different objects in the surrounding environment, for example by throwing or moving objects such as amphorae and equipment to find items to add to the inventory or documents.
For the creation of the graphics department of Amnesia: Rebirth it was decided to use the third version of the HPL Engine. Very light outdoor places have yellow as the predominant color, while interiors will be a mixture of little light and a lot of dark. It is necessary to specify the addition of facial animations and more fluid movements of the characters, which in the two previous chapters of the series were practically absent. Small flaw are the textures that are not extremely detailed but still satisfying enough to see.
The music is always suited to the context for which it was created, and the sounds are quite sophisticated and never out of place, helping to improve the immersion of the experience.
Amnesia: Rebirth is a horror game with a dramatic and interesting storyline, with simple and intuitive gameplay. The main objective is to survive, escaping from the various monsters present in that cursed place where Anastasie found herself at the mercy of events. The pressure and fear occasionally make themselves felt, but both are brutally broken by the use of documents scattered around, used as the predominant form of narrative. Nothing to complain about the setting and the scenarios, frighteningly well built.
► Amnesia: Rebirth is a Puzzle-Adventure type game developed and published by Frictional Games for PC and PlayStation 4, the video game was released on 20/10/2020
