(Warning: this has explicit language in it. Thought I'd be nice and warn you~)
Okay so I know this game has been out for a while now, like I'm pretty sure everyone in the gamer world has some definition of it... but I have to write about it. Why am I so eager to write about it? Because this game, although incredibly frightening, is amazing. And since so many people are afraid to play it or try to play it but only can for ten minutes at a time, I'm gonna tell you about it. I beat the game once, but I'm trying to play it again because I didn't really get a good ending. As a matter of fact, I was so upset at my ending because I went through so much scary stuff that I'm not used to in games, only to have the worst thing happen! Even though I beat the game once, I'm still scared to play it. THAT'S how scary it is (it probably doesn't help that I run everywhere I go in it but you know). Anyway, this game gave me so many mixed emotions. Even though this game scared the living shit out of me, and still kind of does (not as bad), I can't express how much I love it. It got so intense sometimes that I felt like I was in it myself, like honestly I don't think I've ever played a more intense game. That's why I'm going to share it with you, right now.
By the way, this isn't a walk through (because it will seem like it) but it's more of a review/what to expect kind of thing.
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The very beginning of this game starts out relatively slow. However, the menu music is enough to freak you out before you even click "Start New Game" so that doesn't help and you end up freaked out right off the bat, thanks a lot creators. So the game begins after a couple of what seems to be flashbacks. Daniel (you) wakes up in a room in Brennenburg Castle. It's raining outside and there are rose petals coming from the ceiling at first I thought it was blood, but trust me it's not. The first and only thing you can do is walk around, pick up things, and if you have a ridiculous sense of humor like me, throw them everywhere. You then notice a trail of pink stuff, that kinda looks like Pepto Bismal, so follow it. The beginning of the game is pretty much just tutorial stuff, but even the tutorial stuff is scary, so be prepared for unsettling events. Oh yeah, you have a sanity level. It goes down if you look at monsters, see unsettling things happen or stay in the dark too long (because the creators decided to make Daniel intensely afraid of the dark even though 90% of the game is in the dark THANKS AGAIN CREATORS). If Daniel's sanity get's too low then he starts to hallucinate. Like he'll hear things like children laughing, see monsters that aren't even there, see cockroaches everywhere, and it becomes incredibly difficult to control him. So don't let his sanity get low because when it does it makes the game a million times scarier than the thing already is. You can avoid this by lighting candles with tinderboxes and using your lantern. If his sanity does get too low, unfortunately the only way it'll go up is if you make progress in the game, so the most you can do is keep him in light.
Anyway, after you go through a creepy tutorial you finally come to the end of the Pepto Bismal trail. In that room it ends in, there is a desk with oil for your lantern (the greatest gift you can receive in this game believe me) and note from Daniel to himself. He pretty much explains to himself that he drank an amnesia potion, forgot everything, there's a shadow chasing him, and you need to kill a man named Alexander. Oh yeah and you also find out that the game takes place in 1839, which was pretty cool to me. So, you know two things: a shadow is after you and you have to kill Alexander. Do NOT underestimate the shadow, I did, like I seriously thought it couldn't do anything to me, but it can. It can and it will and you will hate it more than anything. The shadow pretty much tries to stop you from doing anything and it will get very angry if you make progress. The only way you can see the shadow is the red goopy stuff everywhere, don't walk on it because it will punch you. Yes, it punches you and it's a pain in the ass because sometimes you have no choice but to walk on it. You know when the shadow is angry because the screen begins to shake violently and you can hear it roaring, so don't be worried about it sneaking up on you. As for Alexander, well he sucks. A lot.
After you read the note, you find a lever on the left wall and it reveals a door behind a bookcase. This takes you to the main entrance room of the castle, which officially begins the game. If you go up the stairs, you'll hear a lady scream "NO GET AWAY FROM ME!" in which Daniel turns around and gasps. Don't go after her, because she's not really there. It's just Daniel being stupid and hallucinating. There are two rooms you can go to, but since this isn't really a walk through, I'll save some time and let you figure that out (if you play it). After going through some science stuff, you find your first monster in the Archives. You can't really see it (like all of it just an outline/shadow) since it's far away but it's still there and looking directly at it will cause Daniel to begin breathing heavily and his sanity will go down a little bit. There's no way to avoid looking at it, though, since Daniel freaking makes you. Get used to this because you won't always be able to control him even when his sanity is normal. He also talks a lot. Like sometimes you'll hear him say "Something's coming!" when nothing is actually coming. Daniel says a lot more stuff, but you can look up and listen to all his quotes on Youtube if you really wanna hear him. Anyway, now that I've mentioned monsters, I'm gonna tell you what to expect from these things. Low down on them: they were Alexander's servants in the castle at one point in time. They are also called "The Gatherers".
Okay, LOOK AT THIS NIGGA. HOW DO YOU COME UP WITH SOMETHING LIKE THAT EVER IN YOUR LIFE. When I first saw this guy face to face, I screamed so obnoxiously loud. And what sucks is when you look at it directly, Daniel's sanity goes from pretty good to nonexistent. THIS MONSTER, I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN. Technically it's called a Grunt. However, I don't like that, so my best friends (shout outs to Maddie and Madison!) and I made a new name for it: Amy Smarts. So I just call it Amy whenever I see it and it makes it kind of better even though not really. This monster, or gatherer, has really long claws and it can pretty much kill you in two-three hits. Which goes without saying: run like hell if you see it. Or hide from it, which is the best alternative. On the plus side, it's really slow, like it wobbles when it walks! Still doesn't make this guy any less scary.
This monster doesn't scare me as much as the other one. Which is weird because this one is much more deadly. Since it has a long sharp blade for an arm and can move really fast, it will usually kill you in one hit. So it's a little more difficult to deal with, but you don't encounter it as often as the other one which is probably why I don't mind it as much. This monster is called a Brute, but here's what I call it: Brittany. When you're in the Archives, the whaling whimpering sounds you hear is Brittany. I didn't know what it was until I looked it up one day, like I thought it was a whale. ANYWAY- just like I explained with Amy, run like hell or hide if you see it. Hiding is pretty much the only thing that will really work with this one though because like I said it runs really fast and you most likely will not get away.
In my opinion, the monsters are the worst things in the game. Not the shadow, not Alexander, not Daniel's sanity. The monsters. And the worst part? You can't even fight back! You either have to hide or run away! I already mentioned that, but still it's totally inconvenient. The upside is that they're really dumb so if they see you and you slip into a dark corner real fast, they'll get confused and leave. You can also go into a room, barricade the door, and hide in a cabinet. You'll have to listen to Daniel's obnoxious heavy breathing for a while, but you know, what it do. OH and there's another monster you can't see. It's a water monster called a Kaernk. You can't see it because it's invisible and it's pretty lame, but if you're in the water it will attack the shit out of you. This is the very first monster you encounter and it's the first time that Daniel is in significant danger. It's not that hard to outsmart because it's blind, so you can throw books to distract it, jump from box to box and run when you're in the water. The only way you know where it is, is by it's splashes and footsteps. You only have to worry about this guy in the Cellar Archives (a larger one chases you right after, too).
The next time you encounter a monster, it's one of the legit monsters and you have to be smart. After the water monster shenanigan, you end up in a room which kind of looks like an entrance hall like the one in the beginning, but more lit up. If you go in the Guest Room, a monster will come and try to beat down the door. Close the door and hide in a cabinet until it leaves. You won't see him again so don't worry about him being outside when you leave the Guest Room. Next is the scariest part of the game in my opinion, the storage. The shadow, because it is a jerk you know how it goes, made the storage room incredibly dark. Daniel even notes that it is "strange and unnatural". So dark that not even your lantern can help you much. There are also a lot of monsters that spawn and you can hear a little girl crying and even have a flashback. (SPOILERS) This suggests that Daniel stabbed her to death there. This room was my least favorite part of the game, it was so nerve-wracking and it took me forever to get through because I was so scared, it's almost embarrassing. To sum it up: after the water monster, to me, that's when the game officially starts.
(The famous Daniel himself)
So, once you get through that storage part, the game isn't so bad. You have to solve a lot of puzzles and you find out a lot about Daniel before he lost his memory. To fully explain: Daniel was an archaeologist and found an orb while on an expedition to Algeria. After he takes this orb, he notices that all his men are being killed. Alexander invites him to a castle in Prussia, which would be Brennenburg Castle obviously, and says that he can protect him from the shadow (that killed his men) there. Daniel began torturing prisoners in the castle with Alexander, who convinced him they needed Vitae (blood) to banish the shadow and keep it from killing him (little did he know that's not what it was for at all and Alexander was using him for his own personal means). After they ran out of prisoners, Daniel, who was losing his mind, and Alexander began capturing villagers and children to get more Vitae. What made Daniel finally realize that these torturing rituals were actually awful, was when him and Alexander kidnapped a family that lived on a dairy farm. The father was slain by Alexander and the mother and daughter were held in the dungeon. The mother managed to find a way for her daughter to escape and once Daniel found out, he killed the mother and went after the little girl in fear that she would escape and alert the king's men. Daniel found her in the storage room as I mentioned earlier, and stabbed her to death, remorselessly. But Daniel looked down at her lifeless body in his arms and realized that what he was doing. He cried that she didn't deserve to die, pleaded for forgiveness and realized that he was going insane. Not too long after, Daniel realized that Alexander used him and that they had been killing innocent people all along. Alexander only wanted him to help get Vitae so he could do a ritual of his own that would take him to another world. Daniel becomes incredibly angry and drinks the Amnesia potion, so he forgets everything he did and redeem himself by killing Alexander. That's where the whole game begins. You have a whole bunch of flashbacks referencing to all this, so throughout the game it all unfolds. Let's just say, Daniel needs a nice big hug.
When you finally manage to reach Alexander in the Inner Sanctum, the best ending you can get is by knocking down all the pillars which ruins Alexander's ritual. After this, the shadow stops chasing Daniel out of respect and finally leaves the castle in peace. I was dumb and I didn't know what to do so I just stood there like an idiot watching Alexander and then the shadow finally killed Daniel. That's the only way you can get a bad ending, by just standing there. Actually, first I ran around, freaking out and then stood there. So advice: don't be an idiot! It's easier than it seems. That goes for the whole game.
I FORGOT TO MENTION AGRIPPA. You meet Agrippa in the Nave and he's pretty creepy looking. In fact, he's so creepy that Daniel's sanity goes down a bit when Agrippa looks up at you. But no fear, he's actually a pretty cool dude. In short: Agrippa found an Orb just like Daniel and even though he was caught by the shadow, it spared him. He began to work with Alexander who, just like the wiener he is, betrays him and locks him in the Nave as prisoner, where you find him .You can make a tonic that his former student Weyer made, and free Agrippa. You can temporarily take off his head (weird I know but I don't think it's his actual body, his soul was just in it so he wouldn't die of old age) and at the end throw it into Alexander's portal. The shadow will still consume Daniel (and Alexander) but afterwards, if you helped free Agrippa, he and Johann will save you and Agrippa states "You deserve so much more". That's a special ending. By the way he talks a lot but you don't have to stand there and listen the whole time if you don't want to, it doesn't affect anything. I didn't know that when I first played and I just sat there for like fifteen minutes listening to everything and then freaked out cause I forgot about the Shadow.
P.S: The creepy loading screens? They tell the story of Daniel pretty much. That includes the murders he committed and his childhood, pretty much everything.
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So there you have it! Almost everything you need to know about Amnesia (with exception of a lot but that'd take forever and I'm really lazy, ya dig). I love this game a lot and it was pretty sweet to write about it. If you read this all the way through, well then it goes without saying that I love you because this took me forever and some of my sanity to write because I had to look up the pictures of those monsters. So if you now want to play Amnesia, I hope you have a fearful time! And I say fearful because this game wouldn't be what it is if no one got scared shitless at least ten times.
Stay gold, cuties!
-Emalie
