REVEIL

Review

Reveil is a first-person psychological horror game that mostly takes place inside the mind of protagonist Walter. He suddenly awakes after having had a nightmare only to find that both his wife Martha and his daughter have disappeared. Unable to remember what happened, he needs to discover the mystery behind his family’s disappearance. Soon enough, Walter starts questioning his reality and the environments take the shape of his imagination, bringing him into a dark circus filled with unsettling attractions and hostile monstrosities. As you can imagine, this is the classic formula for horror narrative-driven waking sims. For the record, I enjoyed Layers of Fear - although I don’t include it amongst the best horror gaming experiences I’ve had - but I have grown tired of horror games that use the same narrative clichés (amnesia, surrealism, hallucinations, trivial psychology). It was cool when Silent Hill was the only one doing it, but now it’s getting way too abused in my opinion. That said, if you loved LoF you will likely enjoy this one too, but probably less so.

The game is divided into five acts and really doesn’t take long to complete. It took me about 5 hours, including reading notes and looking in every corner for collectibles (there are quite a lot).  But someone who just wants to follow the story might complete it in four hours or less. I can’t talk about the story too much because this is the entire game, but what I can say for sure is that the protagonist talks too much and doesn’t allow you to interpret the story in your own way or to just feel the environment. The voice acting isn’t good either; it felt like the actor knew the lines but not the context of where the action happens (either that or he didn’t care too much). The house sections were great and immediately reminded me of PT and Visage. The other (mostly surreal) environments were more linear and less interesting. There are twists here and there throughout the story, but none that really shocked me. The multiple endings depend only on a choice that you can make at the end, so there isn’t any replayability. The one I got was short and felt like a rushed epilogue, and the others that I saw online were no more satisfying than mine. I don’t understand the idea of making multiple short endings rather than one solid ending (especially considering that the game is extremely linear). Why give a choice at the end when there were none throughout the entire game?

Being a story-driven game, all you have to do is explore each new location you are thrown into and solve puzzles while trying not to be seen by hostile monstrosities. Some puzzles are a bit more creative, but most of them require that you find a key item and bring it to another place in order to progress (that’s not really difficult even when playing hide-and-seek with the monster). In-between the story you do get some cheap jumpscares and parts where you are being chased by a monster. Again, typical scenarios for a horror game that no longer provide any tension or surprise to someone who eats horror games for breakfast.

Now the graphics are really beautiful at max settings. Each location is created in great detail and provides some very good atmospheric moments, also thanks to the great lighting in both external and internal locations. The game performance is also good, only few frame drops here and there, but this is not the kind of game where you need 60 fps or more all the time.

I think that Reveil is a game that maybe takes too much from other games from the same genre (particularly Layers of Fear) while not adding anything new or different to the gameplay and narrative structure. Not only is the game short (especially considering the price) and without any replay value, but it lacks tension and except for a few atmospheric moments, doesn’t engage you in the protagonist’s story. It might be worth trying if only for the beautiful graphics and locations (especially if you like the circus), but it certainly won’t be a memorable horror experience.

Review written by Sonic Punk for Zeepond.com

REVEIL Steam Store page