Game: Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
System: Gamecube (However, there is a massive amount of screen shots, video, and description on this Italian website about the Nintendo 64 version that was almost completed before they decided to released it on the Cube. I…don’t speak Italian.)
Year: 2002
LP Format: Video LP with Audio Commentary and a twist — I will be doing the commentary while L0rdVega does the gameplay (I’ve beaten the game quite a few times, but he’s inherently better at it than I am, so I decided it would be nicer to let you see him play than to watch me fumble.)
Get used to seeing this face.
What is it with horror games and mansions?
I really don’t know. Sweet Home, Resident Evil, Clive Barker’s Undying, Clock Tower, Luigi’s Mansion even, set in old, towering mansions. Maybe it’s the creaks you hear at night, empty spaces where people could be lurking, branches scratching across windows, altars where your grandpa could have been trying to summon an entity to be one with you on your fifteenth birthay and …yeah.
What’s the backstory?
That’s just it. This whole game is back story. Two thousand years of it. It starts in 26 B.C. with a Roman Soldier named Pious Augustus in Ancient Persia and ends in 2000 A.D. a couple of hours after Alex finds the book of Eternal Darkness.
When Edward Roivas is brutally murdered (I won’t spoil, but you’ll find out how in video one), his granddaughter Alexandra is summoned to his mansion in Rhode Island by the police to identify his body. When she gets there, the brutality of his death leads her (stupidly, and like all other protagonists in these mansion-horror games) to decide to stay in the freaking place until she finds out whatever crazy mystery is going on there.
And it’s a pretty crazy mystery.
Each page from the tome made of skin that Alexandra Roivas finds in the hidden back room of her grandfather’s mansion contains another story, another horror. Each character plays differently: the young boy in ancient Persia is fast and wields a sword; the old, fat man during the American Revolutionary War is slow and has a musket that must be loaded between rounds; the fireman can run longer than anyone else but is easily stripped of his sanity.
Sanity?
See that green bar? That’s your character’s sanity meter. Yes, there are normal health and magic meters, but this sanity thing…well, I don’t want to spoil too much, but tilting rooms, wild moans, backwards voices, and your head falling off are just a small fraction of the craziness that will happen to you when your sanity is low.
There are also multiple paths that effect the story and gameplay.
Okay, so multiple paths? How are you gonna show us all of them?
I will be using saved data from old playthroughs in order to show you the alternate cutscenes and ending you get after you complete the game three times, taking each path once.
How’re we watching this?
Widescreen, baby! One video a character, one bonus for every alternate scene for their chapter page. You have three options on two video hosts:
Viddler (here’s a link to the polsy.org.uk player)
youtube HQ (&fmt=18)
youtube HD (&fmt=22 – which my boyfriend the editor tells me it’s not REALLY HD blah blah technical talk, all I know is it looks good, suck it film school)
The Videos
0. The Intro – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
1. Pious Augustus – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
2. Ellia – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
3. Anthony – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
4. Karim – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
5. Dr. Maximillian Roivas – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
The text of the Aaron Roivas letters and Max’s first journal page are here.
Bonus
1. Choosing An Artifact (Pious) – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
2. The God Speaks To Pious (Ellia) – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
3. Finding Mantorok’s Heart (Max) – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
4. Autopsy Ravings (Max) – youtube HQ / youtube HD / Viddler
5. Black Rose (The Darkness Is Coming) ![](http://tindeck.com/image/nlww/stats.png")
A Special Segment: Things That Are Not “Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem”
1. DJ Eternal Darkness
2. What would Alex do in SSBB?
3. Swedish Metal
4. Arch Angel’s Realm Of Eternal Darkness
And now…for some fan art.
Max is fucking insane.
Quoth Lasher, “Also this started as a full body picture with Max with no pants on chasing his house staff but my ambition exceeded my skill.”