GC recomendations: Eternal Darkness & PN03

paco_pepe

Im here again asking for the Penny Arcade knowledge, i preffer it over straight up game reviews.

I can get both Eternal Darkness & PN03 for a low price, so i would like to hear your opinions on these games:

-ED is (graphically) pretty much an upgraded N64 game right? im ok with that, but i keep hearing that the story and insanity stuff are ace, is that right?.

-PN03 is a shooter, is it challenging? cheap? unfair? decent replay value?, im interested in it because i like the visual style :P .

Mustachio Jones

Eternal Darkness isn't that bad graphically, but if you've played anything recently you'll be spoiled. It still holds up. As for the story, if you've read anything by H.P. Lovecraft, you'll feel right at home with the story, which I still think is pretty damned good. The only problem with the sanity is that you'll find you're playing the game at a 45 degree angle oftentimes and the effects are too few. I honestly would love to see a next-gen sanity meter and what they could do with it.

Bottom line with ED is if you're looking for an RE-type survival horror game with more emphasis on story and figuring what the hell is going on with spells and awesome things, go for it.
PN03 I haven't had the chance to play a lot of, but what I did play was pretty fun. Let someone else help you with that, but as it's what, $4? now, I'd say just go for it.

redfield85

I say just buy them.

I still have ED from back in the day and I enjoyed what little I played of it. As for PN03, I bought it used a week or two ago and haven't touched it yet.

Both seem to be solid games for any library.

MC Mystery

I -hated- PN03. It was super fun at first, but then you realize that that first room is the only room, and that you'll have to play for HOURS to GRIND in an ARCADE SHOOTER so that you can continue.

Eternal Darkness on the other hand? 100% pure awesome.

The_Dciple

ED is just a complete mess when played now.

Orogogus

I got Eternal Darkness for about $4, and kind of think a $4 hamburger would have been a worthier investment.

I thought the game had wretched controls, hit detection and combat in general; like, worse than the original Alone in the Dark. I'm assuming that's what the "upgraded N64" bit was about. I found the story and insanity stuff to be overhyped on this board, but I've been told that the plot gets better past the part where I stopped playing (which was like 5 chapters and 4-6 hours in, mind). For the amount I played, as Cthulhu-style stories go I didn't think it was all that. It seemed like it had more of an August Derleth good vs. evil slant than an HP Lovecraft crazy amoral universe thing going.

Vert1

Both games are like complete opposites. Eternal Darkness is an excellent game, but SK threw in a filler last stage at the end. PN03 is a game that is love/hate, but the last boss in the game is so the fucking best boss fight of last gen.

Both games are worth owning. Buy them.

Ronen

I don't quite get what all the ED hate is about. I played through it a few times very late in the Gamecube's life, and I walked away impressed. I highly doubt my view of it would change now. I always recommend it if people can find it.

As for PN03, I loved it but as evidenced by the responses in this thread, it's very love it or hate it. It's very much an old school shooter where you MUST master its very specific (and in some ways, counterintuitive) controls in order to succeed on higher levels. To get a lot of the suits, there is quite a grind and there are some special techniques that simply aren't worth using at all.

The final boss fight is fuck awesome though. I keep a save game right before it so I can go back and replay it every once in a while.

Lukin

Orogogus wrote: »

I got Eternal Darkness for about $4, and kind of think a $4 hamburger would have been a worthier investment.

That's so funny. I was going to post that I got PN03 for $4 and felt reamed by it. Oh well, I just posted it anyway. That is a bad, bad, bad game. Bad.

Xenogears of Bore

The only way you can find out if you love or hate these game is to buy them. I like them both. Both deserve a play, and if the price is really cheap I'd say go for both.

Cervetus

ED is not scary at all, but it sounds like you're not expecting that so whatever. Also, I didn't really find it's overarching story very compelling, but I liked the stories of the individual characters a lot. If you want to cast spells and hack limbs off of things it's a pretty good game and I'd recommend it, even if parts of it aren't all that great (I'm looking at you, pointless backtracking in vast empty rooms at the end).

gtrmp

ED is definitely worth playing. I wouldn't exactly say that it's scary - most of the shock moments are of the 'what the fuck?!' variety, but in a good way. Also, it's kind of easy once figure out how combat and sanity work. Even so, it's a unique experience. If you like survival horror games, you should definitely play it.

I though that P.N.03 was incredibly boring. If you want an arcade shooter for the Cube, get Resident Evil 4 instead; it uses a modified version of the same game engine, and Mercenaries mode in RE4 is so much better than PN03. If you want an arcade-style shoot-em-up with the RE4/God Hand control scheme, and if you can find PN03 on the cheap (like $5), you might like it, but don't say that we didn't warn you.

thej3w

Man, not a lot of love for PN03. Thats one of the Gamecube games I wish I owned. I rented it and beat the hell out of it. It reminded me of old school games a lot, which I though was awesome.

However ED I own and , I played for a bit and it wasn't as great as I heard. Maybe I just didn't get far enough or whatever, but it didn't seem like much fun.

Cervetus

I never really noticed ED get better (except for the part where you get to play the firefighter who kicks ass), so if you don't like the beginning you probably won't like the rest.

DodgeBlan

I absolutely loved ED but have heard that it aged badly.

LewieP

redfield85 wrote: »

I say just buy them.

yup.

You might dislike one, or both of them, but if you like them they are great.

PN03 in particular is the experiment that lead to RE4 and God Hand, if nothing else you should give it a try because it is pretty damn influential.

RainbowDespair

Eternal Darkness has a good plot, but I hated the gameplay. It couldn't really decide if it wanted to play like a survival horror game or like a Zelda game and ended up being a bad version of both.

PN03 is kind of fun as a weird shooter. My main problem with it was that it felt very repetitive. I wouldn't pay much more than $5 for it.

Chen

Eternal Darkness isn't very scary when you're a Persian or a firefighter, but when you're an obese middle-aged man JESUS CHRIST RUN, RUN WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH. The narration is fantastic, the visuals and gameplay however isn't in this age. It's like going from Resident Evil 4 back to the original or from Super Mario Galaxy to Super Mario 64 or from The Wind Waker to Ocarina of Time.

Newres

I played full price for Eternal Darkness (that is 60 euro's here which should be about 3 million USD with it's current value but I digress) and it is one of my best purchases for the GC. The story is incredible, hell it is better than that of most rpgs' where the story should be the focus, and the game has excellent atmosphere. The visuals still look nice imo, except the pre-rendered movies which were already bad looking at the time of the release because of compression. Gameplay is not too hard, standard adventure puzzle fare, although it integrates story elements better than most games and controls are fine, nowhere near as craptacular as the tank controls of REmake. You seriously can not go wrong with it for a low price.

Oh and truly amazing voice acting.

Dirty

If you can get them super-cheap, you might as well just buy them. Especially if the asking price isn't far off from what you would be willing to pay for a rental.

Eternal Darkness is good if you put good story and atmosphere high on your list of what makes a game good. Its gameplay was never stellar, and hasn't aged gracefully.

Now PN03 is almost the very definition of Love-It-Or-Hate-It. There is absolutely no point in listening to anyone's opinion of this game. You have to play it. Liking PN03 is like being colorblind. You don't notice it until its pointed out to you, but then, HOLY SHIT!

Rodent242

Eternal Darkness is well worth getting for the story alone, the gameplay is so so but you'll be hard pressed to find better Cthulhu-like athmosphere anywhere. If story and VA isn't your thing though I'd avoid it at all costs.

Personally I like to fire it up once in a while just to hear the VA.

IdolNinja

I'm not a fan of survival horror, but I loved every single moment of the mad Lovecraft-ian goodness of Eternal Darkness. The story was gripping and there were a few moments in the game that really freaked me out. As others have mentioned, the voice acting was excellent as well. I consider it a classic that everyone should play regardless of their taste in genre.

Spoiler for one of the smaller non-major plot related Acts:

The Maximillion Roivas act was one of those classic gaming moments for me. When one of the creatures first burst out of the maid and started attacking me, I just assumed the whole staff was possessed, and proceeded to end the lives of everyone in the mansion with wild abandon. I did find it slightly odd that only some of the staff had creatures burst out of them when I went about my bloody business, but it did not slow down the methodical purge amidst the pleading and screaming.

After the act was over and Maximillion was locked away in the asylum talking about how he "had to kill them all," it hit me like a ton of bricks. Only some of the staff were possessed, and I was actually butchering the innocent and corrupt alike. Immediately, I tried to rationalize my behavior; that it was necessary and had to be done for the greater good. For a brief moment in time, I felt my sanity buckle, and completely and thoroughly identified with Maximillion. It absolutely terrified me to the very core of my being and I still get the creeps just thinking about it.

urahonky

The music for PN03 kept me going. Seriously it was the best music I've heard in video games to date.

Lunker

PN03 really should have been a game that I love, given my gaming tastes (shmups, trancey music, emphasis on perfection), but it just didn't click with me. The basic concept was awesome and I could even forgive the controls -- which are a textbook example of "take it or leave it" -- but the complete monotony of the environment and the lather-rinse-repeat nature of the game just made it all far more of a chore than it should have been. PN03 should win an award for Best Video Game Ass, though.

I probably would have liked Eternal Darkness, but I'm a complete wuss and after that scene I really just couldn't put myself through the stress of that game.

The bathtub scene

preachermeat

Yeah, I'm just gonna chime in here and say buy 'em both too. ED, to me, was one of the more fun GC games I had. And P.N. 03? I thought it was fuckawesome. Still haven't been able to play well enough to get that damned papillon suit though.

WingedWeasel

Eternal Darkness was a lot of fun, but as someone else mentioned even for the time it wasn't visually impressive.

The only thing is unless I missed something I pretty much never got any of the insanity effects. Maybe I took too much care keeping my personas out of harms way and I felt that took away from the game. On every subsequent time through I went out of my way to cause my character to become a wimpering looney mess. The game was far more fun, and I thought it was strange that the game "rewarded" (I guess that's the right way to put it since the insanity effects were one of the big gimmicks for the game) someone who played "poorly", as in confronting too many enemies, not killing them fast enough etc etc.

The game was entertaining (which is the point right?), and even more comical when the guy I roomed next to in college wanted to try it but never really played any kind of game that required puzzle solving and reactions from people that you never mention insanity effects to are hysterical.

Actually now that I think about it I ended up buying the game twice (both times from the bargain bin) since the first disc bit the dust when a friend borrowed it and mysteriously there were scratches that weren't there when I got it. I probably would've paid full price for it if I had the opportunity to when it was first released.

Mortal Sky

I've never played PN03, but I absolutely love the costume designs, and if I could find a copy I'd play the game just to see 'em in action.

LewieP

Mortal Sky wrote: »

I've never played PN03, but I absolutely love the costume designs, and if I could find a copy I'd play the game just to see 'em in action.

Sure, costume.

:winky:

Jives

Lunker wrote: »

PN03 really should have been a game that I love, given my gaming tastes (shmups, trancey music, emphasis on perfection), but it just didn't click with me. The basic concept was awesome and I could even forgive the controls -- which are a textbook example of "take it or leave it" -- but the complete monotony of the environment and the lather-rinse-repeat nature of the game just made it all far more of a chore than it should have been. PN03 should win an award for Best Video Game Ass, though.

I probably would have liked Eternal Darkness, but I'm a complete wuss and after that scene I really just couldn't put myself through the stress of that game.

The bathtub scene

Oh god, that bit. I think i actually screamed the first time.

Tamin

Eternal Darkness.

Such a good game. I never did finish the game all three times. Ran through it twice in quick sucession, and got burned out.

Rigor Mortis

I liked PN03, although I never finished it due to being distracted by other games.

After playing a bit, I'm convinced that it's more a puzzle game at heart than a shooter. It was rather like each room was a puzzle board and I had to find an optimal pattern to clear it.

It won't appeal to players who salivate over the twitch reflex run & gun mentality found elsewhere, but it's definitely worth a buy at today's prices.