Reviews - ImaGenius40

This was the first Amnesia mod I've played in ages and it was fantastic. The atmosphere, music, puzzles, and scares were all top notch. There were a few enemy encounters that didn't make much sense but that doesn't really take away from the rest of it. Excellent work overall.

The only negative thing about this custom story is the loading screens. I understand it's a big mod but my PC is far from mediocre.

The level design, story, ambiance were fantastic, and it's one of the best custom stories I've played in a long time. I especially like the AAMFP assets that for whatever reason people never use despite the game being three years old. It may not have been a true Amnesia game but it was definitely beautiful in terms of graphics, and those assets help beautify your story.

This will be the first ever video game I have played that I feel deserves a perfect score. While others will disagree, for me at least, everything Frictional has promised with this game has been delivered, and then some, and in my eyes is better than any of their previous works by a long shot. As a horror game, it's excellent: Looking back at tactics they used for Amnesia, they have improved greatly in my opinion. While I found Amnesia absolutely terrifying, there were two things about Amnesia that made it lose a bit of its terrifying experience for me: the despawning of enemies. Eventually you would know when you were safe because the hunting music would stop, letting you know the monster has despawned. The part other being hiding. The creatures in Amnesia weren't very bright, so unless you made any noise or screwed up along those lines, hiding in a closet or behind boxes would guarantee you safety until they despawned. With SOMA, the monsters are smart, don't despawn, check everywhere, are able to open doors without breaking them down, and there really weren't any places to hide. For me, that was a huge improvement; as I heard the creatures step closer to my location, I would be filled with absolute dread and terror as I played out the possible scenarios in my head and because you couldn't really hide anywhere, you would either have to act, trying to outsmart the said creature, or just sit there as it discovers you (granted, each monster had some sort of flaw making it a little easier to outsmart them.) The puzzles were good too, the game never once held your hand, and as long as you put some common sense into each puzzle based off of your surroundings, you would get through in a reasonable amount of time. As for atmosphere, Frictional nailed it. Mikko Tarmia makes another great soundtrack, and they've always been masters of sound design so nothing new here. As for graphically, the improved engine for this game made the whole thing come out beautiful and grim at the same time, far better than anything they've made. Voice acting was top notch, and the character(s) in the game were really well done and made me really attached and empathetic. For me though, the one thing that stood out more than anything was the game's story. As someone who's followed Frictional for a long time, I knew they wouldn't disappoint with the horror, but the entire story blew my expectations out of the water. Not only is the story original, which is often rare for a horror game, but it's very thought provoking and mind-blowing, and it, along with the affects of your choices, which for me, stayed in my head even after I was done playing for the night, make you extremely uncomfortable while at the same time makes you seriously contemplate the themes displayed in the dialogue and scenery. The story itself puts the psychological in psychological horror, which is what their aim was all along. It really makes you think about what it truly means to be "human," to be "alive" and "conscious," and adds those themes up with your morality. Because they've never really attempted to portray this kind of story before, I expected them to come up short, but I was dead wrong. There are no spoilers in this review, but I just want to say I've never played a game with an ending that's made me both devastated and happy at the same time. For me, this game had nothing wrong with it, except for the length, at ten hours or so, and that's only because I was so sorry I ever finished playing it fully through. To some people I may be over-exaggerating, and I can understand why they'd think so after reading this, but this is honestly and genuinely how I feel about SOMA. It's an absolute masterpiece in my mind, and by far the best gaming experience I've had in memory. Because of this game, I will now be behind Frictional with one hundred percent of my support. They really outdid themselves with this game, and I can't wait to see the games they've made after improving even more.

Dude, I gotta say, this was incredibly well done, and definitely worth the wait. I enjoyed every single second of it.

The story/back-story, was great, along with the voice acting, soundtrack, and level design for all of the maps. Even the maps that didn't make me trip balls, still amaze me, despite seeing the same Amnesia assets over and over again, and it indeed was a pleasant surprise to see custom textures. And of course, Amnesia is a horror game, and the horror was great also, and this mod did a really good job of getting me tensed up, making me believe something bad would happen.

The only problem I had was that the frame rate dropped a little bit during the anti-gravity level, but nothing I couldn't deal with. Once again great custom story. Props to everyone who was behind the development of it all, and I will definitely be tracking you from here on out.

I think what most people come to expect from Amnesia custom stories are:

-good story
-scary atmosphere and a lot of scares

And this custom story had those things and SOOOO much more. Your first custom story is my absolute favorite and this one was fantastic as well. However long it takes to make your next one, I will count the days.

Great custom story. While I have not finished it yet, I love every second. You were able to take maps and models from The Dark Descent and make them enjoyable for someone like me, who has played custom stories more than anything.

-The music is top notch
-Voice acting is good
-Story is great so far
-And of course, the atmosphere and monsters are scary, despite playing so many other custom stories with the exact same stuff.

10/10 I can't wait to finish it