A young man named Ludwig has returned from France to find his home, where the household should be anxiously awaiting for his arrival, is empty. Concerned, he searches for any sign of life in the old place, but all he finds are mysteries and secrets that only can be answered with madness.
Something this community needs to understand is that just because something was in development for a long time doesn't automatically mean it is good. Helena is a flawed but genuine custom story that I did quite enjoy, all things considered.
Environments, atmosphere, detailing, lighting, use of assets and general level design are pretty rock solid. I liked a lot of the areas. Audio design and music was also very good.
Voice acting is also for the most part very high quality. Sometimes the script itself and performances sound like you've tuned in to an amateur pantomime (especially the opening sequence) but the crew did a good job at bringing their characters to life.
The characters however present the biggest problem for me with Helena - its story is incredibly hard to follow. There are so many people and story threads to keep track of, and there's very little characterisation and supporting context to distinguish between them. Often times I was trying to piece the story together but as it mentions themes of resurrection, reincarnation and bodysnatching, I had absolutely no idea who was who and what anybody's motives were.
Enemy encounters were also a bit of an issue. Every single enemy's pathfinding bugged out, and they constantly got stuck in obstacles and in the way of progress, which was very annoying. Also in a later level, enemies spawn at random, and I had multiple instances where they spawned directly on top of me and almost killed me.
I do like however how enemies roam levels seemingly randomly. There's quite a lot of backtracking needed for following up on lots of threads and little details, which became frustrating trying to remember where everything is, but having enemies patrol out of nowhere does bring some spice into retreading ground, as it makes them feel like they're actively looking for you as opposed to spawning in, walking for 20 seconds then despawning.
There's a lot of imagination in Helena, with a clear amount of effort put in to make something unique. The poetic writing and gothic themes are pulled off quite well, as is typical for AGP's style of flowery prose and romantic delivery. It's a very creative custom story that deserves to be played if you enjoy the slow-burn ones. Helena feels like a huge step in the right direction, especially as something that is largely a first project in many ways.
One of the very best, highly detailed, terrifying and fun Amnesia mods I've ever played!!, with an amazing voice cast, a mysterious, tragic and dark story, and breathtaking level designs!
I have been waiting for this mod a pretty long time and I have to say it does feel like a major release of Amnesia mods, especially because these days we don't really see much unfortunately. Nontheless this is a more serious mod I always love to see!
The biggest strenght of this mod were the story and the voice acting. Stories which are not told "just" through the game or plain text and require you to connect the dots yourself are always appreciated and are overall more of my liking than trivial ones. Also felt authentic considering which time it plays in!
That's a commendable feat.
Although... So. Much. French. Especially the extra collectibles had a few of them I just skipped, honestly. :D Would be nice to have the subtitles translated at least.
The gameplay was interesting and had just enough twists to it to not be done too quickly for Amnesia veterans. Especially the first half of the game was gripping! The second half, however, really dropped a bit in quality. The ideas surrounding it with a less linear design were refreshing and definitely kept me going, but the execution wasn't flawless and had a ton of bugs and errors.
Throughout the whole experience, not just the second half, the monsters would constantly be stuck through bad pathfinding. This wasn't a one off either - it happened all the time.
Mapping was atmospheric and creative, as well as EXTREMELY detailed. Can't complain about that (except the bugs of course).
To end on a positive note: I liked the verticality and the ending (the good one, the bad one was kind of anti-climactic and random).
Honestly, felt a bit like an 8 to me sometimes, but since you're already fixing stuff and after remembering so much from this custom story (especially the well written story), it would somehow feel wrongful. I'm not disappointed though! Loved every second of it and the bugs were very forgivable considering how good this mod overall is. Creating error-free content isn't everything after all...
Thank you for this excellent mod and for not abandoning it!
Best regards.
This mod contains some of the best voice acting in Amnesia first of all - story was great, I didn't understand it fully but it's very clear much thought was put into it - atmosphere is pretty good almost always, tho some areas lacked detail - main issue are puzzles for me, in the first 60% I think the puzzles were fine, but especially around the Underground House area it became a mess and I had to use the walkthrough multiple times (the lab map was similiar, but done better) - I also like those collectibles for the phonographs.
Took me 3:30-4:00 hours to beat, and I enjoyed most of it, nice.
very good
Awesome demo. Story, atmosphere, environments, voice acting were all top notch. No real scares, but the entire 1.5 hours felt like it was just setting the mood, making me wonder how long the final project will be. Clearly has potential to be one of the most epic Amnesia mods of all time and I'm now eagerly awaiting full release.
Will update this review once full version is out.
Great demo and great mapping! I imagine a lot of hard work was put into this, greatly commend you for it. The writing is excellent! The 'I woke up in the middle of the night' trope is getting annoying, and finally, someone comes along with a story in hand. Can't wait for the full version. :)
Absolutely wonderful can't wait to see how it turns out in the final cut :D
Even though just a DEMO, it consists of an unbelievable creeping atmosphere, very well detailed level design and skilled voice actors. It made me feel uneasy and insecure for the most part as I was slowly crawling through the corridors of this enormous house.
I wish it was a bit longer though, as I saw great potential and fun coming from this mod. I hope the author gets it done as quickly as possible so we can all have our own scary moments! :)
It was really great and I enjoyed it playing. THe atmosphere of this big empty house was really well crafted and I didn´t have the Feeling that "empty" rooms served no purpose. to be honest it was really fun discovering the rooms of this house. In fact I got more playtime out of this demo then I had with many other Custom Stories lately. I hope the full Version will be as good as the demo.
I am really looking forward to play the full Version.
By the way the voiceacting in your demo was also great. Please Keep up the good work.