After several years of hiatus, I returned to Amnesia for another round. I'll try to bring on what I gathered during playing SoulsBorne games, a pre-alpha stage project in Unity, and improving a lot as a programmer. As one of my estimated final projects for this game, it aims to overhaul and present cut and unreleased content by myself and other modders, who entrusted their work to me during my "inactive years". It will contain entire levels by various authors as well as fittingly designed gameplay for a Van Helsing style gun (and currently torch) combat, inspired by the design of Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Bloodborne and Painkiller.
10/10 because the concept of the mod is very original. No one would even consider adding a gun into Amnesia. The maps are fairly well designed, especially the first outside area. Besides, a KiraImmortal mod without thalers is always a bonus!
Very enjoyable demo, looks promising, and wished there was more when it ended.
Surprisingly, it was easy to get used to the gun mechanic and the ammo quantities
didn't feel too scarce or excessive.
Only issue was that some of the enemies took too long to kill, the suitor mainly, so I ended up running from it instead of trying to kill it. Wasn't too big a deal though, and I was able to evade it, albeit fighting and killing it would have felt more rewarding.
Ambience was great, too, and I like the saving and fast travel system.
Well made CS with a souls like twist. The environments and ambiance really feel like you are in dark souls. Several interesting and unique features like bonfires and souls like teleportation. Also a GUN, do I need to say more? Not as scary due to having a weapon but its quite challenging nonetheless. The models are pretty.
Platforming and some bugs are present, which can be annoying sometimes. Some got resolved but this is a work in progress, so I know they will be addressed or improved.
At last - something extraordinary and very unique.
Some thoughts:
Sounds could use an overhaul and location's name notifications could have more opacity to them with a different font, but that's just my humble opinion - they are still readable.
Hit registration works 50/50. You either get a hit and spend 3 or so more bullets to finish off an enemy effortlessly OR you miss the first shot and then hitboxes are like non-existent until you empty your mag and try again.
This is not a downside at all. HPL2 is really limiting and it's frustrating for/to many modders, but still - a very good job. Really breathtaking!
Nevertheless, a very enjoyable and thrilling experience. Definitely has some replay value.
P.S - Finally a struggle-free bloodtinge run.
--This is a review of the 0.8 demo exclusively. Score and contents may change when the full mod is released--
I played the 0.8 demo and wow, I am absolutely amazed at how well it works/feels while being limited to regular HPL2 scripting. It is clear this mod has had a lot of work put into it. It for sure has some jank and a few bugs, although I'm convinced that some of them will be at least partially fixed for the final release. The demo is fairly short and in my opinion it's masterfully designed in many ways. You have the option to keep going past the intended end of the demo, for the chance of checking heavily WIP sections, such as a bossfight. Let's go over some aspects of the mod:
--Gameplay--
The gameplay is certainly different than vanilla Amnesia, making it more like an FPS soulslike, and the levels are made with this in mind. The main focus is on the gun, which you can use to defeat enemies or break things such as doors, boxes, etc. Some elements are drawn directly from Dark Souls, adding certain iconic elements as tribute, such as bonfires and a soul indicating an item on a corpse. It features these bonfires and fountains as checkpoints, which work very similarly to Dark Souls checkpoints (upon interaction, it respawns the enemies and it heals you plus refills ammo). There is also a cool fast travel feature that you may not get to see if you don't continue playing after the demo ends.
--Gun--
This demo revolves around the gun and its uses. Oil is replaced by bullets as ammo, and it definitely gives the impression that you're using a gun instead of the regular lantern, due to how ingeniously it's coded.
--Level design--
There are only a few maps to experience in this demo. I absolutely loved how the Battered Clockworks area looked and felt. There are several great decisions all around, such as the great item placement, it invites the player to figure out a path to the item or explore in a certain way, and when it does it feels pretty rewarding. I enjoyed how the exploration is laid out, and if you keep playing after the demo ends you can see the areas connect between them with shortcuts or by unlocking paths, not far from how the Souls games do it.
--Story, setting and lore--
It presents interesting concepts. The mod draws inspiration from the souls series once more, adding interesting bits of info to the item descriptions. Each item mainly features a short easy to read description of its effects in the first paragraph, and then gives interesting lore in the second paragraph.
All in all, the demo is pretty fun and impressive. It also features enemies from the other Amnesia games, and reskinned or modified versions. I'm also surely leaving out some details. Despite a few things that could be improved, as a demo and not yet finished this mod has been an amazing experience honestly, I was left wishing I could keep playing by the end of it. Highly recommend.