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Monday 3 October 2016

Welcome to the Mesh.


HELLNIGHT/Dark Messiah

So this is a game that holds a very special place in my heart, as you can probably see from the wears of love evident on my copy of the game! It was one of the first games my parents let me play at a ridiculously young age and successfully terrified me. The sounds, the stress, the fear of dying. As I child I definitely should not have played this, but I'm incredibly glad I did.

Known as HELLNIGHT outside of Japan, and the Dark Messiah, you guessed it, in Japan, I'll refer to it from here on as HELLNIGHT simply because that is how I know it. HELLNIGHT is a 3D maze exploring, puzzle, horror game. And horror truly is the right term for it. Playing as an unknown protagonist who gets chased onto a subway train by a group of crazy cult members, things take a dark turn. The train is derailed after some sort of humanoid creature attacks and starts slaughtering the passengers. Escaping just in time with a High-School girl named Naomi, you flee from the train only to nearly meet you end by a special military task force. Managing to get away from both the `Monster` and the Military, the two of you wind up in the sewers, desperate to find someway back to the surface alive.

HELLNIGHT was developed by ATLUS (same as the Persona series) and once again ATLUS manage to excellently create realistic characters with such in-depth personalities that they drag you into the game and make the story.


The gameplay of HELLNIGHT is what brings the feeling of dread and fear into what would have been a laughable game otherwise. The graphics are stupid, with the `Monster` half the time just looking like a collection of blocks dragging themselves along. But ATLUS works with the graphical limitations of the PS1/PSX and doesn't rely on them. Using music, sound and vivid description to it's advantage, HELLNIGHT provides a tense atmosphere of paranoia, constantly wondering when the `Monster` is going to show up.

Like many games that came after it, HELLNIGHT forces the player into flight when confronted with the monster. With practically no way to defend themselves all the player can do is "run and keep on running" as the game so bluntly puts it. When the deep, heavy breaths and twisted noises of the `Monster` are heard, all the player can do is stop... listen... and make a decision of which way to run. Their only option to either hope it loses track of them, or hide in an active room - a risky and fright inducing option.

This is what I mean when I say it's the gameplay that really creates the feeling of dread for the player and provides them with one of the best horror experiences I've had to date, Starting with Naomi, the protagonist can recruit other people to join them on their journey to find a way back to the surface, with a maximum of 1 at a time, with a total of 4 recruit-able characters. Each character with it's own unique story, method of defence, dialogue, and ending. Depressingly though, they are mainly just lives to stop your own escape from coming to a bloody end. When caught, it's the partner character that dies, leaving you alone with nothing to help you but your own sheer will to complete the game... until you find someone else who's happy to be your expendable defence mechanism. Naomi, while unable to actually defend against the `Monster` like the rest, is in my opinion (and those who I've forced to play this game's) the most valuable of the members, but the most difficult to keep alive. This is due to her ability being that she can pin-point the monster on the map as a threateningly orange glowing cube. While the rest simply stun it for a short amount of time with their fire-arm, which they have a limit amount of shots with that you can't refill. Arguably though, it's the others (or for those brave enough, playing alone) that creates the most horrifying experience.

Walking along in the eerie silence of the Tokyo Mesh, an abdandoned military base deep underground where those who fled a life on the surface now live, and suddenly the heavy breathing of the monster sounds in the distance, is it in front of you? Behind you? You won't know till it's found you. With the first person perspective, and fear of running out of breath... all you can really do is either stand still and hope the breathing doesn't get louder, or slowly walk and try to figure out which direction it's coming from before it catches you. It's this exact situation that many-a-times has caused me to fling my controller and feel the complete shame that I, the horror buff of my friends whose parents raised him on horror films and games since birth, is screaming like a baby at a low-budget PS1/PSX game.

The game even manages to, which is a complete surprise for it's era, keep up with a constantly randomly generated `Monster`. Seriously it barely ever has patterns. Other than the few occasional story based/ constant appearances it basically can show up whenever, wherever with barely a warning.

What let's the game down slightly however is the repetitive nature of it. The method of advancing plot is pretty basic, and also annoying. It's a matter of getting from point A to point B, then back again, then to a point C. All without dying. While this is partially how the game creates it's realistically tense atmosphere, around half way through the game you do get pretty fed up. But hey, it works. I've literally seen people get to point B, then refuse to leave the room they're in because they too scared and don't want to try and make it back to point A because of how risky it is.

The beginning of the game also lets it down slightly, not because it's not done well, or it lacks fear, or takes too long. But simply because the game has so much replay value, that you just get sick of doing the completely planned out and un-randomised beginning where the `Monster` doesn't ever change his path. It becomes more of a nuisance than anything else. And the annoyance of the Tokyo Mesh first sector. With the mechanised gate key and different area's, it just becomes a hassle trying to remember exactly where that one person who wanted that one item is - especially when it's your first time playing the game.

One of the more weirder aspects of this game, is that somehow it has practically no internet presence. Honestly I have spent hours upon hours trying to find out how to recruit a `Monster` that my dad to this day still tells me he managed to do, and vigorously defends this, yet there is basically nothing aside from one `Let's Play` on YouTube, and the odd fact sheet that just sort of gives you a description of the game. Which is not only really weird because even much older games still have some form of online presence, but also incredibly sad because this game deserved so much more recognition.

Overall though, this is a game that I would strongly suggest (and force upon) to anyone. Literally anyone whether they're a fan of games or not, if you have some appreciation for good script and the horror franchise then I strongly suggest you get yourself a copy of this game!


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