Shinji Mikami (the creator of the Resident Evil series) often cites a Famicom game called Sweet Home as his main inspiration for his own survival horror games. It’s pretty clear that this isn’t a genuine claim. Alone in the Dark was actually the first modern genre outing. It’s a horror game where you have limited ammunition, and pre-rendered backgrounds. It’s pretty obvious that Mikami used it as the blueprint for Resident Evil. Back in the day I never had a PC capable of running the game, and I sure as heck never owned a 3DO. I never even knew about it, but I love survival horror. I later learned of this game and had to play. This was the primary reason I purchased a 3DO. The game is scary and fun as any survival horror game should be. It’s clunky, but that’s why I love it.
Alone in the Dark focuses around a decrepit mansion in the Louisiana bayou called Derceto. In 1924 a famous artist hung himself in the attic of this estate. The locals often speak of Derceto as if it were haunted. At the start you choose one of two characters to play as. The first is a private investigator Edward Carnby. He’s tasked with collecting a note from the piano in the room where the suicide occurred. The other option is Emily Hartwood. She’s the niece of the deceased artist. Whomever you choose they arrive at the mansion to uncover the real story. Unfortunately Derceto is populated by zombies, ghosts, and otherworldly monsters. You’ll find memos which uncover how these ghouls came to be.
The game is played from a third person perspective. You guide your polygonal character through pre-rendered environments with fixed camera angles. If you’ve played Resident Evil then you know the drill. The game uses tank controls which means you press up to walk forward in the direction your character is facing. Down moves backwards, and left/right are used to turn. As you move to the end of each view the camera switches perspectives. Usually the viewpoints are quite dramatic and honestly a little disorienting. This is where the tank controls come in handy because the only thing startling about it is the viewpoint.
Like in Resident Evil the areas of the mansion must be explored in a specific order. You will encounter locked doors where you won’t find the keys until much later. This means that you have to backtrack at a pretty constant rate. It’s a little annoying but makes Derceto feel like a real place. You need to memorize these locations for when you can return. Unfortunately t’s easy to get lost and confused while wandering the halls of Derceto. What adds to this is the fact that you can leave items on the ground. Because your inventory space is limited it’s a necessity which only exacerbates the issue. To make matters worse many halls feature traps which lead to instant deaths. If you’re not following a guide you need to memorize or write down where these are.
Unfortunately interaction of any kind is extremely clunky. You can search objects, attack enemies, drop items, push furniture, and even jump. The interface is extremely slow and frustrating. To perform any of these actions you must first open the menu, and select the appropriate command. Then you have to hold down the A button to perform the action. Each time you need to interact the game loads up the menu and you must select it. This is a problem with PC games of the era, but because we’re playing on a console I won’t spare the game of complaints.
This could have, and should have, been significantly streamlined. It isn’t uncommon that you’ll be surprised by an enemy and have to engage the clunky interface.. Combat itself is extremely awkward. Melee attacks are particularly painful because you have to hold down the A button after equipping your weapon while pressing the directional buttons. It’s not intuitive, and that’s putting it kindly. Unfortunately it takes a long while to wind up and finally strike and enemies. All the while foes will be striking you. What’s worse is that some of the weapons break after being used a certain number of times. You only get three ranged weapons in the game, and only two of these are useful. They are unwieldy to use because you have to slowly pivot and aim. The whole system is largely unintuitive.
The worst part of this game is that you’re often given little to no clues to proceed. In a game where you’re encouraged to wander aimlessly that’s just plain frustrating. You can explore a significant amount of the mansion shortly after beginning. Clues to move forward are cryptic at best. The game does a bad job of explaining how to get past the roadblocks. Many of them will kill you with no warning which is annoying. This issue is alleviated a bit by the ability to save your progress at any point,. After you trigger your first trap you’ll become downright paranoid. What’s also annoying is that your inventory is limited. You have to place items on the ground and remember where you left them. Keeping track of everything is taxing. There’s far too much trial and error in place here. I suppose it adds to the horror elements.
Despite its archaic graphics and clunky mechanics Alone in the Dark still manages to be a frightening game. The number of different enemies is pretty staggering. You’ll face off against mutated giant rats, deformed plants, giant spiders, zombies, and more. The developers did a good job with the jump scares. I jumped a few times my first time through. One of the spookier moments in the game has a ghost sitting in a chair which kills you on contact. You can prevent enemies from approaching by moving furniture and blocking entrances to the room. This reminded me a fair bit of Resident Evil 4, and it’s a really cool aspect. Later in the game you will be tasked with navigating a dark labyrinth with only a lantern. This was one of my favorite sequences. Unfortunately the final boss is cheesy, but the journey to him is worth the it.
Alone in the dark is a very rough looking game. The characters and enemies are designed with what looks like less than a hundred polygons. Because of this they’re extremely jagged and they appear pointy. It’s really that bad, but the enemies fare slightly better. The game would have been much better if the developers had gone with sprites instead of polygons. The backgrounds fare pretty well even now. They’re drawn with a lot of attention to detail. Unfortunately this game does not run particularly well on the hardware. The framerate, even with no enemies on-screen, is sub ten frames per second. It feels like it’s moving in slow motion, and during combat it’s even worse. This makes Alone in the Dark hard to play in modern times.
On the other hand the soundtrack is fantastic. The original PC version featured simple midis, but the developers re-arranged every piece of music. It sounds incredible. The track for the opening cinema prepares you for a true horror experience. The frogs and birds in the background really hit home the ambiance of the haunted bayou. During gameplay the music changes when enemies are nearby. The fantastic piano work is a real treat. There aren’t a whole lot of different tracks here, but they’re performed with great attention to detail. As an early game on CD Alone in the Dark also features a fair amount of voice work. The intros are fully voiced, and although the acting is pretty bad this adds to the B-movie feel. Every memo you find is also read aloud which is a nice touch. The audio is really well done in this game.
