I remember hearing a lot about D when it was released on the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the original version was actually on the Panasonic 3DO. This was a very awkward time for video games in general. Developers were working with 3D visuals for the first time, and thanks to the new CD format many of these companies were focusing on pre-rendered FMV games. This is where D comes into play. Developed by Kenji Eno at WARP games this was one of these clunky pre-rendered titles that were so often released in this time period. I generally have a tough time going back to this style of game, but D is held in higher regards than most, and the 3DO version was pretty cheap. Unfortunately this one is clearly a product of its time, and it’s tough to go back to.
The game stars a young blonde woman named Laura Harris who lives in San Francisco. She receives a phone call one night from the police informing her that her father, a well respected doctor, has gone on a killing spree and barricaded himself within a hospital in Los Angeles. She drives down and enters the quiet building in an attempt to talk her father down. Upon discovering the mangled bodies Laura begins hallucinating as the hospital transforms around her into a decrepit medieval style castle. She has two hours to track down her father, but there are multiple puzzles and traps standing in her way. The story is a little uninteresting to be honest. Laura is a silent protagonist, and the only dialogue whatsoever comes from Laura’s father who appears to her during certain key events. There’s only one major plot twist, and there are only three different endings. Two are extremely similar to each other, and the third is a bad ending which I actually though was quite chilling. Kenji Eno developed the character Laura as a virtual actress of sorts that he could re-use in different games. It’s obvious he wanted to blur the lines between film and video game, but this just doesn’t sit right with me. It’s kind of an obnoxious concept in my opinion.
D plays like a typical adventure game with the major difference being that you view the action from a first person perspective. The graphics are entirely pre-rendered, and pressing a button on the directional pad causes Laura to either turn in this direction or move forward. You can interact with a variety of objects; this includes opening drawers, pressing buttons, etc. There’s a fair amount of furniture and control panels to interact with, and many of these require light puzzle solving. For the most part the game does a fair job of giving you hints on how to progress. Items play a major role in exploration here. Most of the time when you’re stuck it’s because you don’t have the right item and must search the area for it. You can use items at any time, and these range from pieces of paper that reveal hidden writing when dropped in water, a keys to unlock doors, a sword, etc. The items are not dynamic and are used only to open paths forward, but this serves to keep things simple. There aren’t many of these, and it’s usually pretty easy to figure out their use.
The game suffers from a multitude of issues however. First of all the action moves at a super slow pace. It feels like Laura is walking through a foot of molasses, and there’s a fair amount of input lag as well. It’s obvious that the system has to load each new animation, but they really should have sped these up by about two or three times. It’s all extremely clunky, and using items seems to take even more time. There’s also virtually no action. There’s only one ‘enemy’ in the entire game (not counting the final encounter with Dr. Harris of course) and getting past this part is as simple as matching button inputs. This makes D a very boring experience. The game runs on an internal clock and you have only two hours to complete the story. This is an interesting concept, but the execution makes this limitation annoying. You cannot pause, and therefore if you need to use the bathroom while playing it will waste in-game time. The game can easily be completed in just over an hour, but this clock is a nuisance making you feel like you must move quickly.
Graphically the game is a bit of a joke, I imagine it was very impressive at the time of release, but the CG style is terribly outdated and is quite laughable by modern standards. D has not aged well at all. The environments are pretty decent with a lot of detail, but when in motion the video is grainy and everything suffers. Laura’s character model in particular is terrible. She moves around with the fluidity of a robot, and her expression is typically bland and unrealistic. You’ll encounter several objects that reflect Laura’s image, and she always has the same look on her face. During some of the story sequences her face changes, but it is entirely unnatural. The worst offender is the section of the game where she’s trying to escape a rolling boulder. It looks purposely bad. The audio fares significantly better. It consists almost entirely of ambient noises, and is quite effective in setting up the eerie atmosphere. There are few voice overs; Dr. Harris is the only character who actually speaks, but the actor did such a cheesy job that it’s barely worth mentioning.
D is a total product of its time, and unfortunately that era has long passed. I’m not entirely against FMV games but the slow pace, boring gameplay, and time restrictions on this one made it quite a boring affair. The graphics have aged worse than most games of this time. On the plus side the atmosphere is top notch, and even the plodding gameplay cannot ruin the mood.
