In Sound Mind
2spooky4me
Why
- Seemed to have some creative mechanics
- Cool vibes, I definitely felt scared
Why Not
- Difficult (for me) to overlook the "checklist of stuff" gameplay
- You don't like horror
Impressions
Saw this on special for ~300yen and thought I'd give it a try to see if I'd like spooky horror games. Unfortunately it seems I don't; I definitely felt the tension and appreciated some cool ideas but overall it just wasn't an enjoyable experience.
Starting with the positives, there are some cool visuals here and it definitely nailed the spooky vibe for me. Classics like random noises, stuff moving for no reason and a very helpful doll I inadvertently shot in panic definitely keep the tension up. And I have no issue with tension, earlier today I spent ~4 hours slogging through Bilewater then a gauntlet of lesser enemies for the privilege of dying to Groal the Great and doing it all over again.
I think the difference is in Silksong I'm having fun & getting better as I play, whereas with In Sound Mind I'm trying to solve random convoluted puzzles as a normal dude in a supermarket of bloodthirsty paranormal phenomenon. At the end of the day I play games to have fun, and while I can objectively appreciate the appeal of horror games I prefer to eventually be able to beat previously scary challenges by gitting gud, not doing fetch quests while a ghost gnaws on my face. I could definitely see this being for some people, but I'm not one of them. Probably a good thing, my backlog is huge enough without adding horror games to the pile -__-.