Introduction
Lamentum is a survival horror title developed by Obscure Tales. It was originally released on PC in July 2021. Neon Doctrine then published it to console in August 2021.
Video Review
Review
When Victor’s wife falls ill from a mysterious condition that cannot be cured, he looks far and wide for any solution. He then learns about Count Edmond at Grau Hill, and how he might be able to help his wife. So off he goes in the horse drawn carriage, with hope in his heart and his wife in tow.
Unfortunately for Victor, he ends up in a world of madness, when he wakes up on a bed, covered in blood, and the house that he came to is now broken, covered in disturbing pictures, and nightmarish monsters now roam the halls. As you work your way through the mansion, you start to learn that time apparently flows differently at Grau Hill and that Victor was a part of something mysterious. So as you look for your wife, you also help uncover what happened with Victor. I absolutely loved exploring the mansion and figuring out what everyone was up to here. You even learn about weird experiments that happened here. But why were they performed in the first place?
The game has multiple endings depending on some of the choices you make in the game. Do you tell the creature if you saw a child or not, or do you take mercy on the man who is now a monster. Do you take the child with you, or leave her in this nightmare? I only ended up getting two of the four endings as I played the game.
For the best ending, this requires you to pick up a bunch of items throughout the game, many of which are missable, so I know I’ll need a guide for when I want to see it. But honestly, the game is so short when you know what you’re doing, it would probably only take me an afternoon and that’s okay. I will happily go back to Grau Hill, considering the writing and dialogue really helps pull you into the mystery.
The gameplay is very survival horror with a good emphasis on puzzles. I loved the puzzles in this game. None of them were too hard, but they were just vague enough to get you thinking on how to actually work them. Some of them required searching the environment or reading documents that were left laying around on nearby tables. Some puzzles required having multiple items in my inventory, and inventory management is crucial considering you only have nine slots to work with. Do you keep all your weapons on you, along with the lantern to always light your way? Or do you run from every enemy you see? Should you keep healing, just in case?
The combat in the game is surprisingly fun and enjoyable. I expected it to be insanely stressful with it being a survival game and everything, but not often was I using healing items. I loved learning the enemies’ attacks, so I could make them attack, then smack them with my melee weapon, conserving my ammo for my guns. I actually disliked using the guns in the game, but I ended up using them a few times. Considering the setting takes place in the 1800’s, your weapons of choice are all flintlock weapons. So once you shot once, you had to reload. This kept the combat thrilling though when I used them on bosses. But at the same time, the guns were just wildly inaccurate it seemed, even when I pointed the reticle towards enemies, especially bats. It especially helped that when you’re near enemies, Victor has a stamina bar of sorts. Considering all the creatures are nightmarish monstrosities, if you get near one and try to run or dodge, Victor will run out of breath and bend over to catch his breath, allowing the enemies too close ground. So it becomes an issue of fight or flight?
When I started the game, I was surprised to see a difficulty selection and a single, but important accessibility option. Considering the game takes heavy influence from Resident Evil, that means you get limited saves. You have to find pen ink to save your game at desks, but you have the choice, even in game, to give yourself unlimited saves if you ever get too stressed out over it all. Though if you play carefully it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Heck enemies don’t even respawn if you kill them all, minus a few areas. So killing everything efficiently really helped in the long run. Plus killing all the enemies that wanted to eat my face was the right choice anyways, so I never had to see them again, because screw enemies that are modeled after babies. But having enemies kill you at least once was enjoyable too because they all have their own special death animations they do to Victor. As terrible as it was to see the gruesome ways he got eviscerated, it was also funny! Poor Victor.
Rating
Pros:
- Fantastic Setting
- Great Mystery To Solve
- Unique Death Scenes
Cons:
- The Best Ending Is A Chore To Get
- Guns Don’t Feel Great
Summary
I cannot recommend this game enough to fans of the survival horror genre. The scenes are grotesque, the gameplay is really fun, and there’s an intriguing mystery to be solved at the end of the day. One day I will get the best ending, but it’s also just a damn chore, especially considering the items you need are missable! So just be warned. Now, let’s go to Grau Hill.
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Game & Developer Information
Developer Website: Obscure Tales
Developer Socials: Twitter
Publisher Website: Neon Doctrine
Publisher Socials: Twitter
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