Fear Effect Review

Fear Effect very much fits the idea of a game where it gets better as it goes along. The best way of describing this game is if it was Resident Evil but way more cinematic and scripted. It has everything RE has like backtracking, tank controls, third person shooting reliant on auto aim and puzzles. What makes this game stand out from RE is the visuals, story and cinematic presentation.

If you start this game, it may feel awkward at first if you played Resident Evil, it has the tank controls and inventory but the way the inventory is handled is very different, here it's in real time where in RE, it's in a seperate menu. There is no limited inventory space either so it's like Silent Hill in that regard. Saving is also handled by using the inventory. There is also another major difference: enemies use hitscan weapons and also spawn ammo, this may sound bad but it's generally fine since the auto aim is does a good job at tracking the targets and you get a target icon when you can hit the enemy. There is non human enemies to break things up too. The game gives you a non contextual dodge command which I do like and even got some fun use out of it late game. What I find interesting about the game is that the game gives you no healing items to speak of you get back health by doing objectives and health can partially regenerate so the unwinnable boss situation is less than likely to happen in this game.

Now RE comparisons aside, how is Fear Effect exactly? It ties back into what I said earlier, it's a game that gets better the more it goes along. Fear Effect despite not being a shareware FPS game from the 90s shares some similarties with that. Each Disc in the game is a level and "episode". Much like those games, Fear Effect's first Disc isn't that great, the gameplay is decent but there are many scripted seqences that can kind of come out of nowhere, feel cheap and feels like trial and error, I can imagine this stuff being infuriating if I didn't play on an emulator. There is also stealth sections which are okay, but only because they are brief and don't last long because I can't imagine playing prolonged sections of stealth gameplay with a fixed camera and tank controls. The level design also gets more creative and interesting after Disc 1. Haunted villages, a compromised brothel of sorts, and even Hell. I did feel the levels can be hard to tell where to go at times but it's just me being lazy more than anything. That and some of the scripted sequences happen so fast and out of left field that I kept a walkthrough with on in case if I didn't know what to do when they happened.

The game's story is very well presented with great looking cutscenes, shockingingly well done voice acting for the time and an engaging narrative that also does a good job at involving other characters unlike most other games. Where you will be playing as all 3 characters in Hana's team and see their perspective as the situation plays out where in most games most supporting characters in the story get around without much explanation to how they got there. The twist involving Hana is pretty well foreshadowed, and the character interactions are also good even if the overall backstory involving the group never gets revealed. I didn't like the multiple endings which is what many games at the time and I didn't like it here since it felt like it came out of nowhere due to how linear the narrative was presented beforehand.

Overall, if you can get past some of the aggrevating scripted sequences and how underwhelming Disc 1 is, this game does a good job at standing out from other games at the time despite the obvious inspirations.