I had a friend over to hang out over the weekend, and she quite likes horror stuff, so I thought why not give this game a go (she prefers co-piloting to actually playing games herself). I don't really recall where I heard about this one, but I do vaguely recall picking it up on sale over Halloween on PSN after reading good things about it. At any rate, I was certainly glad I had a friend to cower behind going through it, as this game gets proper unnerving pretty damn quick XD . It took us about four hours to complete it with only marginal amounts of getting lost, although we did get the good ending.
Detention is a Taiwan-developed game in the style of Lone Survivor, that is, it's a Silent Hill-like game that takes place in a side-scrolling 2D-environment. However, unlike Lone Survivor, this game has no combat and far fewer enemies in general, instead opting for a heavier emphasis on the story and atmosphere aspects, with enemy encounters being restricted to sneaking past them. Granted, the game takes place in 1960's Taiwan, a restrictive place under martial law, and tells the story of a girl named Ray who wakes up to suddenly find herself trapped at her high school during a hurricane after falling asleep in class. The ghosts you're avoiding are all actually from Chinese folklore, and the notes you find scattered around tell you how to deal with them in ways that align with actual superstition. This largely revolves around holding R2 to hold your breath as you quietly walk past them, but without much UI for enemy line of sight or how long exactly you can hold your breath, sneaking past enemies is always tense without ever being too difficult. The friend I played with grew up in China, so it was cool to have her confirming so much of what the game was talking about and giving in sight into what was happening or things to try (down to the achievement we accidentally got for jokingly trying to dial the Chinese emergency services number on an in-game phone XD). Things slowly but surely go more Silent Hill-y fairly quickly. The game is, for the most part, more focused on having you slowly discover the story and solve puzzles than go past monsters, so there aren't really that many monster types or encounters. That said, because the monsters are so few and get fewer as you progress through the game, when they DO appear, it can be a proper tense experience as you need to get back into old habits of how to sneak past them. The story is a story of national anxieties intersecting with personal traumas, and gets more into the narrative behind why all this is happening more-so than the monsters surrounding it as you go through the game more. Despite wearing its Silent Hill inspirations so unabashedly on its sleeve, I thought this was one of the better games I've played as far as handling the actual Silent Hill storytelling style is concerned. Information is revealed piecemeal to you but not in an aimless fashion. It allows you to slowly form conclusions that seem right at first but soon get challenged with new information as the broader narrative slowly opens up. Even then, the story is effectively told entirely through flashback scenes and notes you find, so there's a lot of onus on the player to put together the whole story, as the game never spells it out explicitly. It was ultimately something I really enjoyed, even as someone who isn't the biggest horror game fan. Verdict: Highly Recommended. It's a bit short for the MSRP of $15, but if you want a horror game with a very different setting that handles its genre very well, Detention is a game well worth picking up, especially on a sale. It does more than just copy-cat, and uses its unique setting and kinda paper-drawn art style to create a play experience that feels familiar but with its own distinct atmosphere and narrative. If you are into Silent Hill, this is likely something you'll enjoy going through on your own on a dark night. Even if you aren't a big fan of actually playing Silent Hill games, like me, but like horror stuff, this is a very approachable game for more casual fans of the genre with how simple and forgiving the overall mechanics are.
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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