Full Disclosure: Frens, I am sad to report that for (I think?) the 2nd time in the history of this site, I have used save states to complete this game. For that reason, I think everyone should read this review as even less legitimate than usual! No one should listen to reviewers who haven’t shown the ending screen without save states. The main issue I ran into was that I would save (the real way, with a memory card), go try to do something, die horribly in the process, and getting kicked out to the title screen and reloading the save from the memory card took so much time, I stopped feeling like I was doing anything or learning anything. Obviously, skill issue, etc etc. But I am nothing if not an honest reviewer! That being said, here are some stray thoughts:

• This is the game that has made me really understand why CD audio is so important, and how good sound design can be. Even if I had played this on a regular TV back in the day (I didn’t), I wouldn’t have picked up on that. But playing it with some really nice headphones (or, I assume, with a real surround sound system) makes for so much more immersion, and makes it work even better as a horror game
• Believe it or not, I actually did go into this totally blind, except for the past 30 years or so of memes. I didn’t know what to expect at all.
• Tank controls are the thing most people complain about, but that part didn’t bother me very much. After maybe 1-2 hours of gameplay, it became second nature. I also now totally get why directions need to be fixed instead of relative. Tank controls help a lot when the fixed camera keeps jumping around.
• Maybe I didn’t do as much exploring as I should have or, again, maybe skill issue, but for the entire first part of the game (basically everything up until you go out to the Garden) I didn’t feel like I had enough ammo at all. It was fine after that, but the first couple hours of this game are kinda a slog
• Also never learned how to use the knife properly, other than to stab enemies while they’re down
• A lot of this kind of stuff is papered over by the lovable characters and amazing setting. You can tell the people who made Sweet Home worked on this but I have ranted and raved about that game enough
• The combat is pretty messy, but the puzzle solving makes up for it. It’s hard to see this while you’re playing, because you never know what manner of horrible scary creature is right around the corner, but really there isn’t that much combat anyway.
• That being said, I will note for posterity that the version I played was the very first one on the PlayStation. None of the later editions, not the one with DualShock support etc.
• Overall, I enjoyed this game for what it is, but I’m still left feeling like I wasn’t quite fair to it. Like I missed something and it deserves a better treatment. I’m glad I played it due to its historical importance, but I need to revisit it again somehow (or, maybe play the HD remake?)