Finally, it has come full circle! The original game made me who I am today - a compulsive hoarder. Only in virtual worlds, thankfully. I was so traumatized by all the panic and creature horror, but most of all - the inventory horror! Unprecedented for the time, the scarcity angle caught me off guard, and, for better or worse, it was never repeated to the same degree within the main series. To this day, I always have oodles of consumables left unused in any RPG, boast Amazon storages of ammunition in shooters, and I've beaten Silent Hill 2 into submission by primarily using a nail board. Bless your shivering, shrieking core, PTSD! Here I am, sinking my teeth into the necrotic pudding once more. Rich and creamy.

In the light of what I just said, it may sound weird, but RE sort of calms me down. There's no other way - you pull yourself together or get pulled apart. Collected, I tune in to its rhythmic pacing and calculated tension. I soak in the atmosphere, flow with the ambiance, and appreciate how the game treats its ripe horror tropes. While my love for Silent Hill is high-functioning, cerebral, what I feel for this franchise is visceral, almost carnal. Undeniably, I'm a die-hard fan. The last time I could call myself a fan happily, I was playing Fallout 2 while listening to Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. But it's coming back now, it's coming back. Happiness, not Limp Bizkit.

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2639724285
I suppose I need to start this thing off properly with the game's story? I don't even think I need to give you my take on it. Who gives a crap about my thoughts on Mozart, for example? Okay, here you go: virus bad, Barry is my hunny bunny, mansion traps, monsters Cronenberg, your inventory is full, Salieri was falsely accused and then the fallacy was sung by poets for drama points. Not that sophisticated of a premise by modern standards, but a trendsetting classic nonetheless. I would never think of adding or subtracting anything like I wouldn't change a thing about a cat. Here, the golden cheese of outlandish voice acting got fixed, however, the old one remains out there forever, so I don't mind.

With a few notable exceptions, backtracking-intensive puzzles boil down to "I can't wait to get rid of this thing to save up some inventory space" kinds of entente. To boot, every so often, you're welcome to die after failing to figure out the logic behind a strict sequence of steps to perform on the double. No hard feelings though. Each time I inserted another object into another slot and heard the satisfying *click* or took the right course of action, it echoed inside my weary soul. I made some progress, I freed up some space, I lived, after all! Indulging an important relieving pause, my mind starts racing again, I'm on the move. I definitely saw a herb and some sweet shotgun ammo during my last impetuous scamper through the eastern wing.

The remake has added an "Alternative" movement type as an option, but I initially went for tank controls anyway. The keyboard lends itself fine to this scheme, this is how I played the original. Yeah, yeah, you can't just lounge back and enjoy yourself while playing, but I'm okay with hunching like a true nerd. Tank controls have their charm, even some nostalgic value to me. Besides, horror only gets juicier the more uncomfortable it makes you feel... so I told myself until I finally found a spare mini-USB adapter, plugged in my gamepad, and tried the alternative. What can I say? Nothing beats instant turning, tank controls have no chance against such an obscene advantage! Although, they deserve to be honored for serving us faithfully - like horses before the age of cars or spittoons before the age of swallowing our phlegm.

Speaking of paradigm shifts, they did a number on this remake's presentation. The competent use of dynamic lighting and crisp shadows makes certain moments even more dreadful than before, and locations - even more memorable, despite being somewhat drained of color. The detailed body horror of smooth models, headsplosions, and grimy pre-rendered backgrounds look fantastic, getting emphasized by the cinematic camera. In professional hands, dramatic camera angles really tie it all together! Nothing can set things up and create meticulously controlled experiences for a player quite as they do. And thanks to them, the perfect 80's horror sets that are this mansion's intricate, interconnected environments are the scariest character in the game.

Remember the room where you see a zombie around the corner in a mirror or these infamous hallways with cracking windows? Such well-manipulated scares! And you don't always need a threat for things to get eerie - like with these menacing staircase shots snatched directly from Alone in the Dark. Creating tension where there isn't a thing otherwise (as yet) and sustaining it is high art where, needless to say, the masterful sound design does half the job. Sure, clutch angles also cause such jarring issues as obstructing your vision when it's least appropriate, ending up with you getting blindsided by something that your character should've noticed from a mile away. I brush it off by saying that beauty requires sacrifice and sometimes it's chunks of your face.

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2755107407
You know what would be dakka? To just push-kick a zombie. Could one possibly catch your foot? Then again, hit too hard and you'll get stuck in its rotting guts. Zombie theories! Many of us are wired to always loop back to those in moments of respite. Anyway, it took me a while to learn how to evade properly, and even then, I wasn't exactly a floating butterfly, so I died a lot. In RE, however, losing a whole hour of progress is not a huge tragedy since redoing everything in a more efficient way is a treat in itself. To a degree. It's a genuinely hard game full of devious beginner's traps. After 3 hours of rapidly snowballing collapse, I swallowed my pride and restarted on medium difficulty, amply lubing the inverted difficulty curve.

Even with the new controls and the addition of defensive items seen in recent remakes, the game stays challenging, which is appreciated by veterans and amateurs alike. As for me, I'm happy with my humble "easy" victory for which poor Jill had to die a thousand deaths. I can't say I'm dying to experience an even smaller inventory, so, Chris, my apologies. Jill is the one who's packing. But enough about dying! Killing here is pleasant... and punitive. So cathartic, gory, fairly gratuitous, though simultaneously discouraged by sensible ammo shortage and fast Crimson Head zombies who start spawning later in the game from the bodies you made, but didn't burn or decapitate. It sounds like a nuisance, but no enemy is worse than dogs and birds anyway, trust me. The same goes for their in-game counterparts.

Being restricted and weak lends itself to the genre perfectly. Resident Evil knows how to play these cards expertly, it's confident enough to make you cooperate on its terms. I loved every predicament that it put me through! Making someone enjoy a thing they predictably would is admirable, but to think up mechanics that are repelling on paper and make them work in that someone's best interests I call pure brilliance. Every time you have to leave the safe room, you feel the taste of iron in your mouth, lick your lips that suddenly went dry. Thrilled, you tense up, wondering if you have the willpower for the constricting adventure howling in the corridors beyond. Inhale. Clench that shotgun, focus your senses. Turn the knob. Exhale. Run back in because you forgot to put the damn ink ribbons into the box.

My curator Big Bad Mutuh

The music is magnificent, the graphics are sprinkled with unique animations and full of style. But that's to be expected from a "Disco killer". I call it that lovingly. Ebb doesn't parrot Disco, quite unlike its larping peers of pious attitude that betrays insecurity. The futility behind their literalisation of a transformative piece of gaming culture hides behind a setting swap, gets obscured by pro forma decorations. All to fish for that coveted lightning in a bottle in the form of Disco's tone and writing style. Said style, in this regard, is barren. Christoffer Bodegård made no attempt to repossess intimate nuances via self-indulgent mimicry. Lifted a few properties, sure, but Ebb's beauty stems from adopting Disco's allegiance to homebrew tabletop roots as a mission statement. You can read it in the description, see it in the trailers. It's a feasible goal realised by "TTRPG-turned-CRPG" gems like The Age of Decadence. While it did so to deliver a challenge, Ebb opens a portal to the laid-back dimension. You'll be fine, just don't spread your stats thin. Even that isn't necessary since failures can be fun.

It all starts with one - you - waking up on a stone slab in a mortuary, except it's called a lichhouse and, sadly, Morte isn't around. Who are you? A Cleric, or The Cleric as I liked to call myself to no one's amazement. Not yet dead or amnesiac, just nearly drowned under suspicious circumstances. What you recall immediately is that you were hired to investigate a massive tea shop explosion in the middle of a multi-cultural metropolis. Yes, a detective mystery in a world saturated with magic and every kind of fantasy creature! It's up to you to decide how to get to the bottom of it. Will you take sides, partaking in snitching and sabotage, or keep a safe distance from the factions segregated by race and class? It's a political matter, the officials have given you 6 days to complete your main quest before the election. A jolly, lighthearted game, Ebb doesn't shy away from exploring touchy subjects, yet its politics aren't some one-sided, cowardly allegory for pandering purposes, they're consistent within its world's inner logic. When it taps into ours, it does so with a sobering diplomatic tact, always leaving room for objections.

As for the time constraints, don't lose sleep over them. The clock only advances when you rest or make new dialogue choices (lore tooltips excluded), which implies that you have to be efficient at how you approach conversations. Yeah, right. The mere notion of a timer may rough some feathers, not mine since being unable to tick all the boxes in one go wouldn't hinder my enjoyment. I'm not a perfectionist. If you are, you'll still find Ebb considerate and generous. Just take into account that many events only happen during certain hours and businesses have their loose schedules, is all. It's a beneficial kind of smoke and mirrors akin to the classic Fallout games. Instead of being a pain, the limitation pertains to immersion and adds suspense, while solving a classic RPG problem of unrealistic dilly-dallying when the whole world waits for you to attend a diegetically time-sensitive quest. Relax, put your trust in the author's vision. He has your best interest in mind, putting your agency and fun first. You aren't on a leash, explore his wacky world almost carefree.

The world isn't a joke. Good writing, however humorous, needs a solid foundation. I've solved most of the quests because I wanted to get involved with a setting that endeared itself to me. Chris has what it takes to brute-force his way under your skin, but he aimed for his own heights, carefully incorporating his life lessons and passions in shapes which never resemble a lecture. He'd rather explore fantasy science behind a movable immovable rod than engage in petty melodrama. Don't get me wrong, the existential philosophy is ever-present, you're simply not pounded by it non-stop. Likewise, the humour here relies on a friendly kind of intellectualism, not a barrage of puns or dad jokes, resulting in each story being its own reward. After building up trust by proving to be a great conversational partner, only then Ebb unloads its baggage or conjures up a moment of wonder as a critical finisher. It certainly landed one on me right off the bat by explaining resurrection as an extortionist subscription service. Have you thought how undramatic death is in many RPGs where you can resurrect people willy-nilly? Most settings refuse to tackle the issue, this one suggests a simple solution.

The stat-based progression system is also simple. It's the same device Disco used to validate us overthinkers. These guys are eccentric: wisdom is a hippie-ass mystic, strength is your inner boomer, etc. They constantly roll for an input, even argue, creating a flow where dialogues write themselves. You too roll the dice, cast spells, and quest your ass off, reaping consequences as well as passive feats upon contemplation. While conversations provide most of the exp, there's combat. Basically another dialog box, so sparse it's barely worth a mention. The spells, on the other hand, are pretty cool - you'll get to control minds, talk to animals, use telekinesis. Having mustered an arsenal, I expected to put my magical prowess to the test... didn't need 95% of it. Ebb's easy-to-game progression system lacks the resistance to fully bloom. Welp! Its strengths lie in peaceful exploration. If you call getting sucked out of my skin by vampire sand, then melted inside a Gelatinous Cube that.

In every predicament, you have a say, and what you say (or don't) impacts the world and yourself, providing boons like a combo exp bonus for consistency. Say, I picked a certain stance several times, it placed me on the path of a god-wizard-king! Slightly fascist, but it's a role-playing game, not a personality test. Besides, good and evil are passe. Here, you can become a brute and a coward, a loyal nationalist, or an unapologetically dwarf-pilled lover boy. Whatever you declare yourself to be. Ebb acknowledges your choices, commenting on the tiniest of particulars like eating too many apples. But it's not just the dialogues who are non-linear, you're free to explore. The game isn't pushy when it nudges you in the right direction, which helps your discoveries seem earned, not provided. It took me a while before I left the first areas, there were too many completely optional things to mess with. Equipment to find and swap situationally, secrets to uncover, threads to pull. You can even have a party. I don't count a few rats and a telepathic ant passenger. Fancy a Polish angel or a whole goblin? Interesting folks, not just quirky cutouts.

Ebb is one unconventional RPG expressed in sincere writing. Rife with player agency and attention to detail, it channels the free spirit of D&D. There was never a moment when I felt like my hand was twisted. At that, this is the most faithful adaptation I've seen. Now, notice how I almost haven't touched the plot. It's an engaging and contained mystery (spoiler tag broke, so my nitpick is in the comments), but you don't need to know anything apart from the premise. Like there's no need to burden you with names that won't mean a thing until you play. I wanted to focus on other nuances pervading your quest for fame and knowledge. Or what you shape it to stand for. Pause for a second, admire how people hide under a canopy when it rains, find something others missed or rolled differently. All of it makes your adventure feel personal and important. What a strange game! So well-built it punches far above its weight. On paper, it's something only a seasoned industry veteran like Brian Fargo could produce. Christoffer, my friend, are you a wizard?

My curator Big Bad Mutuh