["You!" ["Me."] [Subtitles by danielsangeo] Hey! Welcome to the Halloween
episode of the Game Dungeon. This time we're looking at
"Realms of the Haunting", a first-person shooter and
graphic adventure game. Now before I say more, the intro doesn't
waste any time and starts right away so let's try and keep up. We begin with a quote that
sounds really contrived and apparently was made up
for the game, too. Okay, I'm stopping here. Normally when you have an epigraph like this it's something that has some punch to it
and it's letting you know what's in store. So what's this mess? It's saying good is
light and evil is dark, choose wisely? And they made it up, too! This
is the best we can come up with? Okay, let's continue. Next, our intro is reminiscent of "Fantasia" where we have no sound effects, no dialog, just orchestra music
and interpretive images. I'm going to summarize this because this
entire intro video is over eight minutes long. Well, everything is sunny with
happy music playing, then a green fireball comes, and
some green angel spins around and the video drops to six frames a second, no explanation of anything, we've got some electricity, some
runes... oh look! A sword! And that's the first half of the intro. If you're confused, well... All I can say is that I didn't cut
out anything important. I promise. Next, we're introduced to our
hero Adam Randall. He spends a LOT of time reflecting in the
backseat of a car so I'll condense this. Adam's father died six months ago, and afterwards a strange man
whom Adam says is a liar, claimed to be a friend of his father's, and gave him a package with some
broken disk in it. He said his father was
investigating a strange house so that's where Adam is heading now. Oh, and Adam had a dream about a
beautiful woman, because apparently that's
unusual for a... man...? And that's the entire backstory. So while we're finishing Adam's
introspective road trip here, let me give a little bit of
background about this game. This is a horror game I've been
wanting to play for a long time ever since I heard of it. It's been built up for me over the years to the point now where it has
almost a mystique about it. First off, understand
this is a four-CD game. Now of course today, that doesn't mean much, but for 1996, that was still a
pretty big deal. You didn't pay to print and ship
a four-disc game and not have it be something
special, or at least attempt to be. Second, this game is supposed to be scary. I knew a guy in high school who said everyone
who played it had nightmares about it. Even the cover is a jumble of madness
where you don't know what to expect other than this guy has some body
horror going on with his face. What's it all about? Who knows?! We're still watching the intro and it's not
obvious where this game is going at all. It just adds to the mystery. Finally, this game has gathered
a cult following over the years yet whenever I see a scariest games list,
Realms of the Haunting is never on there. It's as if people are afraid to
talk about THIS one. Like it's in another class by itself. So why haven't I played this game yet? Well, I've been scared to. Now I'm not an easily scared person. I'm not afraid of the dark, I'm willing
to face unnatural horrors from beyond, but what's this?! This is a first-person shooter,
WITH KEYBOARD AIMING! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm fine with dated graphics, I
can handle some hard gameplay, but God, some of the old ways I
just can't go back to it. But this is going to be the exception because I HAVE to know what
lurks inside this game. Is this the true game of terror
that time forgot? Let's found out! And the intro STILL isn't done yet, but Adam just sort of wanders
into this spooky house kind of like the intro to
"Alone in the Dark". [ribbit] NOW we begin. Ooh!
"Chapter 1 - 'Shadows'". So we start off in a spooky
haunted house and... Yeah, there's no avoiding it. I
have to talk about these controls. God, where to begin? Okay first off, I lied. This
game DOES have mouse aiming but I never realized that because it's the
most unconventional kind you can envision. By default, your aiming is that crappy
drag-over kind like in "System Shock". This means that, while you're aiming
is okay, your mobility is garbage. So like a rail shooter, except you
also have to build the rails as you go. But what's this? This game also
supports conventional mouse aiming... IF you hold down the left and right
mouse buttons at the same time... UNLESS you happen to be hovering over
an item of interest. Then it won't work. Oh yeah! I can't imagine
that being a problem in the heat of the moment when I
need to aim or anything. And hey! What do you know? This
game supports strafing also. It's unfortunately the industry-standard
for mid-90s first person shooters, though. Oh and the horizontal
sensitivity is WAY too high. So really, all the tools are
technically here for a good experience but these are most fixer-upper
controls I've ever seen for a shooter. Well, I'm coming prepared. So now my controls are ALMOST acceptable provided I'm not looking at
anything important. Oh God. As for the rest of the interface, I'll just
keep it simple and say it's not intuitive. Like this game likes to make a big deal about which HAND
you're carrying an object in. Or to use an object, you have to
press "I", left-click, make sure at NO POINT do you cross paths
with another object, then press "U", and that's if you're NOT trying to interact
with the environment. That's something else. Normally when you hear of a game
being dumbed down, it's a bad thing, but occasionally, there are really good
reasons something gets dumbed down. But whatever. This is like
watching a slasher killer start the movie by spending twenty
minutes repairing his chainsaw. Let's start the game! So, we begin and this game is
not going for subtlety. We have glowing magic runes on
the doors that block us off, we have a typewriter typing
something creepy unassisted, the doors slam behind us when we
first arrived and are now locked, and we have a take on the classic
creepy picture looking at you, except this one is
just straight-up blinking. I do like how this particular
suit of armor is giving off fumes and flies are buzzing around it, so it's really obvious somebody
stuffed a body in here, but our hero just sort of shrugs that off. This is going to become a theme. Anyway, after solving a puzzle by
lighting some candles, we get a cutscene. We enter the library and see a
vision of our dead father. He says I have to help him but
doesn't tell me how. ["This... is my prison... and my jailer... ["binding me against my will... to
suffer the tortures of the damned!"] Weird! Why would he be carrying
his own prison around his neck? There's some metaphysical
stuff going on here. I mean, I'm assuming there's a good
reason he can't just take it off. But yeah, the afterlife isn't
treating dad so well, and besides the whole damnation thing, he fades away screaming just before he gets
beat up by other ghosts for ghost initiation. So that sucks. Anyway, after that, we look
around the library here. This game starts to get personal fast as we find what appear to be love letters
from a Satanic cultist addressed to Claude. She knows he's busy performing
the dark rituals but is concerned that he isn't responding. I particularly like this line: "We are bonded by the darkness, my love, "bride and bridegroom of our master, "a spell that no other love can ever break." Yeah, I don't know about that. I'm not sure the forces of
darkness are any better with relationship success rates
than the forces of good. After that, if we head back
outside we get our first enemy: a henchman demon guy with a
cobra neck? You tell me. Now a normal narrative-driven game might
have our hero focus on how what we just saw is complete magic unlike anything anybody
has ever seen in their entire life. But, no, we don't get any of that. Even later, Adam is constantly
in this dazed state where you wonder if he's really
processing any of this. Back to the library, we get the
classic hidden-passage-in-a-bookshelf and find ourselves in some underground
lava temple. Cool, why not? We also find a shotgun. Yeh-HEAH! Bet you weren't counting
on me circle-strafing, were you?! I have to say, being able to switch
into modern shooter mechanics makes me feel like a time-traveler from
the future possessing advanced technology. I like it. Around here, the game also lets me know that I shouldn't be too sure of
what to expect. For example, if I walk towards this door, I lose a LOT of health and I'm
transported somewhere else. If I run real fast, then I don't. Now if I try to leave this new area, I come
to a familiar spot, start walking back, BAM! Teleported back to the same
trap again and lose a LOT of health. But if I do the EXACT SAME THING
AGAIN, everything is fine. Or here, look at this fork. If I
walk to the left and keep going, then I enter a chamber where
golems start spawning endlessly. At least I think it's endless. I
don't know, I ran out of ammo. Instead of killing them, what I need to do is frantically run
to multiple switches around the room that I need to activate out of combat mode-- which is real pain in the ass
with these controls-- try not to get trapped or die, then
activate the magic teleporter and Whooooooaaaaa...! This takes me to another part of the level. BUT, if I go straight and walk
down these stairs instead, then I end up in the exact same
place in about five seconds. Huh. Is there a reason for any of this? I don't know! One thing I hate in a lot of
modern games especially is when a game world feels kind of fake because it's trying too hard to
accommodate the player, rather than feel like something more natural that doesn't care if the player
is there or not. It's usually difficult to point
to any one thing specifically, but I think there can be such a
thing as too much polish in a game. Well, Realms of the Haunting is
NOT giving me that feeling. Whatever is going on here, I don't feel
this was approved by a marketing committee. I'm in somebody else's world now. Or hey, put some polish in the right places. Look at the gears when this door
opens. See that? That's quality. This game really does have some
quality moments and I think what it does best is
raise intrigue. I'm not that far into the game and I already have so many
questions about what's going on. And not only does
the game keep raising MORE, but it suggests there's some
real gravity behind all of this. One of my favorite examples is this: A hallway filled with human
skeletons and a giant demon mural. You have to figure, whatever was
going on here was pretty serious. I start walking slowly and I hear
voices telling me I should turn back because I don't have the "marks". ["Who dares to walk this place unmarked? ["Warning is hereby given."] And if I keep going, guess what?
They're right. Why did all these people die here if
they could see the guy ahead of them die? What's beyond this place? What's this force field that
doesn't affect me? ["Your presence violates the
Pact as it is written."] "Pact"? What pact? What is this H.R. Giger throne for? It looks like it was meant to extract
my soul without actually killing me. Well, to skip ahead a bit, this gives you
the marks you need to pass the bone hallway so that you're greeted by friendlier voices telling you that you have to
take the magical seal so that you can defeat evil and
restore the balance. But, WHOA! Wait a minute. This game makes a big deal about how I really need these magic scars in
order to pass through the bone hallway and to hold the magic medallion. But in order to get the magic scars,
I need to fire up this sucker. So this throne here
is only for the good guys. Call me old-fashioned but this does
not strike me as an instrument of good. I think it might the bony alien
webbing pattern combined with the giant ribcage supports. Oh wait. You know what it is? I think it's the skulls with the
glowing red eyes that light up as Adam is
groaning in agony. I don't know. I guess this is all cool because this
is the good guys' evil torture throne. And besides the magic medallion, we get a
magic staff, too, that doubles as a weapon. Let's talk about the weapons a second. Like almost everything else, the
design feels odd. The pistol and shotgun work how you'd
expect them to, but they're quite weak, especially since this is a .45. There should be no such thing as a locked
door with a gun like this, but whatever. Besides these guns, every other
weapon is some magical staff or sword that all behave the same way: They build up a charge over time
that gets more and more powerful then you release it. What this means is, as enemies
get more and more powerful, the most efficient form of
combat is to fire a staff, then swap to another magic weapon, then swap to ANOTHER magic weapon, then swap again. Oh, except for one staff which
has ONE charge, then that's it. You can never use it again. I'm not sure I've ever seen that before, unless it's a weapon at the very
end game or something. Oh, and there's also a normal sword that doesn't even work on some
of the tougher enemies. This all adds up to bizarre and
somewhat tedious combat. Ehhhh, okay let's get back to the story. After becoming the Chosen One, we
run into what's-his-face again. We still don't even know
this guy's real name, but hey, now that he's back, let's
ask him who he is and what's going on. ["Who are you? What are you doing here?" ["My name..."] Wait for it! ["...would mean nothing to you. ["The rest of the story is,
likewise, none of your concern. ["You are not here to question me."] Raaaaah! This unfortunately becomes a theme. No one in this game wants to
answer your questions OR it's against the rules. Anyway, we find out that he
wants your medallion, probably for nothing good, but since you're the hero, you hold out. ["Give me one good reason." ["How about... this?"] Yep. Further on, we come across a
ghost knight who wants to help me but won't tell me anything either. And finally, we exit the lava temple and-- Hey! It's the girl of our
dreams: Rebecca Trevisard. Look at her! She's smiling, she
knows what's going on, but she's not going to tell us. And because we're not confused enough yet,
what do ya know? She's a psychic, too! Meanwhile...! Yeah, I don't know what's going on, either. This guy looks a little bit like Bobby
from the "Ernest" movies, though. So Rebecca decides to accompany us and offers us such great insights as
things that are obviously magic ARE magic. You never actually see her
outside of cutscenes, which is good because then I don't
have to protect an NPC in game. Still, it's kind of a weird disconnect. From here, more of the mansion opens up and the game starts feeling very
"Resident Evil"-ish, with endless rooms to explore and puzzles
that are about as equally contrived. Like I have to put the snake
statuette on the pressure block, so the platform can raise so I can grab
the key to unlock the door to the closet so I can throw the switch to the
OTHER door, so I can-- Well, you get the idea. And along the way, we of course find
the Soulstone Crystal in the fireplace and use it inside the magic
globe thing, so I can... go back in time and space to ancient Egypt! I guess this is a good idea? And here I meet the Gnarl, who is
the Keeper of Time or something. Rnnghhh! He passive-aggressively tells me
I can use his masks which are the only items here,
so I take them. And that's it. No more ancient Egypt. And these masks, naturally, are used on the
special teleporter platform in the next room so I can enter The Tower, a series of suspended platforms which
connect the Earthly realm to others. Its guardian doesn't answer any
of my questions either. ["You don't seem to know much, do you? ["I mean, after all, you are the
GUIDE to this place, aren't you?"] "Don't you sass me, boy!" And from here I can literally go anywhere
in the universe, or technically beyond, so naturally, my first destination is
back to the exact same house I was at, except now I'm in the courtyard. Besides feeling anticlimactic, this almost seems like an abuse
of the awesome dimensional power few, if any, mortals have witnessed. It reminds me of driving your
car to check your mail because you're too lazy to walk
to the mailbox. There's not much of note here except these statues that keep
saying over and over again, "Will he destroy us or will he save us?" ["...save us?" ["Will he destroy us...?" ["...or save us?" ["Will he destroy us...?" ["...or save us?"] They do this so much, I'm
honestly not surprised the owner decided to blow some of
their heads off to get them to shut up. From here, of COURSE there's a secret
cavern underneath the property. And actually this might be one of
the creepiest parts of the game, since while we have "Doom"-style graphics, the lighting effects are excellent, and these gargoyle demons are
coming at you from the darkness. I have to say, while the visuals
and atmosphere are great, this game isn't actually that scary. Resident Evil came out the same year this
did and it's easily ten times as scary. Hell, even Alone in the Dark, which
Resident Evil was heavily based on, was scarier than this. This doesn't have jump scares,
it doesn't really horrify you, these monsters all look like
claymation characters. I mean, hell, the monster murals
and engravings look a lot scarier than anything
we actually get. It has a lot of life to it, but so
far, the game is just not that scary, but it creates this vibe that we're
going to UNCOVER some unspeakable horrors and these are all
just signs leading up to it. So that really keeps me going. I also really like the subtle
acting on one cutscene here. There's another puzzle where a
demon statue wants a gift so it will raise a bridge for you. Watch Adam's body language during this part. ["Who stands by the Bridge?" ["We are those who challenge the
rite of passage." ["Then offer the benefaction
within these hands."] Okay, so... do I need to wrestle
with it, or... ["I think he means giving an
appropriate gift."] Oh. Really, Adam goes through this
whole game in a perpetual stupor. Adam's basic response when
confronted with everything is, "I don't want to think about it. "Yeah, okay, I shot up some demons,
traveled to another plane of existence "and am teaming up with a confirmed psychic,
but let's just not focus on any of that." At first, I thought this was a little
unbelievable, but now, I don't know. He could just be in shock this entire time. Moving on. After honoring, then
immediately violating a demonic Pact, which we never agreed to, nor
were ever aware of the terms, we finally find enough snake statuettes to unlock the Egyptian
sarcophagus in the library. And inside it is a ladder leading
down to an underground passage, which leads to... another
dimension, apparently. I'd like to point out that there
was no transition here. We didn't cast a magic spell and
be transported-- all I did was walk down a ladder. See? I can walk right back out. I already thought the lava flows were
a bit of a stretch for New England, but I think we have to suspend
our disbelief a little more. We've graduated to "Narnia" logic
now. That's okay. I'm still on board. We continue past the giant clock room and hear the voices of a trapped angel
who is ALSO not allowed to tell us things. ["According to my laws of imprisonment, I
may not disclose the location of my jail. ["The means to free me, however, I may."] Seriously, man? Well, I guess
he's going to stay trapped. The stairway to Heaven is locked. I guess it's time to open the fish doors.
Good thing I have the magic chalices. And I'd like to remind everyone that
you didn't miss anything critical. I didn't skip over any
explanation that I'm aware of. You know about as much
as I do at this point. So I open the first fish door and--WHOA!
It's that sword from the intro video. That has to be important, right? Well, the second I leave,
somebody comes to greet us. This is another person
we know nothing about, but see if you can guess if he's
a good guy or a bad guy. ["Hello." ["Hi." ["Yes." ["My sole concern is that you
cease this tiresome charade... ["...right now." ["Lieutenant. That's what Aelf said. ["That's you, isn't it?" ["So you can recite what you've been told. ["Very clever. ["And your charming lady friend. ["My dear, why don't you use your
undoubted influence, and persuade this... ["...young man to close his mouth?" ["Who are you? What do you want?" ["I am... ["...Belial. ["As to what I want, well, that
can wait a little longer... ["...while we have some fun. ["Humans do still bleed, don't they? ["Splendid."] I think he might be a bad guy,
despite being a doctor, apparently. I have to give props to the acting here. This guy's delivery alone makes him one
of the best game villains I've seen. You can just feel the hate and
disdain radiating off him. "Rrrrrrr!" And from here, every option kills us,
Belial here has a good day. The end. ["Starting with you."] [Rebecca and Adam scream] Yeah, I'm not kidding.
Every option kills us. In classic graphic adventure game fashion, I already screwed myself and
didn't realize it. ["Well. That's that, then."] What I SHOULD have done is
opened THIS door first. It's like the old saying, "When you come across two fish
doors, take the left one first." Well if you open THIS door, you
get a different sword. Then the ghost knight comes back
to tell us that it's special and can be used ONCE to unleash a
great power to defend ourselves. Well, gee, I guess we're going to
need that in about thirty seconds since every other option kills us. YEAH! Taste sword magic...magic...bad guy! [Belial screams] And after that, if we open the other
fish door, the movie sword is gone! Completely vanished! On one hand, I feel like I got robbed, but on the other, I feel like maybe I
got a glimpse into an alternate reality where that sword DID exist. So while this entire puzzle was
just a cheap trick, that's kind of cool having
little secrets like that. And immediately after, we're introduced
to possessed demon gangsters. Huh... I'm not sure what to say about them except that I can think of
scarier monsters to add to a game. From here, we head off
to see the Spirit Realm because we need the Key of Tears
to unlock the mystery box and this maybe frees the trapped angel? And we need to free him because I guess...
we don't really know what else to do? Let's talk about story some more. So far, the game's presentation
style reminds me a lot of "Lost". For those that never saw the
show, the style of Lost was to raise questions
and mysterious events, then move onto something NEW
unexplained and mysterious, and OCCASSIONALLY answer some
minor questions from earlier. While I love intrigue and
wondering what's happening, at some point, you need to give
your audience some answers. Well, Lost wasn't very good at that part. Realms of the Haunting, I have a
little more hope for because it was released as a
completed game, not Season One. So I hope they're going to tie
all this together, but I'm starting to get concerned here. What does anything mean in this intro? Why is this series of suspended
islands called "The Tower"? What did my dad do to get damned? Why are there designated dead rat
rooms and a trail of dead rats? Why are the statues talking and
what are they referring to? Why is there another dimension
in the basement? I know NOTHING about ANY of the
characters besides their moral alignment. It's like everybody's a weird
placeholder! RAAAAAGH! So, on that note, the same way I
needed masks from ancient Egypt to enter the crossroads dimension, I need this sword from the
knight to enter the Spirit Realm. So we make our way
to the Spirit Realm and... Huh, this is interesting. Actually, the game spoiled
what was coming earlier by having historical journals talking
about travels to other realms. Well, where did they get THEIR
ancient Egyptian masks from, huh? Mine are from ancient Egypt. Anyway, this might seem out of place in
a horror game, and it most definitely is. However, I thought, maybe there was
more than meets the eye on this. One powerful horror concept is to create an
illusion of something beautiful or pleasant, when the reality is, it's just a
veneer of something horrid underneath. So you might SEE a delicious
feast that tastes wonderful, but the reality could be it's a spell
cast over maggot-infested rotten food. So is that what's going on here? No. It's just a bunch of small
booby traps and a garden maze. Now you might think I'd hate the mazes since I normally don't like them
in first-person shooters, but no. This is cool. Because
the game gives me maps. Seems a little pointless, then,
but I am not complaining. We also meet the demon that
lords over this realm and his big thing is having the power
to imprison people or set them free. Although I'm not sure he ever
actually sets anyone free, he just likes to say that he can. He also says he doesn't enjoy any of this. ["I gain no pleasure from it."] And I'd also like to point out that the
whole reason for us starting this journey was to help our dad, and we don't even
ASK the master spirit JAILER to free him! So why does he imprison people? Well, he likes to take naps and
the rules of the realm are that if you trip one of his
various booby traps to wake him up, then he imprisons your spirit forever. It's at this point in the game that I feel
like we've crossed over into something else. This game started out kind of like
Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil, but more mysterious, more story-driven, and
more supernatural. I was digging all of it. Now this really
reminds me of "King's Quest". Use the jewel-covered meat on
the mechanical dog. Go through the garden maze
but don't wake me. This is fairy tale logic now. Cinderella can't stay out past midnight and Rumpelstiltskin claims your first-born
child unless you can guess his name. It's not either theme is bad,
but I'm not sure I appreciate this midstream switch of
survival horror to fairy tale. Or rather, I would've liked it
more the other way around. Also, up until now, I've been
using a walkthrough sparingly. So far, this game has been
surprisingly playable. It's only been small things to hang me up, like I had to click on this
indentation itself and not the door. Also, this spinning sword puzzle
had me confused but I've been able to figure out
almost everything else. Well that's all gone in the
Realm of the Spirits. This is classic 90s graphic
adventure game puzzling here. So every time I go in the wrong door, I get
imprisoned for eternity and have to reload. There's going to be a lot of
trial-and-error here. Trial-and-error sucks. So I just cheat and look up what to do. Now MOST of these puzzles make sense, but the thing is, 90s graphic
adventure games almost never play fair. So everybody put on your thinking caps and
try to guess the answer to this puzzle. I need to silently cross this
room which has a nightingale floor so it's designed to squeak when
you walk on the boards. So how am I going to get across this? Find a big carpet to muffle things? Lay out a bunch of sand to
distribute the pressure? No. I need to equip a metal
armlet and wear it. Y'know, a wrist guard, like a
medieval knight would wear? It's not magical, as far as I
know. It's a hunk of metal armor. That makes sense, right? I've seen lists before that try to rate
the most ridiculous adventure game puzzles. I've always seen these lists as pointless because this kind of crap is so
common for the genre. It's almost impossible to quantify
which are the most asinine. The armlet puzzle here is sadly
not unusual whatsoever. This is another thing I don't
miss from 90s games. Anyway, back to the fairy tale. We finally get the Spirit Ring
and the Key of Tears so we can unlock the stairway to Heaven. I do like how, if you follow the
advice of the disembodied voices here, your soul gets ripped apart or something, then you get imprisoned for all eternity, even though I don't think I broke
the rules of the imprisonment demon. Normally the disembodied voices
give you good advice, but this time, they're hazing you. I guess the moral of this story is you're
really taking your life into your own hands when you start obeying the
voices in your head. So we unlock the mystical box and--ta da! An ancient angel in a t-shirt appears. This is Hawk. Okay, by now, we've just about
hit the breaking point on the Lost-style storytelling. It's become clear to me this game has
raised far, FAR too many questions to answer everything important. Well, Hawk here tries to
shore up the damage, and you can ask him a LOT of questions. There's still a LOT he doesn't explain, but now I at least understand the plot
and the roles of the main characters. Lost could've used a guy like this. It's your standard fantasy story. Everything was in balance, but
then Claude Florentine here made a pact with Satan and stole the
Eternity Sword, and that upset the balance, so now evil is making a play to
usher in the antichrist and Bobby here is going to be
the host for Satan. Then something about the seven seals
that bind the universe together are all broken except one. And there's going to be a meeting of the
powers soon that happens every 1,000 years. Dammit, I'm getting lost again, but I think I need to get the Eternity
Sword now and save the day somehow. Now, I could be wrong, but I think
if I were just drop the magic seal down a pit here and go home,
evil's plans would be thwarted. And hey, on my way out, I could ask the spirit demon to let my
dad go and all's well that ends well. But that's not an option, so now
we're off to the Realm of the Divine, which the game likes to make
clear is NOT Heaven. ["I have not sent you to Heaven, Adam."] Bwuhahahaha! We first use the transdimensional portal
to travel to the church down the road which is actually a cool level with
a lot of house exploration in it. There are more nonsense puzzles like feathers falling from stained-glass
windows to unlock secret artifacts. There's also a transdimensional viewport
of the original Tree of Knowledge-- that's a nice conversation piece. This level doesn't do a whole
lot for the plot, but I really like the vibe of this area. It just goes to show you don't need great
graphics to have a great atmosphere-- just good art direction. So let's check out the Realm of the Divine. It looks... a lot like the Realm of Spirits. This one has no enemies, just
more adventure-game puzzles. I have to combine random crap with more
random crap to produce random crap. Some of this makes sense, but I encounter the second completely
unjustifiable puzzle in this game. I have combine with snow with
flint and steel to create amber. Oh, yeah. That totally makes sense.
Adventure-game logic, guys. It's ugly. And to top this off, the game
surprised me yet again when I get a sign from the gods
telling me to make a bong. ["Bong?"] Then after concocting a mix, I hand
it to the gods so they can smoke up. Y'know, I sometimes joke saying some game developers must've been high
to come up with something ridiculous, but in Realms of the Haunting, I don't
think that's even a joke anymore. Well, Rebecca seems to be enjoying this, and
the stoner god gives me the Eternity Sword. No, excuse me. Eternity the Dragon Sword. ["Dragon Sword."] When I picked this as a spooky
game for Halloween, I can honestly say I did not think
this is where we would end up: in a sunny garden helping some
water god get high, but here we are. Trick or treat. But hold on! The wonders do not cease here. After returning through the Tower, we get a transition unlike any other I've
ever seen in a game... maybe even in a movie. We return to Earth and, what's this? It's Belial back for seconds! Except, what's up now?! I've got the Eternity Sword AND I've got
that sword that messed up your face! YEAH! But, uh-oh! He's got my dad and
wants me to hand him the medallion. Well, shit's about to get real. And Rebecca slips me her amulet
for good luck, or something, and-- ...oh, okay. Another chapter. Kind of
a bad spot to place the title, huh? Wait, what? I'm in prison?! Oh, damn. Did I hit a button too
fast by accident? Let's try that again. No...? Okay, so this is the game
functioning as intended? That... I'm having a hard time following
the story here. Okay, Belial comes to wave the
sword and medallion in my face, but if I WAIT five seconds, then Rebecca comes to rescue me
with... a welding torch I guess? Also, I read a newspaper clipping about 500
people sleeping over 24 hours simultaneously, like something out of
"Village of the Damned". That sounds like an awesome plot device
right there, what's going on with that? Wait, I'm getting sidetracked.
Let's back up here a minute. I had both the Dragon Sword and the
one that messed up Belial's face. Now apparently, I can only use
the sword magic on him once, despite using it constantly elsewhere. But how do the rules on that work? Is it once per person? Could I just hand it to Rebecca and have
HER shoot him in the face a second time? Or, hey, does Belial even KNOW
it only has one charge? Couldn't I just wave it around
to get him back down? Plus, what was he going to do,
kill my dad? He's already dead. That's at least worth taking a
shot at him for. Besides, he's being held by
ghost zombies or something. You know they're going to be slow,
whereas a lot can happen in five seconds. But no. Apparently, I turned over both
the medallion and the sword and myself. But then, why doesn't Belial
just straight up kill me then? That would make his life a lot easier and he didn't seem to have a
problem with it earlier. Why does he spare me AND Rebecca and
how does she weld open a prison door? Oh, right. She's psychic. What? [ribbit] One thing I like about this game is if it's running too slow on your system,
you can put it into low-detail mode. Runs nice and smooth now. I bet developers would love to
have this be the standard so when people complain
a game runs too slow, they can just tell them
to turn off fast mode. There! Problem solved!
NOW SHUT UP AND ENJOY THE GAME! Moving on, not that I know where
we are anymore, we head to the Hell Dimension.
Bum-bum-bummmm... Huh. This looks kind of nice, actually.
I'd go to Hell if it looked like this. Thankfully, our friendly
neighborhood cult man tells us that this is just the antechamber and Hell is just through this door. I'm not sure why we're going to
Hell, actually. I think it's to return the sword
to the Soulstone, because that will fix everything. Because magic, magic, magic...
magic, magic. Off we go! Well, here's Hell. Looks kind of like the last level to
"Strife" or "Half-Life" or "Unreal". There are no characters here--just
cheesy alien knockoffs and a maze. The goal of Hell is to feed
brains into the brain machine. By this point, I feel like the game has won and I'm not actually questioning
anything that's happening here. I think we've now gone from fairy
tale logic to dream sequence. Dreams don't have to make
sense--they're dreams! So after activating the brain machine,
we head back to the antechamber and we have a major plot point and find
out that Rebecca doesn't use makeup so much as black magic to look young, and is actually an ex-nun turned mistress, turned back to good psychic with her ex-lover being Florentine! Bum-bum-bummmm. Adam decides this is all bullshit and leaves and is pretty much the only time he's
showed emotion in this entire game. Whatever. Round and round the Hell portal
goes, where she stops Lucifer knows. Well, it stops with a doppelgänger
telling me to choose wisely even though there's
no choice to be made here. And we discovered the REAL Hell
gatekeeper being trapped in a prison beam. He tells me I'm the Chosen One
and Florentine sucks. Yeah, thanks for the update. He also won't shut up about the prophecy, and I should leave him alone
because prophecy prophecy. Fine. This part is actually neat in
that I have to smash mirrors to destroy specters from coming at
me that won't stop following me. I thought this was creative and a little
creepy, even if they look kind of goofy. So, mostly good job on that. Next, we return to the antechamber and
meet Hawk who is just chilling out. He says we'll meet again because
of destiny. Right. Okay, back in the Hell gate. You'd think you know Hell, and
then Hell springs Hell on you. Because that's what we have here: Hell. We have eight puzzles to solve
in order to progress. Some of these are good puzzles, some
of them so easy they're pointless, and a few are torment. This puzzle is pure trial-and-error. And this one. This is torture.
This is absolute gaming torture. For the first half of the game, I was actually thinking it was a shame it
hasn't been converted to another engine, so we could have better mouse controls,
widescreen resolutions, and so on. Because exploring the mansion was
a lot of fun and very enjoyable. After the Realm of Spirits, I
was having second thoughts. But this... This right here makes me
never want to play this game again. I almost quit here
I hated this part so much. I see now why other people had
nightmares about this game. It's not what I thought.
It's this right here. I somehow manage to get through it, and then I'm greeted by a miniboss
with a flamethrower. Sure. I take him out, then afterwards, I get a
certificate protecting the bearer from fire. It's at this point I realize the
developers have stopped caring entirely. They're just screwing with me now. Okay, back to the Hell gate. I come to a new zone and discover
Rebecca chained to a rock. I let her loose, but what this? It was
really just Belial in drag! Bum-bum-bummmm! So we have a boss battle and
he's... not hard at all. But man, what a great place for a showdown: a windy island in the late evening in
another dimension--very atmospheric. Also, I can check out this tower over
here and see the ACTUAL Tree of Knowledge. It gives me a healing potion. TO THE HELL GATE! Oh yeah. I forgot to mention
this game has a lot of chapters. It's almost meaningless though since
some chapters took me two hours, others took me four minutes. Here we get a nice cliff level just
walking around and taking out enemies. I would've liked to have seen more
transitional stuff in the realms like this. But we move ahead, find another portal
and make it to the end cutscene. Well, everybody's here for the
1,000 year party, and Florentine goes out of his
way to let me know this is the only place I can kill
him because he has Satan power. He even presents himself to me
for execution and turns around. Now if you just go with this,
then--oh! Surprise! He tricks you into destroying
the seventh seal around his neck, and darkness wins. The end. This seems like a risky plan since I could've just driven my
sword through his face. That's practically what I did for Belial. And, hey Hawk! Thanks for the heads up! He knew this was coming. You
could see it on his face. What, is it against the rules for you
to open your mouth and save Earth? Yeah, probably. So instead, you're supposed to
stay your blade, then Florentine paralyzes you, and a
giant bag of deus ex machinas opens up. Rebecca just happens to show up
and kick him in the face; then the knight, despite being
noncorporeal this entire time, shows up and launches his sword
into him like it's a spear; Bobby has a panic attack; then Hawk decides, oh wait, he CAN
do something so he throws a punch. Then, instead of Rebecca hooking up with
Adam like the game seemed to be implying, she has to become imprisoned for all
eternity because the prophecy says so. I guess this guy's happy. And hey, it's my dad! He says I did a good job, which is important because that's literally
the only motivation we know about for Adam. But what's this? The game still isn't over! We have to escape the mansion as
it falls apart! We have a quick boss battle which
I saved the Super Staff for, and then we get the real ending. YES! I'm still not sure any of this
makes any sense, but blowing everything up is an
alternative way of achieving closure. That's a good explosion; I feel
like I did something. But, uh-oh! What's this? ["...from beginning to end, the
whole God damned story. ["I know you think I'm crazy--otherwise,
I wouldn't be here..."] [woman and man crying] ["...right?"] I don't know. I think you're pretty generic. [woman crying] ["Now, if you don't mind, I'd
rather you left me now." ["You should try to rest a bit."] [woman crying] ["Time for your medication."] Oh! That's what we're doing, huh?! We're doing this?! It was all in his head, huh?! That's why Belial was a doctor earlier! That is SO cheap! COME ON, GAME! You could've done better than this... [exhales] Man, I like long drawn out endings
that give me a lot of cool down, and this game ALMOST pulled it off! Then they pull out the "it was
all a dream" crap. Christ... All right. Awards time. First award: User hostile interface. This alone is what kept me from
the game this whole time. The controls have aged horrendously. I like old games, but God! I
have some cutoffs, too. Second award: Legendary scene transition. Seriously, this transition is
one of the worst I've ever seen. It really stands out to me even now. I've never seen one quite that
abrupt and plot-omitting. I'm sure there are some other contenders
out there, but none that I can think of. This is a heavyweight. And the final award: Best dimensional rifts. Maybe these aren't the absolute
best I've seen, but I'm a sucker for that sort of thing,
and good examples are few and far between. This game certainly tried to
create other worlds. So that's Realms of the Haunting. It's a fascinating game that has
plenty of highs. It created a sense of wonder for
me while playing it, which is the most I can ask of a
story-driven game. That's the sort of thing I yearn for. But it also has awful, if not
outright painful, gameplay in spots that makes me never want to touch it again. The LOWS in this game cut too deep. This is really a prime game for
a reboot or a reimagining. Throw out the story and start over. Flesh
out the realms more. Make it actually scary. A lot of games, maybe even most,
are doomed to mediocrity. This game is doomed for entirely
different reasons. That's the episode. Have a happy Halloween. And remember: If a fake priest
gives you a box of broken disks, you should go with it because
you might save the world and-- I-I can't do it! This game
doesn't make any sense. [ominous music] ["Hawk, who is Aelf? He's offered
us much help since we arrived." ["Aelf is only one of his names. ["He is a product of the Soulstone,
the force controlling the universe. ["Events and certain prophecies have
been falsified. That is why Aelf is here: ["To put the fate of mankind's
future back on course."]
Man this game has so much content in it. It's crazy to think how many almost completely unknown or forgotten games have such a wealth of ideas and work put into them that will mostly never resurface.
For those interested, a YT'er named supergreatfriend did a full playthrough of this game. S'pretty good.
Are there any mods that fix some of the issues he had with this game? I feel like nowadays all old games have some kind of fix...