Nightmare 4 (Fear)

Game Title: Nightmare 4 (Fear)
Game Creator: Xargoth
Reviewer: AznChipmunk
Engine: RPGMaker 2000
Genre: Action/Horror
Site: http://rpgmaker.net/

Playthrough:
Ah, so, an RPGMaker atmospheric/horror game? This is my own style, so this should be interesting...
The game is fairly pretty for the most part. It has a nifty little custom title screen, although the way that is presented feels a little... unsmooth (not in the sense that it's laggy, but just that it's a little... fast.) The lighting effects don't look that great either, but it works decently. It doesn't quite make sense... and mostly just feels like circles of color in certain areas.
It doesn't take long to get control of the character, but you start off with no idea of what is going on plotwise, receiving only a set of instructions. A main appears to wake up on a bed, and then, you are teleported to a map with two men... One of them walks up to the other and the one lying down screams. And suddenly you gain control of the character. Although it's nice to gain control early, I didn't realize that I gained control and stood there doing nothing for a bit.
There is no menu, pressing cancel brings the player straight to the saving screen.



As soon as I gained control, I took the door at the north end of the room... and got a game over. No explanation whatsoever. This kind of reminds me of Saw, which isn't necessarily a good or bad thing... Anyways. The gameover is kind of cool, it repeats the television motif from the title screen, and you have the option to load from where you died. (The menu here has a small nitpicky bug, if you push up while on the load option, the "quit" option doesn't slide over like it normally does, it jumps over. Anyways, this is a small thing, and I'm a majorly thorough kind of beta tester who cares about this stuff anyways--after all, there was that one game I literally walked on every square while testing. Not something that really bothers me, but just a note.) Also, you can't dodge spikes if you're facing a wall right in front of you. It also doesn't feel like it always detects if I hit the decision key or not.
So, after loading, I take the door left... and stepping out into a room that looks exactly like the one before, and I get killed again. However, I noticed the second time, an exclamation bubble appeared above the hero before he died! Recalling the instructions I received at the beginning, I mash the spacebar and the hero jumps, narrowly avoiding death. However, a few steps forward, I don't react fast enough to the exclamation bubble and meet a bloody end. Anyways, loading once again, I make it through the north door in the blood room, and enter a room with a pool of blood. And suddenly, spikes fly from the top and kill me, and there was no exclamation bubble to save me this time!



Going through again, I devised a strategy to dodge everything--simply mash the spacebar continuously as I walked. This somewhat worked, but I ended up stepping on a square that seemed to hurt the hero, although there was no invisible animation, but it didn't kill him, it only tore off his pant leg. Then, he moved a square down and died anyways.
Anyways, so I'm a bit lost now, everything seems to kill me. I tried to go through the side doors instead of the north door in the second room, but instead, my hero, jumping off of a spiked square, froze in the doorway and I had to restart the game. Trying this again later, instead of jumping over a spike square, I walk around it under the wall and through the door, which leads me into the third room again. This worked, but feels a little off, since I feel jumping over the spike block should work just as well!
I am able in the third room, this time, to avoid the spikes, since I'm in the side niche and I run through the north door quickly as I can.
In the fourth room... I make my way to the western door and go through. And that's it. The hero disappears, and the game simply stops. Not as in, it quits or goes back to the title screen, but it seems to freeze and nothing happens. Restarting and once again making my way to the fourth room, I walk in, and attempt to make it to the north door, but am shot by some seemingly random lasers. After a bit of work again, I make it to a fifth room, where nothing seems to happen, and I walk through the north door once again to reach a... room with green fog.
Going north once again, I reach an room with no corpse, no blood, and no fog. There is instead a phone in the middle.
I pick it up, and there seems to be some plot cinematic. I don't understand at all what's going on... I feel this is similar to Saw or Cube.



Anyways, after the cutscene some of the doors are locked. The unlocked ones take me backwards, and so, that is where I go. Dying a few times, I eventually make it back to the second room, but then, I am suddenly deposited in the green fog room again...
*time passes*
I've been wandering for a while, continuously meeting traps that kill me, and I don't seem to be getting anywhere. I'm a bit frustrated that the maps aren't really leading to anywhere else...
Eventually, after nearly an hour of wandering, I make it somewhere. I don't want to spoil exactly what happens, but... there seemed to be some issue here. I eventually had to crack open the maker and figure out how the game worked in order to cheat to get to the end.

Overview:
Plot: ... Plot. What plot? Okay, there is some semblance of plot, but it is not explored. You are simply dumped into the game and although some things happen, there is no dialogue and nothing is really provided. However, I won't include this as part of my final score as a plot does not appear to be part of the creator's intentions.

Gameplay: Unfortunately, a weak point, although I think the creator tried to make it a main point, as most of the gameplay involves avoiding traps. It eventually gets plain frustrating to avoid the same things over and over, and it's kind of buggy.
1/5.

Graphics: Graphics are one of this game's stronger points. The maps that aren't empty look nice, and even the empty rooms have a sort of texture to them. The graphics are consistent: REFMAP tilesets and RTP-style charsets. Xargoth clearly has some graphical flair. There are also some nice poses and animations. However, there are some weak points. The lighting needs some work, as it doesn't quite make sense. And also, the blood is WAAAAY too bright. The overall atmosphere could be reworked a bit, it feels a bit cartoony--not quite the horror I think it is going for.
3.5/5.

Music & Sound: There is not much music, only some on the title screen. Most of the rest of the game is ambient sound effects. They mostly work pretty well, but some of them feel a little too unnecessarily loud. Also, mp3s probably would work better in place of an midis for a horror game! I think there are some RTP sound effects which feel out of place. Nothing memorable about it.
3/5.

Creativity & Originality: This game does try to take some interesting ideas together: avoiding traps in a large maze. However, it doesn't work out too well, as the game is buggy and frustrating. There are also a few... cheap shock horror moments too--the kind of horror that isn't really "horror," because it surprises rather than scares.
2/5.

Pros:
-Decent graphics
-The idea of it is interesting

Cons:
-Frustrating
-Buggy

Final Score:
2 and a QUARTER WELPS out of 5 WELPS

Needs to welp harder.

Final Comments/Notes: Play this if you are interested, but I suggest you stop if you get frustrated.