Review: Dementium: The Ward, Part 2.
Those who read the first half of my Dementium: The Ward review might be eager to know whether the game finished as strongly as it started, and so I’m pleased to provide the conclusion to my in-depth review of Renegade Kid’s M-rated horror FPS. The game spans 16 chapters, and this portion of the review covers chapters eight through 16, as well as providing a final score for the game and an overall summary of how successful the title is.
If you’re not keen on the specifics, I’ll tell you right now that if you own a Nintendo DS and the game’s concept interests you, you need to give this game a try.
This game is pretty long.
Dementium keeps track of your time from save to save, and I completed the game with about seven hours on the clock. I likely spent two times that or more working through the game. Seven hours might be a little short for a console game, but as handhelds go, that’s pretty impressive. It is particularly so when considering its linear presentation. While the game takes place across multiple floors of a two-building hospital, large portions of the floors are unseen due to obstructions, locked doors, and the like. The pacing is remarkably good, and once the mechanics are down, it’s unlikely you’ll ever be stuck, not knowing where to go. Adding to the length is the fact that if you die, you need to replay the chapter from the beginning, as any saves since then are only deleted when you die.
Cheating the clock is also possible (and necessary if you need to buzz through the game in a reasonable time period to write a review) by turning off the system when you’re about to die. It turns out the game saves as you walk through doorways, so if you ever tire of playing, you can just turn off the system and pick up about where you left off later. If you’re about to die, it pays to turn off the game and start again to avoid having to replay the chapter. You can’t do this in the last chapter, because there are no quicksaves, and that makes the last chapter the hardest by a very broad margin.
Let me be clear, this has never been my genre, so if you’re better at this kind of thing than me, your mileage may vary. Also, subsequent plays will likely be much faster, as enemy spawn points are fixed and are not hard to memorize. Passing through the game, you learn which weapons to conserve bullets for and which never to use at all once you have something better.
The cutscenes are extraordinarily well done.
The Actimagine logo makes a number of appearances in the Nintendo DS library. The cutscenes in Metroid Prime: Hunters and Final Fantasy III are all powered by Actimagine, and they stand out because they look so much better than the rest of the game. The short cutscenes in Dementium, though, are made to look very much like they’re rendered in-game, which makes them much more immersive. Anyone who’s played the Final Fantasy rereleases on PS1 knows what I’m talking about: when the video looks completely different from the game, it breaks the continuity. The voice work is also good, which really helps the story.
Dementium doesn’t allow you to skip these cutscenes, though. I still don’t understand why cutscenes in games are not always skippable. Why force viewers to watch a cutscene over and over? One particular cutscene comes to mind, which was immediately before a boss around mid-game. I must have seen the thing a dozen times, and then I found myself sneaking around the rest of the chapter, terrified I’d have to do it again.
The enemies are pretty nasty.
The game boasts some impressive enemy design. They run the gamut from gross to disturbing to absolutely terrifying. The use of audio to sell the enemies may be the best part of the entire game. Each enemy has its own distinctive sound, from the groaning snarl of the zombie Chest Maws to the otherworldly bat-like shriek of the ceiling-crawling Sneaky Torsos. Easily the top of these are the Screamers I mentioned in Part I. These are disembodied heads which zip at intimidating speeds down long corridors, screaming at top volume the whole way. When encountered in groups, they require a great deal of discipline to dispatch. There are six types of enemies in the game, and some are recycled with more life and stronger attacks.
The bosses are impressively designed as well, though a couple are recycled throughout the game and with the exception of the final boss, the AI is pretty weak. One of the bosses you encounter twice in the game can easily be snagged on the environment without any effort in both encounters, and murdered at your leisure.
Of puzzles, maps, and pencils.
The puzzles in the game are disappointingly easy. Each puzzle has a clue right next to it which either makes the puzzle a breeze to solve or isn’t even needed. An early example is the combination you need to enter on a keypad to pass through a door, which is painted on a wall a couple of rooms away. You’re given a notepad in the game on which you can directly write down the clues using the stylus, and I did make good use of it, but it would have been even more useful to be able to write on the maps in the game. Most floors provide a map, which you need to find and take, and doors are marked as locked or unlocked as you find them, but it would have been nice to be able to make notes of healing items you didn’t need at the time and things like that, or even enemy spawn points.
The story and the ending.
The plotline is very challenging to follow, because it’s hard to tell before the end of the game whether the obvious direction the game is going is really what’s going on or if it’s meant as a distraction. Ultimately, this is a very effective storytelling device for the game, because you’re kept guessing on the truth until the ending, which is great. The ending does indicate that a sequel is possible, and I’ll certainly be there playing it if it does come about.
Despite a handful of small issues in the game, I found Dementium: The Ward to be one of the most solid titles I’ve played on the DS. The audiovisual presentation is excellent, the controls are very tight, and while the effort to find optional items in the game is rewarded, I completed the game without ever finding two of the strongest weapons, an indication of good balance. The challenge level will keep the game in your system for a long time, particularly if you don’t cheat the save system by resetting.
All in all, a great success for Renegade Kid and Gamecock. I give Dementium: The Ward four and a half out of five.
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