Amnesia is an utterly spectacular game. For those of you who aren’t familiar with their work, Frictional Games is a small indie studio out of Sweden started over a decade ago. Their first game, Penumbra: Overture, had limited success but was utterly spectacular, leading to two sequels. The Penumbra series was pure horror, with no silly puzzles to solve or other gimmicks. Simply play through, survive the limited combat, and piece together the story. It sounds boring, but it’s anything but. Granted, the graphics are rather dated today (and were when it was released), but it was an impressive playthrough in its day.
Jump forward to 2010 and Frictional released the first game of their new series, Amnesia: The Dark Descent. With an upgraded graphics engine from Penumbra and a greater feel for how to structure gameplay, Amnesia was gripping and unique. It follows the exploits of Daniel, a young man in 1839 who has lost his memory and wakes up in an abandoned castle. Through notes and exploration, you find out that Daniel has tasked himself with killing a man named Alexander. Since he has no recollection of Alexander, the act is a bit morally questionable, and Daniel struggles for answers as you explore the depths of the castle. Now in 2019, we’re getting the entire Amnesia Collection on Switch: Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Amnesia: Justine, and of course, Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent uses a unique style of gameplay. The darkness itself is your enemy. Step too far into a darkened room for too long and Daniel begins to panic, the screen shakes, and he can begin to hallucinate. Simply keeping rooms lit is incredibly important. Eventually, you’ll find out that even the simple task of killing Alexander is a bit more than Daniel bargained for, and in true Frictional style, adds a fair amount of mystique to the story. The developers were notably inspired by other horror games, but Amnesia has a gothic and Lovecraftian feel to it nonetheless.
If that were all there were to Amnesia, it would still be an excellent title, but there’s one other important tidbit. Amnesia: The Dark Descent has some of the best sound design I’ve ever heard this side of Silent Hill. The way in which sounds create tension in the game is undeniably spectacular. Your hallucinations ramp up your anxiety, and don’t even get me started on the monsters. Did I mention that there are no weapons in the game? Nothing is scarier than being utterly defenseless and running for your life. With the music rising to an eerie grinding press in the background and the slithering, clattering background sounds, Amnesia raises the hairs on the back of your neck at every turn.
In addition to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, two other games are included in the Amnesia Collection: Amnesia: Justine, and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. Justine is a pure puzzle-solving game and was originally an expansion for the Steam version of the first game. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is the sequel to Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Disappointingly, it was farmed out to a third party, but luckily, they’re the same company that made Dear Esther, The Chinese Room. As a game in its own right, it’s not bad, but it doesn’t hold a candle (no pun intended) to Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Amnesia Collection is by and large Amnesia: The Dark Descent with bonuses thrown in.
Where we run into some issues with Amnesia Collection is in its performance on the Switch. Amnesia runs fine, loads fairly fast, and looks like utter dreck. Sure, it’s not the most beautiful game ever made on the PC, but it looks a damned sight better than whatever low resolution that Frictional chose to use on this port. With maximum resolutions on a gaming PC, all the Amnesia games look pretty solid. On a 55” 1080p TV, Amnesia Collection looks utterly awful. It’s terribly pixelated, and simply isn’t done justice here. Fortunately, it seems like Frictional planned the Switch version primarily for undocked mode on the Nintendo Switch, since it looks much cleaner on the smaller screen. I highly recommend that if you’re buying this title, your intent should be to play it portably. Preferably in bed, alone in the dark and with headphones on, so you never sleep another night in your life. On top of the horridly low resolution graphics on the docked version of the game there’s also one other issue, the controls.
Amnesia and its sequel were designed for PC. With a keyboard and mouse, the control scheme makes sense and works smoothly and efficiently. Use the mouse to click on something and move it around. When this translates to a console, it is significantly more clunky. This doesn’t just go for the Switch, it applies to all console versions of Amnesia Collection. Using the stick to aim carefully at an object you can interact with until a hand appears, then holding down the right trigger while you move to open a door is just awkward. It’s a sacrifice that has to be made if you don’t want to redesign the entire interface, but it’s just somewhat irritating.
If you haven’t heard of Amnesia Collection before, you’re in for a treat. Dark Descent is a fantastic title, and the other two aren’t too shabby either. They’re creepy, unique, and fun across the board, unless you hate being scared, and if that’s the case, you probably haven’t read this far into the review. The Switch version runs rock solid on the system and I never had any issues with performance, but the graphics definitely leave something to be desired on a normal TV. Undocked mode is definitely the way to go on this one, and it means that you can finally take one of the best horror games ever made with you wherever you want to play. That isn’t shabby, especially for only $30. Go check out Amnesia Collection. If you haven’t played it, you definitely won’t regret it.
This review was based on a digital copy of Amnesia Collection provided by the publisher. It was played in both docked and undocked modes on a Nintendo Switch. The photos in this review are all from actual gameplay. PC versions of the game were also played in maximum resolution for the purposes of comparison in this review. And yeah, I own everything from Frictional so I already had them. Easily one of my favorite indie game studios of all time! Go play their games in the dark right now! Don’t say I didn’t warn you though…they aren’t for the faint of heart!
