The Heart of Darkness Reviews

Excellent game with a tremendous sense of identity, albeit one that is highly referential of FROM software's fantasy games. Combat is enjoyable but a bit on the easy side, the real appeal of this game is the atmosphere and exploration, and a genuine commitment to dark fantasy that is reminiscent of Fear and Hunger. The H content is good, though entirely static. The best part of this aspect is the "bedtime stories". My only real complaint is that the artist draws male anatomy in a pretty unappealing way. Absolutely recommended to anyone who isn't triggered by SA in their dark eroticism. If you wanna see what George RR Martin's writings he doesn't actually show anyone are like... play this. :D

I won't do this the disservice of comparing it to Black Souls, as I wanted to be fair judge it based on its merit. However even still on its own it just seems hollow (pun unintended). I know this is supposed to be a dark fantasy souls-type game, but I think they vastly misunderstand the whole concept of dark fantasy or of the specific flavour bleak flickering hope in a souls-like, and ends up being just a prime example of Grimderp instead of Grimdark. Rather than being out actually tragic circumstances, much of the characters and setting seem be just malevolent for the sake of being unironically malevolent, instead of having actual nuance. Even the "maiden" character seems to be just outright evil with no obvious motivations for doing so (like openly telling you on multiple occasions she thinks somebody being trapped in a eternal nightmare is funny, with no subtlety).Furthermore whenever something bad is happening in front of you the game just has your character just sit there and let it happen, let you're just on some sort of haunted house ride, railroading you from one terrible thing to the next with ability to intervene (or even [i]show[/i] you even recognised it happening). Maybe this leads to a plot twist later that explains [i]why[/i] your character seems so apathetic to seeing people violated in front of them, as they are called "silent will", but the gameplay is not interesting enough to make me want to continue as it seems a very bogged down RPG with little to it and too easy.