Review #623: Obscure

 Yep, this is one of the PS2's most obscure titles.

 So, you pop in the disc, go through the introductions, start the game and... Sum 41's 'Still Waiting' starts as you are introduced to the students you'll be playing as. Feeling a mixture of bemusement and interest, I soldiered on and got rewarded with one of the PS2's most unknown and engaging Survival Horror games. It's no Silent Hill, but it's pretty darn great.

 The game pits you as any of five students stuck at Leafmore High. As a matter of fact, the game offers a fantastic prologue that reminded me of Silent Hill's introduction, very neat. The dialogue is terrible and the story is very cookie-cutter... but that's exactly the style they were going for, trying to ape movies such as 'Scream' and 'The Faculty', and they aced it. On the other hand, the game knows how to keep the atmosphere tense, with both ominous choirs and fleshy monsters hiding in the darkness. One of the game's novelties, at the time, was its co-op element. The entire game can be played with two players, or just you and a CPU ally... or just you, if you feel so inclined. Each character has a perk that helps in various ways. Kenny can sprint, which sounds really useful, but if you are going to play as a duo that means leaving your partner behind! Josh can tell if there are items waiting to be found in the area, Ashley is good at healing and can guide you to your next objective, Ashley deals more damage and has a special double attack(Which makes her the best character in the game!).

The abilities aren't game-breaking, just offering a bit of help with how you tackle the game. I managed with a team of Josh and Ashley just fine. And there's a reason as to why abilities aren't mandatory... anyone can die. You read that right, your playable characters can die, and it's not a game over until all five students bite the dust, so you can ostensibly make it to the end with just one character left. It's a pretty neat mechanic that added a lot of tension to the game, I forced myself to restart just because I wouldn't allow anyone to die. Plus, you can use characters as extra health, the game allows you to fast travel back to 'Gathering Spots', where you can swap characters if someone isn't carrying their weight. I played the entire game with the AI and it's... serviceable. At times, when I breaking windows with my bat, the AI would shoot a second later with the gun wasting bullets, which wasn't very nice, and it seems like the CPU isn't fond of 'boosting', a mechanic used to weaken enemies, so I had keep at it... but the game is entirely playable like this, just give them a gun and let them provide back up, ammo is pretty plentiful.

 The entire game is set in Leafmore High, and as you progress through the story you'll gain  keys to access other areas, so there might be a bit of backtracking involved every now and then, nothing that Resident Evil aficionados aren't used to by now. For a first in Survival Horror puzzles make sense. Got a scribbled paper? Break a window and examine it under the light. A padlock is blocking your way? Get some pliers and bust it open.

 Combat in the game is a bit janky, if you're going to use melee weapons it seems like there's no way to avoid incoming damage. The game is pretty generous with bullets, even if it doesn't seem so, so eventually I just stuck to using a gun while my CPU ally would use a melee weapon, although by the latter parts of the game I had as both sporting guns. And you'd better, since evading enemies is pretty much impossible.. A big part of the game is 'boosting', magically making your flashlight brighter, thus weakening enemies. It overheats, so you can't do it all the time. This could mean the difference between three bullets and a single one, so it ends up being a big part of your fights. You can tape guns(and shotguns) together with flashlights, but you might want to wait, since tape runs out and you can't disassemble your creating, so don't go trigger happy with sticking everything together, might want to save the better flashlights for the stronger weapons. Healing items are sparse, but I had over 10 in excess by the end of the game. What is lacking, however, are Saving Discs, used to save the game, so think very carefully before you use one. Item management is done in real time, so if you want to heal or change weapons... well, hopefully you learnt how to navigate the menus by then. You can even toggle the CPU's weapon on the fly pressing down on the directional pad. Am I a fan of real-time item management? No... but I think it kinda works in this game's favor in order to make things even more frantic and dire, since losing a playable character is a very real possibility.

  The game lasts a solid 5-6 hours, and upon completion you unlock a new game+ with bonus weapons and alternate costumes for the characters that survived your first playthrough. Obscure was wonderful, I loved every minute of it. Sure, it's not as deep as Silent Hill, or as tight as Resident Evil, but it offers a neat twist on the formula with the 'anyone-can-die' mechanic, in addition to how well they pulled off the Highschool setting and the whole 90s campy horror flick vibe. Obscure is every bit worth tracking before its price goes even higher.
 8.5 out of 10