yea, so Amnesia is off the docket. I have no clue how that game got SO popular, but holy fuckles, it is a clunky, ableist, and micromanaging mess.

I legitimately spent more of my time being annoyed that I would get 'spooped' in game and my sanity would take a hit for FUCKING ANYTHING than actually be scared. I did jump a few times, don't get me wrong.

But like.....holy shit the story is SUPER predictable, literally the classic old 'we dug up some shit we shouldn't have, but immortality, I guess' trope, and I literally realized mid gameplay that I would be penalized for playing the game AS INTENDED.

Nah. I'm good.

I'm disappointed because I promised the community I would play it as an incentive from St. Jude Play Live streams, but I didn't realize it was going to be 'Be Scared Because You Don't Have Oil, The Game' and I'm frankly super disappointed.

now might be a good time as well to point out how the only well you can tell where your 'sanity' is is by jumping into your menu. There is no on screen indicator of your current state OR that you just lost/gained some back.

so you literally spend most of your time traveling, hearing something, stopping, opening your menu, check that your sanity is fine, ok it is, resume traveling, wait was that something, opening your menu and 'ah fuck, I lost some sanity!'

it was just....not fun.

Re: "its a product of its time" responses (of which I've seen many)--

I have contention with this because 8 years prior Eternal Darkness did the whole spooky Your-Ancestors-Are-Shitheels thing and it wasn't nearly this off kilter.

I could clearly see what was causing my sanity to drain, it was logical why it was draining, and the story was at least interesting and spanned several time periods. I could also clearly regain sanity, said fixes were accessible, and I could at least defend myself lightly.

My level of 'sanity' also actually did contribute to how the game played.

If I was at full meter, I didn't make hallucinations, roaches and slugs didn't randomly appear, I didn't have high level jump scares just occur. The game acknowledged that I was in good shape.

So it just kind of feels like this weird take to be like 'it was the first of its kind' when, as @jeffbrutlag pointed out in thread, the only real difference it provides is that
-you're weaponless
-you're stripped of tools
-you will guaranteed lose sanity by default

And I kind of feel like playing a game where the devs just actively stack everything against you and say "this is horror" doesn't make it horror so much as it does an involuntary intro to speedrunning. You get punished for exploring.

But you need to explore to find tools/items.

Eternal Darkness came out the same year as original RE 2. Where it was 100% survival horror and you had agency and stock in the characters, and you were fearful not because you had nothing, but because you COULD defend yourself and ran out of things.

And you knew better.

So I don't really think it even deserves credit for being "the first of its kind" because it really just....puts you in shitty positioning/mechanics out the gate and keeps you there.

That's it.
That's the entire game.