Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel

Well, it had to happen sometime, but Fobia: St Dinfna Hotel is the first survival horror throwback I cannot recommend even to people like me who cannot get enough of them. Despite a slightly interesting setting in the hotel, with its vertical level design, and some great scares both big and small despite the low budget, it misses the mark in just about every other way. The gameplay loop is Code Veronica on steroids, often giving you a key to a puzzle at the other end of the hotel that will, itself, give you a key to a puzzle or door at the area you just visited. Combined with easy enemies, too many resources, and level design that changes routes as the game goes on but has linear pathways, it makes for a slog of game design, totally missing what makes these games interesting. The story also leaves much to be desired, with a cool if cliched set-up, but diary entries far too lop-sided in their content to make sense, and an ending that tries for a recontextualising twist that just makes the plot fall apart, as what some character backgrounds and motivations should be explained are never even implied. Signalis this is not.

And while the puzzles are okay half the time, they're generally still pretty mid. There are way too many modular keys, safes and codepads, and the more inspired puzzles just made me feel stupid. While it shares Tormented Souls' focus on tactile environmental interaction, especially through its camera, it lacks the extra dimension and abstract thinking of that game's puzzles, mostly opting to obfuscate otherwise simple and predictable puzzle forms. And while I won't knock it too much for being an indie game (and another from Latin America, at that!), the basic Unreal lighting and shaders, poor framerate and general bugginess do hinder the presentation of a game that has little else going for it.

That said, the voice acting is "amazing", some of the best bad voiceover in years, especially on the part of our main character, whose inflections are so consistently incorrect he's either sarcastic or flirting half the time. Also while Fobia dips into its boring underground lab for its final act, I will concede it did feel better and more consistent to play than even some Resident Evils in this regard. There are a few good moments, but most of the game is a slog that embodies the worst elements of survival horror in a way that misunderstands what can make the genre truly great.