Lunacy: Saint Rhodes is a first-person survival horror game from developer Stormling Studios and publisher Iceberg Interactive that sends players on a trip to an abandoned — and haunted — town. Here’s our Lunacy: Saint Rhodes review.
You play as George Rhodes, a man who recently learned that he is the sole inheritor of a spooky old mansion. Interested in his newly acquired land, George heads to the town of Saint Rhodes to learn about his family’s past, but it isn’t long before he discovers a sinister presence that has been lying in wait. Long story short, George now has a demon problem.
Our unfortunate friend’s journey begins in the middle of the night, but he didn’t come completely unprepared. Equipped with his journal and flashlight, the new homeowner must use his tools to solve puzzles and rid the town of evil. Although there is not really any traditional combat, you can use a gem to keep enemies at bay. All things considered, George probably regrets his trip to Saint Rhodes, and I wasn’t too happy with my time there either.
In the opening moments, Lunacy: Saint Rhodes’ faults are masked by its respectable presentation. George is a stranger in Saint Rhodes, and so are you. That’s why its semi-open world works; It’s up to you to learn the map and its landmarks, so when the creatures go bump in the night, you know how to outmaneuver them. I’m not ashamed to admit that the Rhodes mansion managed to get some good scares out of me in the first hour thanks to some well-placed creepy noises. Left-behind chicken scratch scattered around the town helped pull the story together, but the deeper I got, the less I cared.
George can’t help but awkwardly speak into the void about what is happening at the moment or what needs to be done next. This man comes across as way too calm in some instances that are begging for him to convey a bit of fear in his voice. Even as George is swarmed by interdimensional blood demons, he sounds like he’s ordering a cup of coffee for a friend on a leisurely Sunday morning.
George’s family is the focal point of the narrative, but they’re nothing special even when they’re stalking you in spirit form. Just when the tension is at its highest, scares are often ruined by the camera, which forcibly moves in the direction of a spooky event, making the moment feel too inorganic to elicit the emotion it deserves.
Lunacy: Saint Rhodes also falls victim to stiff animations, but the rough technical edges do not stop there. My experience was met with a bevy of autosave glitches that broke progression. In one example, the otherwise helpful task list began asking me to address already completed missions. These problems became more severe in one late-game area, as reloading saves would lock me out of doors that I needed to access to move forward. I spent too long reloading saves, retreading segments to fix these issues.
Stealth gameplay brings back some tension as players carefully avoid enemies, but bad AI almost totally pulls the rug out from under these sections. Enemies behave like robots on patrol, and when they spot you, they are only capable of moving straight in your direction even if you outpace them. Some puzzle highlights see you rotating tiles and using your head to grab an out-of-reach chandelier that holds a helpful item. I enjoyed these brain teasers enough, but they are few and far between and do little to reanimate the positive feelings I started with.
At best, Lunacy: Saint Rhodes is the kind of game you pick up on sale and play for around four hours on a foggy Halloween night. Any other day of the year? Your best bet is to let George stay home.
Lunacy: Saint Rhodes is available now for $19.99 on PC.
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