![]() Sometimes, it’s as simple as hitting a lever so that a drawbridge shifts to a perpendicular angle letting Lloyd walk up to it and onto the ceiling. Throughout each chapter is a smattering of levers that shift the camera’s perspective or change the layout of a room. The trial and error puzzle-solving nature of games like Limbo and Inside are here, yet there are not quite as many brutal fail states. It would be easy to undercut that mystery if the gameplay wasn't up to snuff, but thankfully Darq's mechanics are pretty clever. While the ambiguity of Darq's story might not appeal to everyone, I loved thinking about and speculating on the meaning behind each chapter. All I can say for sure is Darq's narrative is cryptic without delving into pretension, and I relished taking it all in for my own interpretation. Maybe Lloyd is asleep in a hospital? Who knows. ![]() An intensive care unit (ICU) can be heard beeping away periodically in the background, while several enemies are wheelchair-bound and sickly. For example, while analyzing the set-dressing on one level, I noticed there was a recurring motif of physical illness. ![]() While that ambiguity might not appeal to everyone, I loved internalizing each chapter processing and speculating on the meaning behind them. Most of my enjoyment of the story came from theorizing with others about what it all meant, the kind of mystery that fuels a good water cooler chat. The story is intentionally opaque to replicate that "fuzzy details" feeling when you try to recall a dream from memory - more thoughts and feelings, less plot and exposition - which works in its favor. He's at the mercy of his unconscious mind, desperate to wake up - but I only know even those few details from perusing Darq's official website. There's no initial title screen, even instead, a decaying apartment with a boy quivering at the center. But its somber monochromatic visuals and puzzles that bend the laws of physics were too alluring of a sirensong, and I’m glad they pulled me to play it because, even at its most bleak, Darq is beautiful.ĭarq fixates on submerging you in a dreamscape and doesn't elaborate much in the way of a backstory. My brain already loves to put me through the wringer with restless dreams, so I was worried that Darq’s subject matter might be too much for me. It’s challenge is satisfactory, but it’s not going to stump puzzle fans for too long, and with only an unsettling atmosphere, some strangely menacing (if not a little ‘garden variety’) enemies, and an art style that is unmistakable in its influences, it’s not going to spook seasoned horror heads either.I'm a coward when it comes to nightmares, so Darq’s premise of a psychological horror game set in a lucid dream was enough to make me uncomfortably squirm in my chair on its own. Still, the biggest problem with Darq: Complete Edition isn’t technical, mechanical or artistic. Alas, not even the PlayStation 5 could stop some serious frame rate issues towards the back half of the game though, which is seriously disappointing. Playing on a PlayStation 5 also means getting into the game is incredibly quick too, with blink and you’ll miss them loading screens only appearing on start up. They also help to mask one of its biggest weaknesses: Both levels adding an extra hour or so of content onto what is otherwise a pretty slim package, with the core game taking me around two hours to beat. Originally released as downloadable add-ons, they play far more to the game’s biggest strength. The puzzles are at the core of both of these levels, with the game’s grim set dressing reduced to just that. Both ‘The Tower’ and ‘The Crypt’ offer the most intense challenges of the game. The question of whether Darq wants to be a horror game with puzzles, or a puzzle game with a horror theme is answered in its additional chapters. The game’s various enemies all have that slight ‘box of broken toys’ look about them: lamps for heads, bags on heads, tubas for heads - there’s a lot of missing heads - all serving the twisted, mechanical and ominous dioramas that developer Unfold Games has set its game in. ![]() However, it quickly starts to feel a little wrote. All elongated limbs and cranial distention, the art style evokes a very familiar feeling one that’s likely to stand it in good stead initially. Muddling in the macabre and basking in all things Burton, each chapter of Darq is a living nightmare from which the main character, Lloyd, must escape. Now what if your only means of escape was to solve a series of puzzles? This is the situation that we’re faced with in Darq: Complete Edition. Perhaps you’re running down an endless hallway, being chased by a shadowy being, or simply unable to escape the clutches of the last videogame you reviewed poorly - that one might just be for me. We’ve all had a vivid nightmare that we could have sworn was real. ![]()
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