REVEIL started off promising. A mind-bending story about a dark past? Sign me up! But the deeper I went into Walter Thompson’s messed-up head, the more I felt like I’d seen it all before. Don’t get me wrong, the game looks great, with some seriously spooky scenes. But leaning too hard on horror clichés and a predictable plot left me wanting something more original.
The story follows Walter, who wakes up to an empty house – his wife and daughter are gone. Confused and scared, he ends up in a messed-up circus world, like a nightmare version of his past. It’s typical psychological horror stuff – memory loss, weird dreams, the whole kit and kaboodle. While I’ve enjoyed games like Layers of Fear, Reveil felt like a copycat. The constant stream of horror clichés, like amnesia and creepy places, got old fast.
The voice acting didn’t do the story any favors. Walter talks way too much, explaining everything instead of letting you figure things out on your own. It felt like the actor was just reading the lines, not really feeling the emotions of the scene. This made it hard to get scared or care about what was happening.
The gameplay itself is a bit of a mixed bag. The parts that take place in houses were genuinely creepy, reminding me of those super scary PT and Visage games. But then you get thrown into these weird, dream-like places that are way more boring and just feel like you’re going in a straight line. The puzzles were mostly just finding stuff and using it somewhere else – not exactly mind-blowing. And the jump scares and chase scenes? Totally predictable, failing to surprise someone who’s played a lot of horror games.
Thankfully, the graphics are a bright spot. The detail is amazing, making every place you go look super real. The lighting, both inside and outside, is fantastic and really helps suck you into the world. The game ran pretty smoothly too, with just a few stutters here and there. But hey, Reveil isn’t exactly a game where you need super fast graphics to have fun.
Here’s the kicker: Reveil is short. I beat it in about five hours, even with checking out every corner for those collectible things. If you just want to follow the story, you could probably finish it even faster. The problem is, the story itself – the most important part of the game – is weighed down by all the overused horror stuff and the fact that you don’t get to make any real choices. The multiple endings, which depend on one choice you make at the very end, don’t make you want to play the game again. Honestly, I don’t get why they even bothered with multiple short endings when the whole game is so linear. Why give you a choice at the very last minute if you couldn’t make any choices throughout the entire game?
REVEIL: Reveil is a decent horror game. It has some genuinely creepy moments and the graphics are awesome, but the tired story and predictable gameplay hold it back. If you're new to horror games, Reveil might be a good introduction. But for horror veterans, Reveil feels like a rehash of things we've seen a million times before. – Tom Henry
