One of the best psychological horrors of 2020?
Visage is a first-person psychological horror game that came out on October 30, 2020, although the first two chapters of the game were out for a while (so you might have heard about this game before).
In Visage, you have to explore a house and its horrible past, noting all the details and minor changes, at the same time trying to stay away from evil entities, of course, thus becoming a professional at running and dual-wielding lighters!
Storyline
As a player, we have to relive and reveal the path of the house and its inhabitants. There are 3 chapters dedicated to different people along with the unconventional 4th chapter which could only be explored through watching VHS tapes that are hidden all over the house.
After an especially vivid opening cutscene, lots of questions arise. Why does the main character go through that? Who are all these other people? Well, the game lets you figure this out on your own through details and surreal imaging (and through letting you make holes in the walls and the floor along the way).
Gameplay
In Visage, it’s hard to manage the resources and keep your defenseless character sane and well. There is no way to fight, no way to hide, and even running sometimes doesn’t help. The best you can do is to keep the house lit up and efficiently use the items you have.
Positives
- The game is very scary! This is a nice horror game that builds the tension slowly and keeps it up to the end. Some horror games make it scary to progress as the deeper you go, the worse it gets. However, this is not the case for Visage as the more you stay and delay the moment of starting a new chapter or unraveling mysteries, the more dangerous and active the house gets while, at the same time, you slowly run out of lighters and sanity pills. The only way to stay safe is to progress and face all the scares and spooks that await!
- The chapters are very different and unique. They cover people from different families who were unlucky enough to live in the house. Each chapter takes place inside of the house, changing it in different ways – sometimes even changing its layout. Yet, and at the same time, each chapter introduces new unique locations. The game stays original through all the experience and finds new ways to surprise and terrify you.
- Resource management is pretty neat. It’s an amusingly entertaining part of the game to manage your lighters, set up candles, repair lightbulbs, and use sanity pills. The resources are scarce so it’s important to learn to use them properly. And don’t worry, this amusing part of the game will eventually become tense and terrifying when you will almost run out of everything.
- The game focuses on exploration which makes you want to replay some chapters to find all the secrets and learn more about the story. The game is not a run-as-fast-as-you-can-through-everything experience. It is an adventure that holds more secrets than you’d originally expect.
Also, there are loads of pretty cool references and easter eggs here and there which brings a bit of humor to the game, and, personally, I loved it!
Negatives
- As good as the game design is, sometimes you can’t help but get confused running around huge maps for half an hour, not knowing what to do next and how to proceed. The game has lots, even tons of hints. It makes you follow the light, has sound cues, monsters, and chase scenes – everything to keep you on track. Still, I can guarantee that you will be lost at least once in each chapter and end up spending lots of time being small brained and not seeing the obvious answer. (Hint: Don’t start the game with Dolores’ chapter as it requires better knowledge of the layout of the house.)
- The inventory is very hard to get used to. You have pockets and two hands with items you can use as well as random objects you accidentally picked up. Well, be prepared to stand for minutes at one place just figuring out how to get what you wanted to get from your inventory and ending up accidentally using your sanity pills for no reason at all.
- It’s not always obvious what counts as being in the dark. So, be ready that when you’re busy figuring out your inventory, you were actually not standing directly under a lightbulb but a little bit away and your character was getting slowly insane. You might be tempted to think that’s not a problem since we have sanity pills, but, oh wait, we accidentally consumed them instead of using the lighter before. So, say hello to dark entities.
Summary
The game is marvelous despite frustrating moments that occasionally occur. I rate it 9 dark entities out of 10! If you are looking for a good, scary horror game that poses a challenge – this is the game for you!
If, upon reading the last sentence, you felt that you are probably not ready for the challenge, don’t worry. It’s bearable and beatable, the game hasn’t reached Dark Souls-level of challenge yet.
So, don’t hesitate, check out the game and enjoy approximately 10 hours of scary adventure!
Links
Get Visage on Steam
Chat with MGN on Discord ➜ https://discord.gg/mbJtKqB
Do you like scary games? Check out our Top 5 scariest Halloween games, you won’t be disappointed!