The Itch.io Chronicles - Haunted PS1 - Part 2

Welcome back to The Itch.io Chronicles, where today we’ll be taking another dive into the first entry of the Haunted PS1 Demo Disk. I’ll cover another four titles in this piece: Filthbreed, In Somnio, Dread Delusion, and Erasure.

Filthbreed

Filthbreed is first up, and I have to say, this is easily my favourite so far. For such a short title, it manages to pack a real punch and interweaves all the finer parts of horror to create an unforgettable experience. This title follows an unnamed police officer whose prime suspect for a case has been tracked to a mysterious warehouse in Detroit. Upon arrival at the warehouse, things seem off; it’s unreasonably quiet and desolate. After exploring, notes are strewn around, seemingly from victims of kidnappings and possible torture and mutilation. Next to one of these notes is a pistol with a note stating not to aim for the head as “they’ve lived without it for a week”. This is also the first enemy encounter, a humanoid… thing that slowly lumbers towards you, with absolutely disgusting sound effects.

After exploring further, more notes are found, describing what seems to be some sort of doomsday cult, a chapel, and a mysterious book written in a strange foreign language. Next to a passage leading deeper into a room full of giant egg sacks is the body of the man you came here to find, however, there's a nest of bugs festering within his torso. Upon returning to the front door to escape, you’re ambushed once again but manage to leave, leading to one of the game's three endings. Filthbreed was a title that made me insanely uncomfortable; the sound design was masterful, and the general theming of the unknown and some body horror elements tied it all together to be a disconcerting experience, but a worthy one at that.

In Somnio

In Somnio is up next and is described as “a collection of five different experiences attempting to recreate my dreams as games”. To be frank, there’s really not much to say about this one. It’s pretty much exactly what it says in the description: five incredibly short and relatively bizarre experiences with no real link or overarching story. They’re all a little ominous and weird, and the visuals are pleasant, with the PlayStation-style graphics combined with a foggy filter to make the whole game feel much more dreamlike. Beyond this, though, there’s not much going on; it was a neat little experience, but definitely nothing that’s going to stick with me for long.

Erasure

Erasure is probably my least favourite so far: I’m not sure if I just didn’t quite get it or if it was intentionally vague. Exploring a strange and lonely semi-futuristic-looking world, the player character has to investigate and fix bugs within people’s neural interfaces, but there’s seemingly more going on behind the scenes. Fixing these bugs comes in the form of “puzzles”, but I didn’t really quite understand them and just clicked things randomly until something worked. There was no real direction to the gameplay, which was definitely the biggest problem. It most definitely had some interesting visual concepts, and I see the potential within its ideas; however, it really doesn’t suit the shorter form it’s presented in here.

Dread Delusion

Dread Delusion is a brilliant experience that also has a full Steam release now. An explorative RPG set in a very unique and strange land. Sent on a near-impossible journey by the “Clockwork God”, you stumble into a ruined and depressing world, corrupt and lonely. The demo didn’t give me much in terms of the game's combat loop; however, it did seem incredibly simple but functional. The world was where the game shined: visually impeccable and incredibly unique. This demo really shows the potential for the game, but sadly doesn’t show enough for me to really make a great opinion as a whole.

Overall, these were definitely a slightly less entertaining bundle of games in comparison to the last set but were still some unique and interesting experiences to be had here. Next time, I'll be taking a look at Tasty Ramen, heartworm, Dead Heat, and Effigy.