Horror games for the season (and beyond)

[Alienman]

Seems interesting. What emulator are you using?

 

[Puukko]

Seems interesting. What emulator are you using?

I wrestled with this one for a bit but none of them seemed quite perfect. Settled on regular Beetle PSX (so, mednafen) which still has occasional glitchy edges.

 

[Ash]

The season is here again, and I'm playing an excellent appetizer. This could just as well have gone in the JRPG thread, but for the sake of reviving this thread...

Koudelka is a PSX horror JRPG by former Square staff and a prequel to the Shadow Hearts series. It's decidedly less zany than those games which I like, opting for a more grounded Gothic style period piece.

Decent game, but my criticisms are:

-Too short
-Gameplay is alright but could be better
-And indeed, not particularly scary at all. There's many games that combined horror and RPG to greater effect. The first two Parasite Eve games apply here if we're talking PS1 JRPG. Better gameplay too.

Koudelka is still worth checking out though. Way more soul and talent than most trash these days.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Not really a horror game, but more of an unintentional parody of survival horror games, I played and finished Welcome House. It's an adventure game where you play as a man called Keaton who visits his uncle's new mansion, but uh-oh, it's April 1st and his uncle is a big prankster. It's advertised as a polygon cartoon, but the physical gags are few and spaced out too much for a game that took me 4 hours at most. Most of the game's puzzles boiled down to lock and key puzzles, where if you didn't have a key, chances are it was in some room you didn't search hard enough. A few good moments though, and despite not paying much attention at first, the story had a very satisfying conclusion.

I'm also going to play the original PSX version of Resident Evil this year, already been through some of the early game. Funny how this first version really sells how much it's inspired by Alone in the Dark, it practically feels like a modified version of it at times, just throw in better gunplay, worse melee and a much harsher item limit. No autoaim, no fast turning, not even an options menu.

 

[toughasnails]

 

[Arthandas]

Yahtzee's Consuming Shadow has been permanently lowered to 1$ on Steam.

 

[9ted6]

Get past the Goldsrc jank and Cry of Fear's a good free horror game.

Nightmare House and some other Source horrors are decent. Highly recommend Nightmare of Decay too.

 

[schru]

Get past the Goldsrc jank and Cry of Fear's a good free horror game.

Nightmare House and some other Source horrors are decent. Highly recommend Nightmare of Decay too.

Afraid of Monsters, an earlier mod from the author of Cry of Fear, is also good.

 

[Anonymous Ranger]

Has anyone here played Haunting Ground? I've been trying to play it and I think I'm about to drop it because I'm getting sick of getting interrupted by one of the stalkers every time I'm trying to just solve a puzzle or just explore the area. It's not scary its just annoying. My braking point was when they decided to make the stalker invisible so that dumb dog you have can't bite him to slow him down which makes it even harder to get away. For a game some people consider the best of the survival horror games it kind of sucks or maybe it's just me I guess.

 

[Sunri]

Has anyone here played Haunting Ground? I've been trying to play it and I think I'm about to drop it because I'm getting sick of getting interrupted by one of the stalkers every time I'm trying to just solve a puzzle or just explore the area. It's not scary its just annoying. My braking point was when they decided to make the stalker invisible so that dumb dog you have can't bite him to slow him down which makes it even harder to get away. For a game some people consider the best of the survival horror games it kind of sucks or maybe it's just me I guess.

git gud

 

[deama]

Any good recommendations for something like arx fatalis? Something that doesn't really have many jump scares but relies more on the slowness horror aspect, the unknown and the mystery.

 

[9ted6]

Get past the Goldsrc jank and Cry of Fear's a good free horror game.

Nightmare House and some other Source horrors are decent. Highly recommend Nightmare of Decay too.

Afraid of Monsters, an earlier mod from the author of Cry of Fear, is also good.

Definitely recommend it, though it's a lot rougher around the edges than Cry of Fear. No matter how good you are you'll probably need to turn down the difficulty at a few points where you're dropped into the middle of an open map surrounded by dozens of enemies.

 

[Ash]

Any good recommendations for something like arx fatalis? Something that doesn't really have many jump scares but relies more on the slowness horror aspect, the unknown and the mystery.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners for deep nuanced psychological horror, visceral visual horror, first person perspective, highly immersive design.
Ditto for System Shock 2 only less effective visual horror, but better gameplay.
Darkwood is also the same, only top-down perspective. Yet one of the deepest horror games there is (in terms of gameplay and horror).
STALKER is also somewhat in the same vein, but overall horror is a little subdued yet still inarguably present.

These are the closest horror experiences to Arx Fatalis overall, and some of the very best games ever made. Well, maybe exclude Call of Cthulhu from that classification but it is still one of the best horror games for sure.

Basically, just see my post here for the ultimate horror games: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/signalis.132482/post-8724592

I would include Arx Fatalis in this list, it does have strong horror, but it is like half of the theme and tone and not always present. The game is versatile like that, but maybe should be considered a true horror game honestly. When it is actually aiming for that it does so very well.

 

[toughasnails]

deama
Perhaps the first Shadow Tower if you want another dungeon crawler and don't mind the slowness of PSX era From games. As claustrophobic and eerie as Arx, it certainly evokes the sense of mystery, the anxiety before the unknown.

 

[v01]

Has anyone here played Haunting Ground? I've been trying to play it and I think I'm about to drop it because I'm getting sick of getting interrupted by one of the stalkers every time I'm trying to just solve a puzzle or just explore the area. It's not scary its just annoying. My braking point was when they decided to make the stalker invisible so that dumb dog you have can't bite him to slow him down which makes it even harder to get away. For a game some people consider the best of the survival horror games it kind of sucks or maybe it's just me I guess.

Read the last pages of the instruction manual for tips. Also, you may learn some things if you let the game sit on the title screen...

 

[Puukko]

A little something popped up on my YT feed and I decided to give the demo a spin, and now I've got a clear #1 most awaited game:



Horror FPS in a wack ass setting. I recommend going in as blind as possible, maybe skip the detailed Steam description. It takes inspiration from a lot of places. There's maybe 1.5-2 hours of content in the demo and it's a wild ride. It had me on edge all the way through. The audio and visual design here is top notch.

 

[MessiahMan]

Nobody mentioned Harvester yet? Bunch of slack-jawed faggots here!

https://af.gog.com/en/game/harvester?as=1649904300

Try that weird FMV adventure game on for size. Bizarro 1950's land setting with some of the most surreal scenarios I've had the privilege of experiencing in videogame format.



Not to be neglected, a very well-written modern text adventure (not visual novel you dweebs!)...Anchorhhead

https://store.steampowered.com/app/726870/Anchorhead

Written in Lovecraft style, the author nails it. The horrors are indescribable, everything is just that little bit wrong, it's huge, open, and it's got great puzzles.

 

[Yuber]

Short Horror game

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Any good recommendations for something like arx fatalis? Something that doesn't really have many jump scares but relies more on the slowness horror aspect, the unknown and the mystery.

Legacy: Realm of Terror, maybe? It's notable for being one of the few horror-themed dungeon crawlers. It's even a bit of an immersive sim, though it kind of fails in what it does there. You pick one of 8 characters (or make your own) and go through a mansion inspired filled with terrors inspired by the horror greats. Interesting setup, kind of gradually falls down, but does have that mystery aspect down pat.

 

[toughasnails]

 

[Cross]

Veil of Darkness is a pretty cool horror-themed adventure game/RPG hybrid.

https://af.gog.com/en/game/veil_of_darkness?as=1649904300

Instructions here on how to setup the best music/sound, which is a bit trickier than other DOS games:

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Veil_of_Darkness

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Batty Zabella



A 2022-take on a horror game on a Game Boy. Controls are a bit confusing, especially in regards to movement.

You control Batty Zabella, who's trying to save her family from a curse from the afterlife.

$2 minimum charge, but astute players should quickly spot a couple of good reasons to fork over the dough.

 

[adddeed]

Not sure if anyone mentioned it already but i really enjoyed The Thing. Has some cool ideas in it and i like the snowy isolated atmopshere of the game.

 

[deama]

Veil of Darkness is a pretty cool horror-themed adventure game/RPG hybrid.

https://af.gog.com/en/game/veil_of_darkness?as=1649904300

Instructions here on how to setup the best music/sound, which is a bit trickier than other DOS games:

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Veil_of_Darkness

The exodos one is setup from the get go, I checked, allows you to select mt32 and play easy peasy.

 

[Nachy]

Sanitarium's neat, great atmosphere, creative varied environments, good music, engaging plot, and solid horror adventure all around.

https://af.gog.com/en/game/sanitarium?as=1649904300
https://store.steampowered.com/app/284050/Sanitarium/

ScummVM recently added support for the game sometime last year, and it's what the GOG version now uses too. If you can get the original files too just get ScummVM and it works smoothly.