Lamentum (Steam) Review

Lamentum, when boiled down, is a survival horror game set in the mid 19th century developed by Obscure Tales and published by Neon Doctrine, a team that is no stranger to amazing indie horror games like Vigil: The Longest Night or Yuppie Psycho.

When Lamentum starts Victor is simply bringing his sick wife to Grav Hill, a mansion owned by an eccentric man known as Edward, a man who with forgotten medicine and black magic says he has a cure for Victor’s wife. 

Victor goes to sleep and then all hell breaks loose. Without spoiling the majority of the story, time and people are not what they seem in Grav Hill. A mansion surrounded by a dark horrific past and the denizens inside ranging from a terrified little girl to a stark mad gardener. While facing these horrors, Victor wakes up covered in blood, his wife missing, and the mansion seemingly overrun by monsters. Not unlike Resident Evil, the player explores the mansion completely, tackling obtuse puzzles, finding keys, and returning to previously locked areas.

This for the most part works in Lamentum’s favor; they give you a scarce amount of ammo, healing items, and saving ink to be constantly fighting for your life. You don't have to kill any monsters or "bosses" as running is always an option but depending on who you kill changes the ending. Coinciding with this, the player will find a few other NPCs requesting certain items. These are all optional and sometimes are precisely clear with what they need but not always. I held items in my inventory the whole game, not knowing what to do with them.

Speaking of items, something that is really bothersome is that if you have used a key or item to the point where you no longer need it, it does not give you the option to drop the item or even tell the player they no longer need it, leading to filling up limited inventory space with useless items. This becomes increasingly frustrating later in the game when Victor needs multiple pieces to solve a puzzle and it becomes more and more of a guessing game when going into new areas and trying to figure out what to bring. This can get pretty annoying as I went into the final area, only to realize that a needed item was not in my inventory and the nearest item box was far away.

As for said puzzles, Lamentum is filled with them and they have a fantastic visual design. Some of them seemed to either be up to trial and error but there’s one late-game puzzle in particular that requires moving statues around a room that took me ten minutes to move them into the right place, and that was after figuring out where they needed to go.

The combat in Lamentum is actually quite harrowing; with it being the 19th-century, guns are clunky and slow to reload, not being able to hold more than one bullet at a time. On the other hand, the melee weapons range from knife to fire poker to ax and then some. They all have varying swing speeds and what seems like critical hit ratio that stuns enemies. The downside of these is that every time Victor takes damage, his animation is canceled. This can lead to some frustrating fights but overall it does a good job of instilling a sense of fight or flight in the player. The aspect of the combat that can be appreciated the most is that each of the monsters has a unique death animation if they kill the player and in quite gruesome detail.

The audio design in Lamentum is amazing, with the sounds all lending themself well to the atmosphere of the game. By the end, I was familiar enough with each monster’s noise that I knew exactly when it was time to turn tail or even take it slow and be calculating with my movements. The weapons all sound good with the guns having this boom to them that makes you feel powerful and when the melee weapons connect there is a satisfying splurt signifying a hit on the enemy.  The most chilling thing is the soundtrack that plays when you are in a safe room. It sounds almost too close to the save room theme from the original Resident Evil but that being said it is incredible and really makes the player feel safe.

Lamentum is like a salad, it is a fantastic idea with delicious bits in it like the combat and general sense of exploration. While not without issues, the game is still fun. Then the plain pieces of lettuce would be the puzzles, they are at the base of the game and the hurdle to jump through to get to the good bits. And the visuals, well personally salads always look good in their own specific way and it’s the same here, Lamentum knew the style it was going for and hits it amazingly.

SCORES

GAMEPLAY - 4/10

VISUALS - 8/10

SOUND - 9/10

CONTROLS - 6/10

REPLAY VALUE - 3/10

OVERALL - 6/10

Lamentum releases on PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Xbox One on August 31st. It was developed by Obscure Tales and published by Neon Doctrine. A review code of Lamentum was provided by the publisher for this review. More information can be found on the official website.

For other fantastic horror games be sure to check out my review of Resident Evil Village or for fun mind-bending games check out Alex’s fantastic review of Neir Replicant.