Echo Night: Beyond (2004)

 

Today, I would like to introduce you to another forgotten title, namely Echo Night: Beyond. The game was developed by FromSoftware in 2004, the same company that later created the "Souls" series. However, Echo Night: Beyond is nothing like their newer productions.

It is the third installment in the trilogy. The first two games appeared on the original Playstation, and... that's all I know about them. If I find the time, I might play them and share my impressions.

Echo Night: Beyond is a hopeless game...

The game focuses heavily on the story. As Richard Osmond, we fly to the moon to marry Claudia Seifer. Unfortunately, the idyllic atmosphere doesn't last long because... our spaceship crashes into the moon base. When we come to our senses, we realize that we are the only survivor of the disaster.

Or maybe not?

Echo Night: Beyond is a first-person adventure game. We explore the destroyed base, collect items, and use them in the right places. It quickly becomes apparent that despite being the only person with a beating heart on the satellite, we are not alone in the base... And to make matters worse, our fiancée has disappeared "somewhere" and we must find her. Alive or dead.

This is not a colorful and friendly game like there were many on the Playstation 2. It's not another Spyro or Crash... Echo Night: Beyond is a game for more mature players. Personally, over a decade ago, I bounced off this title due to the very slow action. In this game, nothing really happens... we just traverse eerily similar corridors and figure out how to push the story forward.

Moreover, at that time, the FPS Black was ruling the console media, so a slow game like Echo Night: Beyond quickly ended up in the corner.

In Echo Night: Beyond, we won't find any weapons, our hero is equipped only with a flashlight and his wits. The game features ubiquitous fog in which "evil" ghosts appear. The only way to defeat them is to clear the room of the fog. A frontal encounter with beings in the fog can cause Richard to have a heart attack and die. There is no continuation in the game, and save points are unevenly scattered, so we will "often and frequently" repeat a few (or a dozen) minutes of gameplay. Unless you play on the PCSX2 emulator and use save states.

While wandering around the location, we will also browse through hundreds of logs to find out what actually happened on the space station.

I don't want to spoil it, but this game has as many as 4 endings, and it's garnished with such a plot twist that you'll fall off your chair 😉.

If you are a fan of games like Amnesia or Outlast, then Echo Night: Beyond is a title for you.