Hey everyone!
Who What Now, Gaming interviewed me as a guest!! I'm so excited to have been interviewed by Josh. It went really well and hopefully I'll be a guest another time in the future. You can definitely hear how nervous I was, but it was so fun. He's a wonderful interviewer!
We talked about all sorts of great topics and vibed so well.
If you watch it on YouTube or listen to it anywhere podcasts are available, I hope you enjoy!
This game was wild. I really enjoyed it so much. I finally played the full game all the way through in December of 2023 after playing the prologue like 2 years ago. I have so many regrets... about not playing it sooner! The permadeath is so intense that while I'm very glad about all 4 difficulty levels available and I know I could have played it easier if I wanted, I was freaking out playing it on its "intended" settings! π±It was awesome!
β₯ Accessibility
While this game doesn't have any warnings when you first open or on the Steam store page where I know they could have used some, let's talk about what it does have.
Good independent volume sliders as always, subtitles of course but also font sizes to pick from, highlighting hotspots, visual cues when listening for those who are HoH/Deaf/have audio processing issues/etc., vibration for important moments that you can turn on (which really helped me notice a couple things I may have missed or died from if I was any later)
β₯ Audience/Difficulty
β Story Mode - "E.T.A. Hoffmann"
β Novice - "M.R. James"
β Intermediate - "The Original Experience" (exactly as it was envisioned by the devs) - "Edgar Allan Poe"
β Seeking a Challenge - Harder Than Harder (absolutely unrelenting) - "H.P. Lovecraft"
β Varied - Customizable/Good selection of Difficulty Options
This game is CHALLENGING. Also, I love that they used authors as the difficulty names as someone who has enjoyed the work of all four of them so I understand exactly WHY they used these four for these levels but I think it's very important that you can cover over all of them to see all the details of what you're signing up for. All difficulties have permadeath other than the "Just the story, please" of E.T.A. Hoffmann. You do have to unlock Lovecraft difficulty by beating the game on one of the difficulties with permadeath. But I think playing it on Edgar Allan Poe gave me a really great view of what the developers saw when they envisioned this project even though I felt no obligation to not switch to James or even potentially Hoffmann when all my characters were starting to get picked off haha.
β₯ Bugs
β No bugs encountered
Bestieeesss, when I tell you that this game was flawless. It was fantastic.
β₯ Graphics (Accounting for different art styles)
β An actual masterpiece
The art is horrific and stunning, beautiful, warm, terrifying, detailed, subtle when needed, it was a lovely movie I played haha.
β₯ Gameplay
β Brutal
β Fun
β Action Packed
β Challenging
Even the slower moments felt tense and dripped with anticipation as you'd wait with bated breathe to see what might lurk around any corner, behind every door, inside any object, or even in the floors and walls themselves. The sound design married with the graphics, and the way the game play worked was devasting in a way that will haunt me until I play it again. It was very reminiscent of many older horror games it pays an homage to from chapter to chapter, but it felt so fresh anyway. It was like playing an old fixed camera view horror classic like the early Resident Evils or Silent Hills, or Fatal Frame. It took me back 20 years to being a scared youth in front of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (sans the 4th Wall being Kool-Aid Man'd constantly haha.) I want something to make me feel this way again.
β₯ Game time / Length
β Average (10 - 25 hours [if you focus on the main story])
β Long (25-40 hours [if you complete everything])
It took me about 27 hours, but I could see it taking way less time if people were more driven to just plow through it - especially if you aren't also streaming and dealing with distractions.
β₯ Music
β Other
There isn't really.... music? There's amazing sound design but you're never really in a place to hear music except for the music box at the heart of the story and related music you hear in key plot moments I won't spoil. But the music box's song is haunting (in a way I like.)
β₯ Price / Quality $
β Worth full price
No notes. Just was worth it.
β₯ Story
β Story-Rich
β Masterpiece
β Great balance of story and other gameplay
It is an incredibly story rich game that has little lore drops between all the big lore moments, massive cutscenes and sequences, but it is so far from a walking simulator. When the action is there - OH BOY IS IT THERE.
Over all, I think if you like games that are more of the defensive style of horror with a fixed camera and limited ways to protect yourself... if you like the idea of permadeath being on the table but the ability to just consume the story with reduced danger... if you want to see how so many lives can be impacted by even one person's mistakes... play it
This game is awesome, I definitely can tell it's made to be a huge time sink for anyone competitive but can be a vibey game for anyone. I can't wait to play the rest of Adamvision Studios' games if they are like this. Wild. I may need it on every platform so I can have it on the go with me. π₯Ί
Simple, fun, easy, largely accessible except or the flashing!! Cannot recommend enough which is so weird for a 1 button game. Please be aware it's a LOT of flashing though.
I truly love Phasmophobia and believe it is worth your time to play it.
If you read nothing else in this review, know that I could not recommend this game enough - especially for its price.
Phasmophobia is a fun, interesting, very atmospheric game made by people who love and appreciate old school horror. It is balanced really nicely for both solo and co-op play with up to 3 addition friends right now. It is balanced really well for both PC/consoles and VR play, I truly enjoy both PC+VR and they really do quality maintenance on the VR updates rolling out frequently so it doesn't get left behind. It's not the most action packed of all the co-op horror games, but I think it has some of the most satisfying investigation.
The lead developer who solely was working on this game until June 2021, then with a hired senior developer and lead artist to help put everything together they have not just said but done things I've always found really promising. Dknighter (lead developer and creator of Phasmophobia) has always been super transparent with how the game is coming together, what at least the major plans for the future are, and what is currently being worked on but was limited without help. After that second developer started helping this dream come together and an artist making custom graphics, they have been cranking out new content like wild fire spreading. It's incredible. They've expanded the team even further since then and it's only been becoming more cohesive.Β
Improving the models in the game while adding new ones, adding new ghost types to get it where they want it to be, adding a couple new maps in the year it's been out as of September 2020. Holiday and special occasion updates. But also, I am loving that they are making each ghost model unique and have its own personality. I love that Kinetic Games is made up of a team dedicated to classic, old school horror vibes and making the game more tense and interesting, with a deserve to never resort to cheap jump scares for the majority of the horror. A huge win for players like me who want a creepy atmosphere and building tension between scares.
They've been doing great things with accessibility features and seem to always be planning more to make the game accessible to more players.
They are doing near constant minor fixes with pretty frequent high quality major content releases and updates to keep things fresh.
They do really well at paying attention to their community and listening to player feedback.
They are really dedicated to the fascinating investigation side of the game and being forced to interact with the horrible supernatural being trying to murder you rather than you just either getting to blast it away or having to hide from it, which is a really refreshing change from a lot of horror from the last few years especially.
I feel like Phasmophobia breathed new life, ironically, into horror and co-op but especially horror co-op games as soon as it hit the market. It's incredible and inspirational.
If you want to play Ghostbusters and just blast your way through, this game isn't for you. But if you want the creepy, building tension and pleasing terror as you try to investigate and make it out alive. This game is for you.
I have always told my friends and my community that this game is more for Fatal Frame horror style fans. Creeping around, trying not to die, but investigatory and forced to interact with a few ways to play defense when the time is right. That stealth, stay alive, can't fight back, psychological horror that i want with my investigating.
Β
Though it is very fun and easy to make silly with the right friends if you are into that too. Never underestimate the value of threatening the ghost or talking smack if you are feeling both silly and stuck.
Update from 2025: Still love it, still think it's a blast if you're looking for this type of thing
