Spooky mansion? Check. Army of shadowy bugs? Check. Take back your family’s manor with your trusty flashlight in Eyes in the Dark: The Curious Case of one Victoria Bloom.
Eyes in the Dark
Developer: Under the Stairs
Price: $14.99
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with a PC code for review
Eyes in the Dark puts you in the role of Victoria Bloom, a young girl visiting her grandfather, Victor Bloom, only to find his manor overrun with creatures and him kidnapped. Your goal is pretty straightforward from there in that you have to explore the manor to save him and defeat all the shadowy creatures infesting the place. It’s got a really cute, Victorian era style to it and honestly feels like a really good entry point to the roguelike genre. It’s not super difficult and is accessible enough to recommend to someone new to the genre or as a casual game to play in bursts.
Being a roguelike, you already know what to expect for the most part coming into this game. Eyes in the Dark takes cues from peers like Rogue Legacy or Dead Cells in that the core loop involves you traversing the manor, getting as far as possible before your (inevitable) death, and then using the currency you gained to unlock powerful new upgrades to help make your next run even more successful. It’s a loop that, for the most part, works pretty well even if I feel like it takes a bit for it to get going.
Victoria is armed with a simple flashlight and slingshot, as both items shoot beams of light which is the only thing that can harm the shadowy creatures infesting your family’s manor. The game balances a slight horror angle to things where rooms are usually shrouded in darkness so you can see that an enemy is in the shadows, but you can’t tell what kind it might be so you can’t just go flashlight blazing into the darkness. Combat itself feels incredibly tight, albeit with some questionable controller layouts I’d recommend fidgeting with. But besides that it just straight up feels good to play. My only gripe with the combat is I wish it were a bit harder; it definitely starts ramping up the challenge the further you progress in a run but it mostly feels like a cakewalk until you get there. Bosses in particular are probably some of the most predictable, and uninspired ones I’ve seen in the genre in a while. The moment you see one you basically know how it’s going to behave and I usually found myself having more trouble with just regular monster rooms than I ever did with a boss. This isn’t a breaking point for the game obviously, as it’s still fun to play, but the genre is known for soliciting feelings of dread as you get closer to a boss room and I never really encountered that here which is disappointing.
Something I love in the genre is when a game lets you make some kooky weapon combos, and while I do wish Eyes in the Dark went a bit looser with freely letting you combine whatever, I still found myself giddily making some dumb combinations. At one point I turned my flashlight, essentially, into a shotgun with some impressive range and additional burn and chain lightning effects stacked on top of it. Add my slingshot that I had tricked out to recharge as fast as possible on top of that and I was clearing rooms in seconds. I really love it when a roguelike lets you experiment with the game’s items and actually rewards you for it if you find a particularly busted combo. You can find other similarly fun variations to your flashlight like having it shine light in both directions, or turning it into the equivalent of a machine gun.
When traversing between zones of the manor, you’ll be given the choice of selecting one of three random perks to buff you up, at the cost of incurring a negative perk as well. The buffs can range from things like leaving a puff of light every time you dodge, to being invulnerable to spikes. Negative perks take the form of things like taking extra damage or losing out on a perk choice in the next zone you encounter. It’s a really interesting system that actively makes you stronger, and more vulnerable as the game goes on.
My only issue with it goes back to my earlier comment of the game taking a while to ramp up. Using the currency you gain from finishing manor runs, you can use that to add additional perks to the pool available to you. This is fine; the issue stems from the fact that unless you forsake the other two upgrade categories and focus entirely on perks, you’re going to be seeing the same perks a LOT. Many times I’d enter a new zone, be given my three perks to choose from and all them would be the same. Early in the game it feels less like you’re making logical choices on what perks to choose depending on your current run, and more like you’re forced into a choice until you start buying new perks.
The Final Word
Eyes in the Dark doesn’t shake up the genre, but it doesn’t need to. It’s a really fun, casual roguelike to jump into for a few quick runs with a really cute artstyle and nifty gameplay gimmicks.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
