Dying:Reborn

Dying:Reborn

Reviewed by: Carless Yen

Platform: Xbox One X

I had read many reviews about this before playing ,as I usually do and I kind of dreaded playing it. Most the reviews made it sound like a really terrible game.The thing is I have to play bad games sometimes, but to me this really wasn't one. As I played it I started to realize they probably used a walkthrough, or just gave up all together and just made up their reviews. A lot of gamers today afraid of a challenge, and don't want to put any effort into a game. Dying: Reborn though is one of those games that really requires effort. Not much as in skill, but more mentally. it is loaded with really mind boggling puzzles. Puzzles that will take you a long time to figure out. If you know the puzzles you can beat it in a hour, but your first play it is going to take far more than that. I'm not saying the game is perfect don't get me wrong it had many of flaws, but had plenty of things I enjoyed as well. I'll share those as this goes along.

You play as Matthew a guy who wakes up in a hotel room, and has no idea how he got there. As soon as the game starts it really has you using your mind to figure out how you got there, and how to escape. Puzzles don't start off easy either, you earn your advancement from the very start. You discover your not along there is a female in the same situation as you, so your trying to rescue her as well. There is also a evil figure there as well, that is controlling everything. Kind of has a Jigsaw film feel to it. There is tons of puzzles that you must figure out, and the games atmosphere is just creepy as hell. I loved this about it. First Person horror games are a favorite of mine. Stuff with a Outlast and SlenderMan feel to them. So I quite enjoyed this, and I really enjoyed the difficulty.

There was a few things i didn't enjoy though. The lead character's voice acting was horrible as well as a lot of his writing for the character. A lot of the time it just seemed kind of corny, where the villain and the female person your trying to rescue really fit right into the story well. The game is really to short though. The only thing that really makes you want to replay it is the fact there is a alternate ending. There are parts you will probably have left over after your playthrough you have to figure out what to do with those, and it won't be easy which I love. I love the difficulty of the puzzles I can't say that enough, but here comes the but. I wish there was just more to the story. I wish there was more scares, and more ways to fail. I would have loved some traps that ended you if you failed, or enemies that you had to run from or hide from. This game could have been so much better than it is, but I still really enjoyed it. I think where it is a VR experience probably is why it isn't more in depth. I think a lot of the virtual Reality games are just gimmick so they come up really short. I feel this could have been a lot more than that because it really is special at times. The atmosphere, the puzzles, sounds really are creepy and awesome I had a blast with this. I really didn't kind of felt let down until I started playing it again knowing everything already. So I really think it is worth a play, especially considering it is on sale. It is really hard to say it's worth the twenty dollar price tag on it without the sale though. Twenty dollars for a game you can beat in under a hour, and doesn't really scream replay value seems a tad much. I do think people who are fans of FPS Horror, and puzzlers will really get a kick out of it. I really think they will if they enjoy difficult puzzles.

Pros: Creepy Atmosphere and sounds

Challenging Puzzles

Really great and original idea

Dusts off the mind. Keeps you thinking

Multiple Endings

Cons: Really short, and lacking of threats

Bad voice acting, and story falls short

A tad over priced

Overall: 7.3 Despite some flaws, Dying Reborn is a creepy and mind boggling FPS Horror puzzler that deserves your attention especially if your a fan of VR.