Fobia: St. Dinfna Hotel (2022)

Fobia on paper is my kinda game, a survival horror lite with a heavy emphasis on puzzles. But I don’t know if it’s just the method I play these games, but I found it to be a huge slog to play through.

95% of the gameplay is exploring rooms, trying to find items and clues to solve puzzles. But the huge glaring flaw in this game’s design is the amount of visual noise.

If you are someone that plays carefully, not wanting to miss any optional secrets, you are going to spend SO much time just carefully scanning every little pixel in this way over-detailed environment. Not to mention you would have to do this TWICE given the game’s alternate reality mechanic.

At first I liked how much content this possibly would offer, assuming I was having fun. But wow it’s just so freaking tedious that it killed all enjoyment for me. What’s great about survival horror, especially its low-poly roots, is how easy it is to notice things/puzzles/clues and make connections. Then you get to enjoy the best part of puzzle solving - solving them!

Here, I rarely felt the satisfaction of solving anything because I was just hunched over analyzing every little detail. You get my point.

Otherwise, the game is ok. There is no map, and the environments are extremely maze-like, which also frustrated me. The enemy design is mid, the combat is pretty bad, but I guess… it looks like a AAA game?

Just not for me.

Overall, this wasn't a great experience. I like some of what they're doing with the camera and different versions of the same world, but it's been done before.

My biggest gripe is that it takes about ten seconds to walk across a room, and that's just way to slow to get anywhere.

I know I can "sprint", but that sprint felt like a normal walk speed.

HowLongToBeat says 11 hours, and that's probably double of what it should be....but you're so slow it takes that long.

~David.

St. Dinfna Hotel is a first person puzzle solving survival horror game that brings classic horror elements to a well built graphically sound world.

Like many old school horror games, you must find items of interest and combine them to solve puzzles throughout all while trying to escape a rapidly deteriorating hotel. On top of puzzles you face various enemies that roam the halls, and on occasion you have to flee from a Pyramid Head type subhumanoid. Not much progression is reliant to enemy combat, with most of its gameplay being associated with its puzzles more than anything.

Using cameras in video games is nothing new and it's a feature used here in quite a different manner. The camera itself acts as a item locator and gives the player alternative routes of passage not seen with the naked eye.

Graphics wise, this is one of the more polished horror games I've ever seen, with loads of attention to detail. Definitely one the best visually impressive releases on the PS5 so far.

If you're a horror fan, St. Dinfna Hotel will surely have something to tickle your fancy.