Edit: updated review 2/13/25

Ok so I decided to do a replay of this because the dev had an upcoming survival horror (in a sci-fi setting!), and I really couldn’t remember much about Lamentum. I think I was way too harsh on it in my original review, because despite a couple flaws, it’s one of the best 2d survival horror games around!

It is a true classic survival horror game (minus the fixed cameras and being 2d isometric). So everything you would expect is here - challenging combat, limited resources, puzzles, backtracking, a maze-like map, etc. And honestly, it does everything extremely well.

This is the devs first game ever, and with that in mind it is even more impressive. The combat is great, mostly you will be using melee weapons as gun ammo is extremely scarce. You have to time you attacks and dodges very carefully, and often it’s better to just run away. The enemy designs are a highlight, there’s a good variety and they are creative and truly nail “body horror”. The art in general is really good too, I think that’s what separates this from games like Evil Tonight and Dead of Darkness.

My one big complaint - the optional puzzles. There are a good number of them, and they are extremely missable. There’s things that have no interaction indicator and aren’t marked on the map that you later would need to recall and visit to solve a puzzle. There’s many of these, and once I realized that (as a completionist) it really took the wind out of my sails. I did communicate this issue with the dev, recommending that they just add map indicators so it’s not so confusing - they said this will be fixed in INANIMA, their next game.

But other than that, it’s a pretty flawless survival horror experience. It may just be the best of all the true 2D ones that I’ve played, and I highly recommend it. Updated my score from a 2/5 to a 4/5!

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Old review:

I really loved where it started, the mood and atmosphere. Totally RE/SH vibe but reimagined. But the combat, exploration, pacing, narrative... it all started to fall apart the longer it went. There were certain areas I hated so much (garden, cemetery), where it became way too big and stressful and the combat was super unfair. The ending was very abrupt as well.