I waited for a while to get a review for Shipwrecked 64 done: I was on the fence, I didn't know what to make of it until the last version released in full.

It's an experience. If you have any intention of playing it, don't read more than this phrase: it does the 'found lost media horror' genre justice and it does it fully.

For anyone else who just wants to hear me prattle about ARGs and my inane passion for them, keep reading.

Shipwrecked 64 is one of those 'Found Lost Media' horror games, kind of like the old rom hacks of 'spooky Lavender Town' in Pokémon and others alike but it coasts along the lines of an actual experience that can close-line the likes of Petscop, Valleverde 64 or Crow 64 and I say this fully enjoying of the two experiences in their own different uniqueness.

The premise is as simple as it can be: team found an old game that made it to shelves for a week, rebuilt it using documents found on the developer's old website and their own engine. You can play the game rebuilt by them as the developers intended. No "cursed media". As a matter of fact, the game menu gives you two choices but we won't go there yet.

Your play as Bucky Beaver, the main star of the cast of Broadside Animation, a friendly beaver with a sailor suit.

The game is a simple 'chore game' with three endings: leave everyone to die, save your friends or save everyone. During the entire game, you'll find your friends got stranded on an island with an active volcano and they were the cause of distress for the local tribe of wolves living on the island: their chief tells you that you can free them as long as they finish their mansions.

You have a whole day to do so, until midnight, before the volcano inevitably erupts and brings everyone with it. Your friends are scattered around the island, each doing odd jobs for the tribe: Olive Otter, a friendly otter in a swimsuit, is collecting coconuts. Giovanni Goose, a grumpy Canadian Goose in a sailor suit, is cooking food for the wolves. Walter Walrus, a shy and kind walrus in an Hawaiian shirt and sailing cap, tells you that he does have a boat but that he managed to get it stuck in the dam canal.

Helping all of your friends nets you with the standard end, sailing away while leaving the wolved to perish. Of course, exploring rewards you with a way to meet two new castmembers, Stumbler O'Hare, a friendly rabbit missing his arms but with a passion for painting, and J.D. - a non-distinct blue rodent-like creature - who informs you of the existence of a barge big enough for everyone to sail on.

Following J.D.'s instructions and solving a simple platform game, you get the barge and you sail away with everyone... but not J.D. himself.

The last ending is the one you want to achieve as it will unlock the original version of the N64 game that hit the shelves.

To avoid spoiling everything: the other game is a series of puzzles (actually really hard/sometimes annoying ones), codes and gameplay that will bring you to the real reason as to why this game was pulled from the shelves and no, it isn't because it's haunted.

It's because it was used and published to expose Broadside Animation and their deeds, all hidden beneath layers of gameplay that people would be engaged by long enough to keep it the stores before the company found out the truth. None of the haunted 'if you have this tape, you'll die'. It's a simple "this game is lost media because the company didn't want their awful deeds and cover-ups to be known (and because Connor is a bit of a twat). That's why, in my opinion, this game lands itself somewhere in the realm of feasibly realistic and probably why the game scares me as much as it does.

It's a story of struggles, anger, of heavy themes such as grief, loss and with themes of suicide sprinkled on top of it as you reach the end. Murders, experiments, all manners of vile things buried beneath a shell of a cutesy game for N64.

Fair warning: there's gore and blood and some of the puzzles are obnoxiously hard and will probably drive you to be fed up with them. NightMind has published a complete walkthrough you can follow in order to make your life easy and not struggle aimlessly so, if you don't want to be like me and just pop a vessel after the nth jumpscare, check his video out.

Jumpscares have a purpose and most of them (besides Layer 2's gameplay) serve to drive a plot forward or give information about the mascots and, well, whatever is up with them (metaphorically, of course). It's been a while, but some of the contents of this game legit did not make me sleep at night without a video to keep me company (and I play horror games a lot) - so be warned?