Review Jeslie 4/5 · Dec 23, 2016
When I was playing, I said to a friend: "Every time I think 'this story can't get any more fucked up', Sanitarium says 'hold my beer and watch this'." While that dark appeal began to fizzle out toward the end, the vast majority of this game is unique, remarkable, and, yes, disturbing. It's hard to talk about the story without …
Read moreWhen I was playing, I said to a friend: "Every time I think 'this story can't get any more fucked up', Sanitarium says 'hold my beer and watch this'." While that dark appeal began to fizzle out toward the end, the vast majority of this game is unique, remarkable, and, yes, disturbing. It's hard to talk about the story without running into spoilers, so I'll just say that every time I thought I knew if the protagonist was insane or not, something else would happen to make me question what I thought. Sanitarium is definitely a labor of love.
Aside from the comparatively lackluster final chapters--which are still very good, just not up to the high standards the game established right out of the gate--the controls have some issues that are minor but annoying. If you click on something the character isn't standing right next to, he won't walk over to interact with it---he'll complain he can't reach it, and you'll have to manually position him. (Baldur's Gate veterans should prepare for a nostalgia attack.) Some points require you to click on very small things that can be hard to find on the screen. And while I found puzzles went pretty smoothly once I grasped the mechanics, it was hard to understand the logic behind some of them to start.
Sanitarium's definitely not for everyone. But if you like games like Planescape Torment, I would suggest you look this one up on GOG and see if it appeals.
