The Hotel

The Hotel is a fixed-camera third-person Survival Horror game that takes heavy inspiration from PS1/PS2-era Resident Evil, developed primarily by a solo developer. Though the game wears a lot of its inspiration on its sleeve in style and gameplay, there are quite a few differences in tone and atmosphere, for better or for worse. There's definitely some of the jank you may expect from a solo dev project throughout the game, but overall, for what it is, The Hotel is a decent iteration on the recent trend of classic Survival Horror revival, even if I have my qualms with it.

I'd say judging it in the context of its development, the game looks pretty good. It's got some shoddier assets here and there, but it actually looks quite good for a small project with an evocative art style that doesn't always work for me, but does at least pop. The character models look a little too cartoony, which takes away some from its grim setting, but the environments are well-done with an effective use of lighting effects and a somewhat realistic hotel layout that manages to feature a much more intriguing map layout than a lot iterations I've seen that are just corridors full of copy/paste rooms. The music is a bit weak with the game mostly being quiet until you take damage when it starts very loudly playing "tense" music. This was so sudden and clashing though that I found it more annoying than additive.

The story was fairly cringey. That's obviously an especially subjective impression and considering the game's inspiration, may seem a little harsh. However, while Resident Evil can be silly and cheesy, it has a certain charm. The Hotel feels much more at times like a story written by an edgy tween with characters who seem like I am supposed to think them very "cool" and villains dropping over-the-top dialogue throughout that feels like it's trying way too hard. The multiple times the villain randomly said she was going to treat the main female character "like the whore she is" (whatever that means) were pretty grating. Further, though our main characters are supposed to just be normal people as far as I can tell, there are multiple over-the-top bad-ass action sequence cutscenes with things like the whole wall-running backflip maneuver that just don't make much sense considering we're playing as "some guy" who picked the wrong creepy remote hotel for his vacation getaway. This also happens to be a pet peeve of mine in horror games with everyday protagonists who are instantly bad-ass with little justification, so that didn't help.

Thankfully, though a couple cutscenes early on were a bit long, the bulk of the game is concerned more with the traditional haunted house traversal than its story. You'll be hunting for keys and key items to unlock this or that door or passageway, scrounging up ammo and supplies and choosing combat wisely to avoid over-extending your resources. The game pulls this off generally pretty effectively. I found the puzzles in a good spot as a little challenging, but not so bullshit I got frustrated or stuck a bunch. While it's not one of the best iterations of this gameplay style, it's pretty effective and scratches the itch if you enjoy this structure as much as I do. I found the difficulty "okay" just playing on the standard setting. I felt like I had just a touch more ammo than I needed, suggesting that the harder modes might actually be quite difficult, especially as I found that dodging enemies was more difficult than in a lot of these kinds of games. The biggest issue on gameplay is that the controls are pretty jank and take getting used to. I didn't feel like plugging in a controller at the time for whatever reason, but if it has controller support I'd probably go with that. Despite the many keyboard layouts available, I found most of them surprisingly awkward considering this is not the only modern game of this style, though I got used to it well enough.

All in all, this is far from an amazing game, but if you enjoy this kind of game, it's worth a try as you'll probably get something out of it. Just don't set your expectations too high. It reminds me a lot of Them & Us, but much smaller scale and not as good in most regards, so if you enjoyed that and just wanted a bit more, The Hotel may hit the spot. For the kind of middling 4.5 hour game it is, the $20 price point is a little steep if you don't catch it on sale, but I will also grant that I have only played through Alex's game (which unlocks Julie's playthrough, though I'm not sure how different that is) and there are some extra game modes and difficulties. The fact I'm not really sure I liked it enough to return for the other campaign however may indicate my lack of significant enthusiasm beyond the basic experience.