A Horror Classic Returns: A Dementium: The Ward Review

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

Dementium: The Ward is a first-person horror game that originally released on the Nintendo DS in 2007. It got an updated release late in the 3DS' life in 2015, and is now available on the Nintendo Switch, complete with several quality of life upgrades. While it's not the best-known title from the DS catalog, it was a rare M-rated horror title that still surprises gamers who discover it today. The question is whether this release is worth the wait, if the improvements are enough to justify the re-release, and how it stands up in the modern gaming scene. Hopefully we'll address all those questions, and several others, in our review!

The set-up to Dementium: The Ward is odd. You wake up in a hospital that is seemingly abandoned and you have no memory as to how you got there. Within minutes you find strange, nightmarish creatures roaming the halls, and you also come across some weapons that you have to use to defend yourself from these creatures. Items are scattered about, puzzles block your way, and the entire hospital is covered in blood and debris. Your goal is to find out what's going on, who you are, and why you are here. It's quite the simple set-up, but it works for what it is and the story definitely has some twists up its sleeve. Additional tidbits of the story are revealed to you via journal entries, cutscenes, and environmental clues. You'll meet several characters along the way, some human and some not, and the truth of everything will eventually become revealed. I don't want to go too much further into as it gets into spoiler territory, but let's just say that nothing is ever what it appears to be.

The Cleaver is a UNIT.

You'll need the toilet after a bit of playing.

I originally played the game back on the DS and I remember thinking that it would play like the original Resident Evil or Silent Hill games. Hell, it's said that this game started life as a potential Silent Hill title that never got picked up by Konami. It is a horror title, and you definitely are trying to survive, but it's not really like either of those series. Dementium: The Ward is more properly defined as a first person shooter that has horror elements. That means it's more reminiscent of something like Clive Barker's The Undying or even Doom 3. You pick up items and solve puzzles, but the core gameplay involves combat and shooting an endless horde of enemies. It's also more of a linear adventure, with exploration practically discouraged. See, restorative items and weapon ammo seem plentiful at first, but they don't respawn once you grab them. Know what does respawn though? The enemies. I'm not sure what the triggers are, but areas will refill with enemies if you're away from them for too long. Hopefully you don't take a wrong turn, or forget a clue from a previous room, as you'll find yourself wasting your already limited resources to backtrack. If you die you're sent back to your last save, and those save points are few and far between. The more I think about it, the game really does chart its own course. It takes elements from several genres and throws them into a pile with a sprinkling of Jacob's Ladder-esque horrors. Let's move on to combat though...

There are only about ten enemies in the game, not counting the bosses, with some of them get stronger as the game goes on. You have several weapons at your disposal, but you'll soon realize that you're pretty much forced to use the most powerful ones once you get them since enemies eventually start taking more hits to kill with your older weapons. Combat isn't anything particularly unique, it's first person and you can attack with either a gun or a baton. All this is done from a standard first person view, with aiming being key as some enemies are quite small and headshots can sometimes be more damaging. Small enemies quickly become the bane of your existence, and they're what will probably cause most of your game overs. The tiny millipede-looking bugs and the slug-like creatures you first come across in the Children's Ward come to mind immediately. These are the worst enemies in the game by far and come at you fast, in large numbers, and feel nearly impossible to hit accurately. I eventually grew to dread it whenever I came across them, not because they were particularly scary or anything, but because the encounters sometimes bordered on frustrating. Normal enemies aside, there are also a handful of bosses you have to take out at the end of certain chapters. These have their own life bar, and need special tactics to fight since you are not able to carry things like healing items into battle. Thankfully the game does save after these encounters so you don't have to worry about getting taken out by a grunt enemy right after a tough battle.

This isn't ominous at all...

I used to be stuck at this puzzle.

I go back and forth thinking about whether I feel Dementium: The Ward is a difficult game or not. It can be very challenging and unforgiving, but after defeating the first boss (a crazy thing called "The Cleaver") I fell back into the groove of the game and was able to get through the rest rather painlessly. Frustration is still a thing though, and there were several encounters that just felt unfair. Miss a shot or find yourself reloading when there's a mob in front of you? Well, hope you have enough life to survive the hits you're going to inevitably take. Also, since you can't actually pick up items you find, you're pretty much forced to push forward hoping you'll find more resources (or even a save point) in the next room. Arguably the most challenging aspect of the game is the fact that everything is in darkness by default. Some rooms are lit up by random lightning, but barring that you're otherwise only able to see a few feet in front of you. You do pick up a flashlight very early on, but you're only able to use it when you're not holding a weapon. This means you have to fumble around every time an enemy appears and are often shooting blind hoping you hit a target you can't really see. I understand that this adds to the overall spooky atmosphere, but it made me think back to the original release of Doom 3, and wish that something like the "Duct Tape" mod could've been added in this new version.

You'll fight a lot of these.

My most hated enemy.

It might be nostalgia talking, but I really enjoyed the graphics in all their pseudo-2000s DS glory. The game looks like it would be right at home on the original PlayStation, and there isn't enough love for that visual aesthetic as there should be. The visuals were technically already updated for the 3DS, and were apparently completely remade here, but it's clear that the developers kept the original look in mind when recreating the game, and that isn't a bad thing. I understand that this might be something of an acquired taste, but I can't help but feel that the visuals are pretty much perfect within the context of the game. Elsewhere enemies and bosses look particularly cool and gruesome, and there's a lot of blood-spattered nonsense all over. The hospital setting does get a little same-y after a while, but areas like the children's ward, the morgue, and others do change things up enough so things stay interesting. You also do end up outside a few times, so it's not just an endless series of hospital rooms and closets by the end. Also, I rarely talk about lighting in reviews, but it's key here. The darkness is just so oppressive that it almost becomes and antagonist on its own. Even with the already-mentioned flashlight and lightning illuminating the way, the lighting still flickers and dims in a way that's as impressive as it is atmospheric.

How are you supposed to kill these?

Just a creepy little girl...

Music is a bit of a mixed bag, but one that I think has far more positives than negatives. Everything is very atmospheric, and the spooky piano tunes really rack up the tension. Occasionally the music stops, leaving you in complete silence except for the otherworldly noises of the game's enemies. Whenever this happened I couldn't help but think that something bad is going to happen, and I'm pretty must left on edge until things return to normal. In short, the sound design works exactly as one would want it to in a horror game. Sound effects are equally well-done with the sounds of enemies often being as creepy as the music itself. Unfortunately since some enemy encounters can be frustrating, you'll often find yourself groaning internally whenever a particularly annoying group of enemies alerts you to their presence.

I played the original Dementium: The Ward on the Nintendo DS and it was quite a feat pulling off FPS-style gameplay on a platform that only had a singular D-pad and four face buttons. Thankfully the controls have been updated for the Switch to fit what one would expect from a modern FPS. The left analog stick moves, the right aims, and you use the shoulder buttons to attack. I'm not a big console FPS player so it personally took me a bit to get used to the controls, but they're a marked improvement over the originals. I still have a few issues with the controls though as aiming for some of the smaller enemies feels near impossible at times with the analog stick. For those that didn't play the original, you used the touch screen to aim and could just "point" at tiny moving enemies to hit them. Trying to fight the little bugs or worm things was a chore that I don't look forward to ever returning to. I guess there isn't much that could've been done to "fix" this beyond changing core elements of the game, but it's still something that bothered me my entire time with the game.

Who even is this guy?

These are so hard to hit too.

Dementium: The Ward is a pretty short game. You can beat the entire thing in about 3-5 hours your first time through. If you know what you're doing, like I eventually did once muscle memory took over, you can cut that time down even further. There isn't a lot of replayability to be had here either. You can try to beat the game on harder difficulties, or even create some self-imposed challenges, but there's little reason to come back after you hit those credits. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing though, as the experience you get is quite the memorable one. I think of it more as watching a long horror movie that happens to have some interactive elements. While I don't know if I will pick it up again any time soon, I do know that I have something to come back to if I ever want to play a spooky game, and a truly good horror game in this visual style is something of a rarity.

The map is your friend.

Get used to this screen.

I can't recommend Dementium: The Ward enough. It's not perfect by any means, but it does offer one of the best horror experiences you'll ever play. It's earned its legacy and it's my hope that more people get to experience it this third time around as I'd love to see similar treatment for the second Dementium game. As of this writing it's only $19.99 on the eShop, with a 10% launch discount too, and that's the perfect price for the experience you get here. It's the spooky month, and we all need some crazy horror games to keep us up at night, so grab this one and thank me later.

Check Out Dementium: The Ward on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/dementium-the-ward-switch/

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Story: B
Gameplay: B-
Graphics: A
Music/Sound: A
Value: A

Overall: A-

Pros:
+ A classic horror title that really deserved this new release.
+ The horror in the game is front and center, and everything comes together for one of the creepiest games of any console generation.
+ The visuals harken back to earlier 3D games and feel as retro aesthetic as pixel-based graphics.
+ Controls have been updated to be more in line with modern FPS-styled games.

Cons:
- While the experience is quite memorable, it is a fairly short game.
- There are several frustrating aspects, like the flashlight and respawning enemies, that keep the gameplay from being truly great.
- The difficulty can be very uneven at times, and there are few save points to fall back to.
- There is only one save file. If you ever do want to replay the game one day, you're forced to delete your previous playthrough.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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I really want some Soda Popp.

#Dementium