Come to know fear as I have! Let's Play Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

Thrilling!

I've got to say that this is my favorite LP currently running. Keep up the madness!

- Eddie

Seriously. The Ulyaoth version of that fight took me something like an hour the first time I played the game.

I'm not afraid to say that the whole reason I'm reading this LP is to see if there's a better way to beat that damn thing.

Yeah... That Thing is the only thing that keeps the chapter it's in from being my favourite in the game.

Hehe.


And getting stomped by the Ulyaoth guarding is kind of boring compared to a certain other one that explodes Paul's head!

Meh. I didn't like that one as much, if only because there are several seconds of Paul being magicked into the air before his head explodes which takes away the surprise of the instant, out-of-nowhere full body crush.

I don't want to get your hopes up, but I do have a way to speed up the first two phases of that encounter. It's nothing super revolutionary, though.

Has anyone mentioned how awesome this game's music is?

Oh, and TEAR ARETAK CHATUR'GHA!

Luther's is definitely my favorite chapter, but when you consider each character's story as part of a whole, it becomes clear he's also the most useless. There's just no point to Paul's existence at all! He doesn't accomplish anything in the battle against the Guardians!

My first playthrough was Chatturgha, which is clearly the best of the three Luther deaths. Knocked my ass out of my chair, for sure.

That's actually his powdered wig.


Oh, I believe you. It's just crazy that I understand the reference.


And this one, for that matter.


I recall a trick where you place a Damage Field between where you and the Bonethieves will be before the cut scene in that room starts, making them trivial.


Agreed. The Ulyaoth execution is great because all this drama and intrique is built to get you to pull for Paul, and then the guardian just smashes him into dust without a second thought, abruptly reminding you what a harmless gnat a single human really is compared to the Ancients.


"The Somme" is my favorite track in the game. It plays in Oublie before things go to hell in Peter's chapter, and the brooding melody and haunting chorals tremendously serve to immerse me in this makeshift World War One field hospital with lightning and bombing raging just outside.

I'm pretty sure that's actually referencing this and this.

Simon got that one.

Also I never figured that it would have been his powdered wig. I thought they would have confiscated that or something, so I always assumed it to be a severed hand.

Also also I will attempt another update this evening.

So I got the reference that the reference was making.

Upon concluding Paul's chapter, Alex discovers a letter addressed to her from none other than Edward Roivas! She quickly opens it, hoping against hope for a lead that doesn't involve the stories she's been reading about.



If Edward intends for her to keep reading this book, then she has to know for sure if it's true.



And that means examining the hiding place of the essence of Mantorok.



It's almost surprising that she finds the black heart there, but now that she's cast spells and seen the ghosts of her relatives, she knew it would be inevitable.

The clue Edward provided is easy enough, he refers to a piano. So Alex heads to the fireplace room to find it.



As soon as she enters, she thinks she sees something on the ceiling, so she fires her revolver at it.

This would probably catch more people off guard if they had her equipped with the revolver regularly. It's a new sanity effect for me, at least.



The piano sequence is the same as in Paul's chapter.

Now that we've discovered all of the spells, we'll be going back to the old standby way of finding the next chapter page, that being the repetition of a trick the character used in their chapter.



This page is titled "The Forbidden City". As we pick it up...



Cutscene: Flesh for the Pillar/The Forbidden City (these cutscenes happen back to back unless you decide to delay on reading the Chapter Page for whatever dumb reason)

A warlord is torturing one of his captives.



The captive soldier, however, sees something about the warlord that few get the chance to.



The warlord, when pressed about his identity, makes it clear that he is the one asking the questions here.



However, the soldier refuses to give in, and so he shows his true form.

If you were surprised by this, don't look behind you because there are scorpions there.



Pious orders the soldier to be used as the "foundation", whatever that means, as a reward for his gift of sight.





The monument is already partially underway, but further construction is needed...



Two soldiers bark down orders to the captive Roberto.



Roberto stares up, having trouble seeing their faces against the blazing backdrop of the twisted sky.

The soldiers make his situation plain: if he wants to live to see his home, then he'll survey the site as quickly as he is able.



And now we play another contender for Kalir's favorite chapter, as Roberto Bianchi, architect extraordinaire!

...You think I'm joking. Well, from Roberto's stats, it's not a very fun one. He's got good health, but like Max, he's overweight, so he can't move very quickly. To top this off, he only starts with a Torch, and while his sanity is average, his magick is vestigial at best. A five-point Shield spell would drain half of his meter.

I suppose I just like that it's very much built to support his character, and unlike a few other characters I could name, Roberto has a bit of a personality to him. Not much, mind you, but I like what's there.



In order to clear this chapter, we have to find about five or so points on the map and survey them for the warlord's monument. When all of the points are surveyed, we're free to leave. You can see two here marked with Xs.



Right, let's get to work, Roberto.



This chapter also has various other captives, who will say various things as you talk to them.



An Ulyaoth zombie is in this tunnel here, but Roberto has no weapons. If this was a Xel'lotath playthrough, we could light it on fire.



As is, we can only cause the zombie to flinch if we swing the torch at it.



This takes us to the first site we can survey! You can tell surveyable sites by dirt falling from the ceiling in their vicinity.



Also in this area is a discarded Saif. Roberto takes it, although he doubts that he'll be able to fight his way to freedom.

The Saif is about the same as the Sabre. If it has any difference, I never notice it.



Moving on, Roberto finds an ominous sort of dungeon, with a lever in the center. Seeing no other way to progress, he pulls it.



The gate behind Roberto slams shut, locking him in...



But as another one opens, a Chattur'gha zombie rises up to attack!



This is where I learn that swords having a long range can be a problem. If a sword hits a wall during its swing, it stops and causes sparks to fly, which naturally means that you need to find another way to murder your target. Here, the gate serves as a very large headguard for the zombie, meaning I can't attack with overhead swings unless I lure the zombie out from under there.



Once the lever in the Chattur'gha zombie's cage has been pulled, the opposite side opens, with two Xel'lotath zombies inside. Roberto takes them out...



And the way forward is opened.

Here's the next area we can survey!



There's a crossbow here as well. Looks like not all of the soldiers are careful with their weapons.



To the hall of the Tome!



Paul's statue here.



And his tale is added to the Tome as well.



Moving down the ladder, we find a cowering worker, stating that he heard terrible noises and screams but was too afraid to investigate. Roberto, armed as he is, continues onwards.



After shooting a few Trappers, I cast a Shield spell. Told you it takes half of Roberto's magick meter.



Ahead, I actually manage to catch a Gatekeeper unaware. Roberto slowly sidles towards it...



ABORT, ABORT! FISSION MAILED!



Roberto's finishing move is a horizontal slash, followed by a stab. Damn classy, but I prefer Max's finishing move.



Here we find the scroll for the Summon Zombie spell.



In this room, a Xel'lotath horror dwells. Roberto enchants his crossbow and prepares for a fight.



Being cornered is never a good idea with Horrors, as they can easily stun-lock you with their crackling bodies and massive claws.



I figure out a solution anyway, though.



In the room ahead, Roberto catches another zombie unawares, but before he can move to fight it...

The zombie triggers a massive stone block, crushing it instantly.



This causes a gate to lock down in another part of the room.

Roberto takes care not to step in the area where the zombie trod.



The next room has a bunch of zombies, including one child-sized one and one towering one. Seen here is the smallest of the group.



This big door is locked, so Roberto tries the one to the right.



After following a brief hunch, Roberto examines this area.



As soon as he finishes his work, the other three workers in the room turn to attack him! Fortunately, he thought he smelled something like the zombies earlier, so he took a precaution in the form of a five-point Damage Field.



If you don't put this Damage Field up, you'll find yourself caught off-guard and likely unable to get off a single spell. If you do, then this encounter with the three bonethief-possessed workers becomes trivial.



Hurts your sanity like hell though.

Roberto now takes the ladder just next to that room.



Before he can ready his crossbow, one of the two Trappers crawls right over his foot.



To the Trapper Dimension with us.



I tried to go for a red portal, but got bored waiting for that one to appear and went for the exit instead.



Now for something stupid. See this shelf here? This completely unremarkable and unadorned shelf in a minor corridor which has only two Trappers in it?



Yeah there's an invisible item there.

Eternal Darkness does not pull very many outright dick moves, but an invisible item (especially in a chapter where you have precious little magick to spare) is pretty blatant.

Didn't Karim find an effigy like that?



As soon as we enter the next room, we see a platform appear out of thin air over a bed of hot coals.

I guess the idea is that you cast the Reveal Invisible spell here and it lasts you to the next room...



But you likely have other things to worry about.

There's two Xel'lotath zombies, a Xel'lotath Horror, and a Chattur'gha zombie in here.

I usually stay and watch the zombie and Horror fight. Usually the Horror stun-locks the zombie and wins, but I have seen the zombie win on some occasions. The Horror won this time though, so I quickly bring up the Enchant Item spell...



NO! Where's the input setting? I'm gonna get killed here!



THIS ISN'T REALLY HAPPENING!!

Yeah, hope you don't freak out and fiddle with your Input setting on your TV when this one pops up.

Roberto snags the Eternal Corridor Key from the central pedestal and backtracks to the big door, which it unlocks.



You probably can't tell here, but the floor where the corpses are is glowing with energy. Roberto prepares a Shield spell and starts jogging across.



This floor will zap at you with energy as you pass it, which means if you don't want to get a Shield spell active, here's hoping you don't die.



The gate locks behind Roberto as he approaches the next site.



In order to open the gate, you need to get across this chasm. However, the walls are locked off by carvings of giant worms. So we have only one choice: cut the bridge loose.



This is never a good idea for an architect, or indeed anyone, to do.



As soon as we try crossing, we're attacked by two of these giant worms!



They very slowly drain your sanity and die to a single hit. I don't know why they're so flimsy either.



We open the gate back...



And survey the site.

Well, we've found several places of varying quality, but nothing really great. There's still one spot left, and Roberto hopes that it's good enough to please the warlord.



Back across the damaging floor...



In this room, Roberto has an idea. If someone walking across it and triggering the trap causes the gate to close, would it not stand to reason that you could open the gate this way as well?



He's not crazy enough to trigger the trap himself, though.

As predicted, the zombie's grisly crushing opened the door again!



Oh hey, a Chattur'gha Gatekeeper! I guess I was wrong, you can find other Gatekeepers that don't match your choice's alignment. This area must be where Chattur'gha exerts the most influence.



Nearly out of crossbow bolts, though. Looks like this will be another close-range fight.



The enemies for the different alignments start looking really different as they escalate in power. Chattur'gha ones look a lot like traditional undead/demons, with hulking muscular forms and skulls for heads. Xel'lotath ones are the most warped, usually having bodies that don't even try to make sense, while Ulyaoth ones look a lot like jellyfish, transparent and sort of undulating.



However, Gatekeepers, as mentioned before, have little gameplay variation between them, so Roberto has no trouble.



Cutscene: Guardian of the Temple

Here's the final site. Roberto is relieved to find it mostly intact, and heads forward to investigate.



As soon as he does, an apparition of a young Persian warrior with a massive sword appears and blocks off the route!



Roberto can barely speak. None of the demons he's found thus far have said a word.



The ghostly form of Karim tells him that only the "Chosen" may pass, and Roberto finds his escape route blocked by Chandra. Will he meet his demise here?



Karim swings his sword, but a flash of red light appears, and Roberto cowers, but is unharmed.



The spirit's surprise is tangible: Roberto, the meek architect, is the Chosen who he was to guard this area for.



While Roberto checks to see that his limbs are not severed, Karim states that he was to guard this place for many centuries until the Chosen came to claim that which he kept safe.



Karim, after trying to reassure Roberto's bewilderment by telling him he would know in time, and glancing one last time at Chandra, passes into the afterlife.



And with that, the artifact of Chattur'gha appears before Roberto. Demonstrating more sense than a Roman centurion, he tears off some of his dirty robe to wrap the artifact with to prevent it from touching him.



Roberto also finds a strange Ruby Effigy to match his Sapphire one where Karim's image left. Maybe he can sell them if he ever gets out of this alive. For now, however, he has to report what he's discovered to his captors.

Well, backtracking time!



And the Magick Pool lasted all the way to the end! Nice.



Cutscene: A Monument for All Time

As soon as Roberto finishes climbing the ladder, the two soldiers hold him at spearpoint, while the warlord who captured him stands before him.



The warlord demands of him the results of his survey.



Roberto decides to skip over the finer details in favor of pointing out the pure lunacy of trying to build in a demon-infested ruin.



To his horror, the warlord seems genuinely pleased at these findings.



Despite the soldiers pulling him away, Roberto insists that doing so would only get many people killed regardless of the monument's completion.



The warlord tells him to be silent, and says that he is well aware, and in fact desiring, these attributes for his monument.



He then orders Roberto taken to be a part of the sacrifice...



Which takes place atop the tower.



Roberto holds in a scream as he sees the various captives thrown into the vast chasm that led to the foundation he had scouted. The warlord gives a mocking farewell to Roberto...



Who is then thrown to his death.



Centuries later...



The Pillar of Flesh in the Persian desert still stands...



A massive tomb for those who worked there.

And while this tower stands...



The planets move further into alignment.

Man, what an ending. I should save my game.



Good to hear!



Um... less reassuring. There's no option to quit out of here...



No no NO NO! Stop!



All that work lost! This can't be...



THIS ISN'T REALLY HAPPENING!!

Next Time: Ich bin die deutsche Stahlmaschine! Meine Namens… Von Kaiser!

I'm fairly certain my only attempt at this game ended in this chapter. I think I got lost and slaughtered playing as the fat surveyor. At least, i don't think I remember seeing the People Pillar.

Roberto's is easily my least favorite chapter in the game, due to the combination of his terrible stamina and fighting abilities. In every playthrough of the game I do, I consistently die at least once in this chapter while I have no problem with any of the others.

I understand the significance of the Persia/Forbidden City location, but I could've done without this visit to it.

The Pillar of Flesh is a very striking and effective visual, I'll say that for the chapter.

Man now I want to finish this game. I remember getting to the boss fight everyone hates, trying it for a while, then going on holiday and forgetting all about it until like right now.

I really do think that a "let's all beat up the hated boss together" run is in our future. I just have to retrieve the Gamecube from its "in case of emergency, break glass" location at mom's since we shipped the Wii off already....

Alex looks up from the tome when she hears the sound of falling dirt. This leads her to check the sound, near the drawing for the Pillar of Flesh.



Could this be Roberto's spirit guiding her?



Cutscene: Binding the Black Guardian

Pious stands near the altar, carving away at some poor monk.



One of his cultist minions approaches, bringing up the Black Guardian. The beast is becoming irate with its situation, as it has hardly gotten to kill anyone since Paul encountered it.



Pious doesn't bother turning away from his work as he tells the cultist that failure regarding the beast's bindings is not an option. The last artifact must be kept secure until the planets align for the ritual that will summon Ulyaoth.



The cultist states that if the creature is to remain bound, then they will need to procure more flesh and bone. Pious continues working, while musing over how to solve this dilemma.



Cutscene: A War to End all Wars



The chapter starts out with Peter writing his account of the Somme. It paints an accurate and sobering picture.



However, a strange sound causes him to look up from a more graphic passage.



One of the medics is dragging away an unconscious, or possibly dead, patient unceremoniously.



Peter decides to take a walk to see if there's anywhere he can temporarily clear his head of this gruesome scenario.

We get to play as Peter Jacob this time around. He's very similar to Paul: excellent magick, but no weaponry to speak of. His sanity, as you'd expect from a frontline journalist, is pretty low, and his health is average. He starts with a Flash Pan and some Flash Powder to prepare it with, which would be useful if his camera wasn't destroyed. He also has a Lucky Penny.

It's easy to write this off as another useless piece of garbage your character starts the game with, but Peter's chapter is one of the meaner ones to start with (and to end with, depending on who you ask), so this thing could save your life if you use it right.

Speaking of the chapter, this is probably the fan favorite of the lot. The atmosphere is just so overwhelmingly hostile and reminiscent of mortality that it's hard not to feel uneasy, and the difficulty early on helps this out a lot. I like it too, actually, and this would probably be my favorite if Peter himself wasn't so bland a character.



There's a letter home on the table next to us. Peter picks it up, hoping to find the writer for an interview later.



While this was an empty cathedral, holding only pews, in Paul's time, this one is full of medical tents, with medics and nurses moving about tending to the wounded. Outside, you'll frequently hear artillery, and flashes of light from their impacts illuminate the area the way lightning did Paul's chapter. Is it any wonder that most people like the cathedral levels the most?



Atop the podium, Peter finds a sealed envelope.



He can't go beneath the cathedral right now, and a grizzled soldier shouts that the enemy will never harm the antique organ as long as he's got the life to stop them.

Opening the sealed envelope, he finds some orders for one Pvt. Thompson. The orders are recent, asking him to rally outside the Oublie Cathedral. Peter opts to find the private to give him these orders, figuring that if they're delivered quickly, he won't be punished for opening sealed envelopes.



Upon finding the private and giving him the orders, Thompson lets out a cheer and exclaims that the tide of the battle is likely about to turn in an accent Peter can't quite place. Curious, Peter decides to check the room Thompson was guarding.



He soon wishes he hadn't, however. The body bags strewn all over the blood-soaked floor start to make him feel ill. To prevent himself from following in their footsteps, he snatches the Revolver on the bench.

This revolver is different from Alex's in that it holds more than 5 shots, but it still doesn't do much to enemies. However, it's the only damaging weapon Peter has for now.



As soon as he picks it up, a loud whistling heralds the approach of a shell, which causes the power to go out upon striking the ground. Additionally, he hears a nurse's scream from outside! Have the enemy soldiers entered the cathedral?



Equip the Flash Pan before you head out. Trust me. You only have six shots with the Revolver, and unless you're some kind of ninja at this game that will not be enough.



The world swims as we return to the Hall of the Tome.



There's Roberto's statue.



And he's added to the Tome's tale as well.



Outside, we encounter a bonethief.

This is a "helpful tutorial" for those of you who've tried killing everything you see throughout the game regarding bonethieves. They dodge ranged attacks, so if you just shoot willy-nilly, you will waste all six shots and it will give Peter a severe thrashing.



Peter holds up the Flash Pan, covers his eyes, and the powder ignites, blinding the bonethief. Peter takes the opportunity to run like hell to the main hall, where the medics should be armed to fight this thing.



Unfortunately, more of them are in there, and one leaps up to attack one of the nurses!



Don't stop to fight anything in this hallway. Just run. There are like four bonethieves, not to mention the possessed nurse, and if you stop to fight them with your six-shot revolver you are going to die. Use the Flash Pan if you have to.



There's a rifle on the altar, which Peter takes.

Now, if we didn't have four bonethieves on our backs, you can bet I'd be blowing them away with this. The rifle holds ten shots, and each one packs a wallop.



Okay, we made it to the stairs. The bonethieves won't pursue you down here because they're really not built for stairs, so we can take a breather.



This involves casting all the usual buffs.

However, there's very little backtracking in Peter's chapter, so it's not a requirement by any means to have the Chattur'gha Magick Pool. You could arguably go upstairs, but the only stuff up there that I know of is a soldier's letter, and you can go there before the shell hits, so I'll just post the letter here now, because I completely forgot to get it.

This room seems pretty much identical to how Paul found it, except that the personal effects of a priest are all gone. There's some ammo here, too. Your main priority at this point is pretty much to scrounge up ammo to deal with the enemies here.



The bellows organ from before has been replaced with a steam engine, it seems. No Mace, though.



The wine room no longer has a secret passage in it, but it is chock full of Trappers. Use the Revolver on them.



Here's the furnace. Looks like it's not funneling any heat to the generator.



Peter fixes that problem, but the generator has to be started manually.



Here it is. Let's try turning it on.



That's a problem. Peter examines the fusebox.



The fuse is totally busted. It'll have to be replaced. We don't have any electrical skills to do this, but we do have ingenuity.



Ingenuity comes in lucky penny form nowadays. Don't try this at home, kids!



There we go! Now we can see what's going on.



Back in the furnace room, the door appears to be jammed shut by something heavy on the other side. However, Peter finds a small hole in the wall, not unlike the one Lindsey had to send a Trapper through.

If you couldn't figure out that puzzle then, this is probably where you'll pick up the solution and remember it on your next playthrough for Mantorok times.



We get right on it.



On the other side, there's a seven-point Circle of Power. We also see that the obstruction is a human corpse. We send it to the Trapper Dimension, where it will no longer be an obstacle.

If we head to the Trapper Dimension after this point, that corpse will still be there.



We get through and claim the last of the Circles of Power! Now we can cast seven-point spells, which take even more time and magick to cast, but have an extraordinary kick to them. As before, we have to manually "New Spell" each and every one of them.



This leads to the discovery of the last unknown spell, Spell 10, also known as Summon Horror.

This spell is a very useful way to attack enemies on the other side of a door, but you need to be careful, because it drains sanity extra fast and costs a lot of magick to use, not to mention that you have to deal with the Horror after you summon it.

Now, then. How should we handle the bonethief army up there?



Oh man you guys this is going to be so awesome



Wait, seriously? This thing can't climb stairs?

...Well, that's a problem. Controlling it consumes sanity, which we have very little of, and fighting it would consume lots of valuable ammo.



So we carefully park the Horror in the generator room.



Once Peter heads up the stairs, another explosion breaks the massive stained-glass window behind him. Walking on the glass shards is noisy, which will attract the attention of any nearby bonethieves.



My strategy here is to enchant the rifle and set up a Damage Field. From here, I can safely take down the bonethieves during an opportune moment when they're stunned or leaping.



Y'best keep lying down.



Once the bonethieves are dealt with, we head into the next room, where the Old Tower is.



The nurse here is immediately attacked by one of two bonethieves! If you're a good marksman, you can kill the bonethief before it gets a chance to control the nurse.



Thanks for standin' still, wanker!



No worries!

You get no reward for saving the nurse, but I like to take the effort to do so anyway.



I wonder if Anthony is still here?



Nope, just a bunch of zombies.



There's ammo and a torch here, though, so it's worth your time to check it out.



This caught me off-guard. Normally, she just says the normal nurse stuff, like advising you to get some rest. I suppose dialogue with the NPCs changes at low sanity!