Fatum Betula Breathes Horror Into The Guise Of A Classic PS1 Experience

Fatum Betula doesn’t simply steal said limelight, it instills a whole new level of darkness and dread into the horror genre and basks in it.

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With an increasing amount of enhanced and ever-lifelike horror games on the near-horizon, from the Man of Medan sequel to Resident Evil: Village, one small indie adventure with mere PS1-era graphics swoops in to steal the limelight.

In fact, Fatum Betula doesn’t simply steal said limelight, it instills a whole new level of darkness and dread into the horror genre and gloriously basks in it. The game’s evocative approach to exploration, gamifying adventure through an LSD: Dream Emulator-like experience, gives it a certain retro edge while still maintaining a level of underlying and intense fear at all times.

To put it simply: horror fans, meet your new favorite otherworldly escape.

A One Man Creation

Like Stardew Valley before it, Fatum Betula is yet another example that it doesn’t take a village to deliver a top-tier gaming experience. Crafted and designed solely by Bryce Bucher, this strange yet delectable horror iteration is already a prize in the genre despite being only about a month old. The story itself is a whirlwind of originality, following a seemingly lost soul in the bowels of a dream-like realm, wherein the strange and eerie are commonplace.

Upon first stepping into the game, players will be met by a rather menacing creature in the guise of a massive orb with teeth and eyes. This entity thereby explains the backdrop and the reasoning behind the character’s presence through a mind-numbing soliloquy:

“Consider this tree and our land to be one and the same. A synecdoche. Both are kept between the living and the dead. This ancient water holds its roots in limbo. As such, everything here has failed to accept entropy. I’ve considered us to have not existed in a previous state at all…”

At every corner, the world unfolds into a multitude of locations, each one of which is as diverse and unique as the last. There is never a single dull moment in Fatum Betula, due largely to these various locales, which in turn carry within them many secrets and items to collect, not to mention a host of puzzles to solve (much akin to atmospheric puzzler Seven Doors) and unique identities with tales as insane as the main narrative itself.

Interesting Side-Characters & Unsettling Audio

Players aren’t alone in this eerie limbo-world, as a number of random NPCs also occupy the bizarre space. Their dialogue and stories are what drives the character forward, inciting the player to perform strange acts and discover more of this brilliant, yet holistically dark setting. The audio and visuals aren’t so much horror-driven as, say, the atmospheric terror of Silent Hill, so much as they are the exact opposite, which makes for a far more compelling delivery. The often melodious and harmonious music playing in the backdrop of the game’s various locales enhances Fatum Betula in many more ways than one.

These interesting characters, coupled with the unsettling sounds, the pixelated PS1 aesthetic, and the objectives laid throughout the game, make this an unrivaled and unforgettable experience. In many instances, highly reminiscent of the indie horror PlayStation demo disk, the player may feel as if in the midst of a cursed video game, which is exactly what allows this well-made contemporary horror indie its exceptional charm. While it may not be as erratic and as fundamentally less-interactive as LSD: Dream Emulator, there is no doubt that Fatum Betula is its spiritual successor with just the right amount of unnerving subtleties for it to stand on its own.

Multiple (Terrifying) Culminations

Replayability is Fatum Betula’s most shining feat. With 10 different endings, all of which brought about by way of the player’s varying interactions and puzzle-solving, the game begs its players to revisit its dark and unruly void again and again. It’s easily one of the best horror games for newbies, not merely for its focus on low-poly exploration, but also for its underlying simplicity and ever-evocative story, which necessitates little following – because never will even the most brilliant of narrative sleuths ever crack this surreal tale.

Fatum Betula, despite being an indie PS1 aesthetic horror adventure, is a world-class terror engine that necessitates multiple playthroughs. For that (and many, many more reasons), it beckons even the most well-acquainted horror fanatics into its otherworldly bowels and just may well never spit them back out.

Download it today on Steam or Itch.io for a mere $8 and see for yourself these awesome perplexities and terrifying monstrosities that already instill the game with the “horror classic” label.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/fatum-betula-classic-ps1-experience-preview-impressions/