[TEST] Remorse: The List, A Silent Hill Of The Pauper

Announced in 2015, then greenlighted in 2017 before sinking into oblivion, Remorse: The List has finally been released. Developed by the modders responsible for the hit horror Half-Life 2 mod Gray, the title offers an old-fashioned survival horror in the form of a trip to a Hungarian city filled with monsters and puzzles to solve. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t break a duck’s three legs, but not everything is to be thrown away either.

Gender : Survival Horror | Developer: Deppresick Team | Publisher: Deppresick Team | Platforms: Steam | Price : 20€ | Recommended configuration: Intel Core i7-5960X or Ryzen 5 2400G / 6 GB of RAM / Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 | Languages ​​: English | Release date : April 22, 2022 in early access | Duration : about 4h30

Test carried out on a commercial version.

Walk in Hidgpuszta

Adrian, a young Hungarian man, has a terrible hangover: he wakes up in the small town of Hidegpuszta after having had an astonishing nightmare. Not only does the place seem to have been emptied of its inhabitants, but there are now horrible creatures prowling around… He quickly understands that he will have to explore the place despite the dangers and shed light on this mystery. , which also seems strangely linked to his identity. In short, the story of Remorse: The List is a sort of introspective journey for Adrian, whose adventure will allow you to learn more about him and his past. Do not expect to be surprised, however: the subject is not very deep, and is even rather agreed if you have already played a game from the Silent Hill series.

Moreover, the parallel does not stop there since the very structure of the game is similar to that of the famous saga of survival horror. Remorse: The List proposes to explore a semi-open city. Understand that the different districts are interconnected and that your progress will be back and forth. For example, if access to the East district is blocked by a padlock, then you will first have to explore the West block, solve a puzzle there or face monsters to find a key and retrace your steps. In short, a classic progression of survival horror that is pleasing to see in a genre where scripted corridor narrative adventures are now the norm.

There is also an inventory system whose management is essential to your survival. Being very limited in terms of places, you will often have to choose to throw away a care kit, an ammunition pack or even a weapon in order to be able to recover the precious object that will allow you to move forward. It’s possible to recover a few locations by exploring optional locations, but you’ll still need to sacrifice some items to keep others. Note that the thrown items do not disappear and stay on the ground, so you will always have the possibility to come back for them later, when you run out of ammo after facing a bunch of monsters…

Muscular introspection

And it will happen fast because the enemies are, for the most part, extremely tough. Sometimes it will take you more than a full magazine to defeat them and the ammo melts away. The bestiary is also quite original and very reminiscent of the Half-Life 1 mod cry of fear : if we come across some classic psychopaths armed with scalpels and other possessed floating 20 centimeters from the ground, some monsters really contrast with what we are used to seeing. Creatures without feet advancing on the stumps, serpentine bodies crawling at full speed, bits of disarticulated corpses flying in the air or even ectoplasmic apparitions causing spikes to appear out of the ground… Some are quite disturbing, especially since they systematically appear in screaming like the damned, in fairly effective but redundant jumpscares. It still borders on the ridiculous sometimes: impossible not to laugh when you find yourself chased by two guys in office chairs on wheels, painfully trying to catch up with you with a lot of squeaks.

The arsenal is rather substantial: knife, shovel, hammer, pistol, uzi, shotgun, assault rifle, magnum will be there. Each firearm having its own type of ammunition taking up space in the inventory, it will again be necessary to make choices. Overall, we cannot say that the FPS aspect of the game is really pushed, the weapons not having a particularly successful feeling and the possibilities of action being limited. Most of the confrontations will be played by stepping back or standing behind obstacles while emptying your magazine in the buffet of creatures. It is possible to run away from fights, but Adrian seems to be a heavy smoker since a 20-meter sprint is enough to make him cough up his lungs and empty his stamina bar. The shooter side is therefore not the great strength of the title, which fortunately offers several puzzles well puzzles to compensate. Even if they always have a certain logic, some are worthy of Sierra-style point’n’click and can fire your neurons. They are not insurmountable however, and it is unlikely that you will really be stuck on a puzzle that is too tricky. Count about 4h30 to finish the game for the first time, and a little more to find all the collectibles and unlock the three different endings.

Visually, Remorse: The List isn’t very pretty, but it’s also not shameful given its limited budget. Most of the time, the player navigates the streets or the austere buildings of the abandoned city. I’ve never visited Hungary, but apart from the architecture and the displays in Hungarian, I doubt that the game is very representative: given the incredible amount of rubbish that we find on the ground during the whole adventure, we rather has the impression of being on the banks of the Seine in Paris. Some environments are still rather successful, managing to play with the play of light and some effects to create a scary atmosphere. Above all, some rather barred passages illustrating psychological shortcomings offer a rather pleasant ethereal atmosphere. In short, the game does not display anything transcendent but, at least, it runs correctly on any config. As for bugs, my experience was full of them, ranging from simple collision problems to out-of-bound causing the game to load. But the developers are responsive and release patch after patch since release, so the game should be more stable by now.

SilentWish

Remorse: The List is far from an unforgettable game. Its lack of budget is felt in many ways and it sometimes borders on the ridiculous. However, it offers a decent adventure, a kind of watered-down Silent Hill, and still manages to stay relatively interesting until the end. Although a bit expensive for what it is, we can recommend it to fans of indie horror games who are tired of purely narrative and scripted experiences from start to finish.