The best way to describe the truly odd experience of Shines Over: The Damned is as a vibes-only game. The question with anything that is a vibes-only experience is whether those vibes are significant enough to compensate for the other aspects of the experience that are lacking. Unfortunately for this game, the answer to that question is no. As cool as some of the presentation and soundtrack is here, the actual meat of the experience is almost non-existent.
Shines Over: The Damned is out now and is available exclusively on PS5.
Everything about Shines Over: The Damned is vague, and in some instances that totally works. The dark and oppressive world that the game is set in has no real rhyme or reason to it, the character that you play as has no name, no weapons and no human companions to help them. The only thing the player does have is a dog who serves as a guide through this surreal environment.
However, when the game’s physics and movement controls feel vague, it doesn’t feel quite as charming or purposeful. A lot of the game involves first person platforming between across huge voids of nothingness. Successfully leaping from platform to platform requires a lot of random chance luck and blind faith. You will die and be forced to retry a lot. This sort of system works in something like Hotline Miami, because each death feels like it was the player’s fault. Here though, it feels far more random and aimless.
Despite Shines Over: The Damned being a very brief experience, it will take patience to complete
In amongst this frustration though, there is an ever-present atmosphere permeating everything that is genuinely intriguing. The combination of the odd visual imagery and a beautiful musical score in about Shines Over: The Damned leads to an oddly emotional and tense experience that does feel pretty unique. This is the main reason that I feel so conflicted about this game.
Even after playing through the entirety of the very short experience, I am not entirely sure if I enjoyed it or not. There were plenty of moments of frustration, and also plenty of moments of awe, sometimes both simultaneously. I will say that I was never bored while playing Shines Over: The Damned, for better or worse.
This mixed feeling carries over to the game’s visuals. Although the character models are a bit dated-looking and rudimentary, there are certain moments when the shot composition works in harmony with the lighting system and weird imagery to create something that looks quite stunning. At the very least, it is an interesting looking game.
The other major gameplay element in Shines Over: The Damned revolves around environmental puzzles. Thankfully, I never found these to be anywhere near as tedious as the sloppy platforming sections. In fact, they often served as a welcoming reprieve from the abundance of first person platforming that the game make you do. These puzzle sections are also responsible for some of the game’s more interesting imagery.
Losing the plot
I can’t really speak on the plot of Shines Over: The Damned, because there is no story element to speak of. Everything that plays out seems pretty random, and the collectibles in the game don’t seem to serve any purpose or have any meaning. Some may consider this to be a waste of time, but given the brief duration of the game as a whole, it didn’t bother me too much.
While this title is being marketed as a horror game, I never found it to be a scary experience. A combination of thick atmosphere and intermittent jump scares are the method of horror that the game employs, but I never really found myself jumping when these would play out. I found the emotional tension to be much more palpable here than any sense of fear.
Needless to say, this is not going to be a game for everyone. It is weird, it will test your patience, it is a horror game that isn’t scary, but there is something to it that kept me engaged enough to play through the entire thing. Then again, that could have just been the cute dog who you do grow somewhat attached to given that he is the only other non-antagonistic presence in the game.
At the end of the day, this is a small, weird, experimental, arthouse PlayStation exclusive title that came out in the same week as the much bigger horror title of Alone in the Dark. It isn’t likely to break through into the mainstream and will probably fly under the radar of most, as its target audience is clearly arthouse horror nerds much like myself. I reckon if this was a full priced game, then I would be far harsher on it, but for an asking price of $14.99 I’d say that Shines Over: The Damned is worth taking a punt on.
Shines Over: The Damned – 6/10
