When it comes to horror games, I am of course no stranger. I remember way back playing games like F.E.A.R and Quake and dare I say Wolfenstein. There are key aspects to horror games that I look for to even call them a horror game, or even compete in the genre. How does Slender: The Arrival hold up? You will need to read to find out. Here is our review.
Let’s start with a quick history lesson. Slender: The Arrival is a survival horror game. Developed by Blue Isle Studios. Originally released on Windows and Mac on March 26, 2013. The following year it was released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and again in 2015 on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and the Wii U. Recently released as a Nintendo Switch Port on June 20th, 2019.
Slender: The Arrival does show its age a bit when it comes to the graphical style. Its very simple when it comes to the interior designs but where it does start to take shape is, of course, the outside environments. Now the game was created originally back in 2013 I think it holds up well. The audio track for slender of course has had its praises in the past and rightfully so. The Atmosphere draws your attention and sucks you in. There I was tuning everything else out and focusing on the game. Using my Headphones of course added to the game’s seductive nature. Learning about the story and what is going on around me the music and sound effects start to create the mood. Then Bam, slender appears in front of me with roaring sound and visuals to match. I damn near jumped out of my chair! Heart pounding now and ready to seek out more I continued the game. This completely brought me back, to be honest, it been a while since any game has had this much of my attention and focus.
One could say this game reminds me of playing Amnesia. I love solving puzzles but with that slight fear of what is going to happen next. It’s thrilling and invigorating all at the same time. Now I will not lie there was a time or 2 after the initial occurrence that I walked straight up to slender man just to see what would happen. Well, glad it’s a video game because of course death was the result. Now that I had that out of my system I continued on my journey of fear and mystery. One of the more interesting mechanics of the games is the fact you cannot fight slender; you can only run and this only adds to the experience. I would imagine this is how it would feel being chased by Freddy or Jason.
The game does, of course, have a few flaws, after you get caught and die a few times it starts to get played out a bit. The majority of the game mechanics are simple and equate to either collecting a set number of items or performing a set number of tasks. This, of course, is not a problem but can add to the levels of frustration.
My Final Thoughts
Slender: The Arrival did manage to perform well on the switch and of course give me some truly great scares but let’s be honest. The Repetitive mechanics do start to take away from the scares and morph into frustration. The concept was great and I am impressed with how far the developers went but I think a different direction would have turned the tables. Instead of performing tasks it would have been better to be finding ways to avoid or redirect slender away. The point of the horror games is to overcome the challenge while still having your heart beat out of your chest. I would rate the game at a good solid 6 out of 10. The mixture of visual and audio generate a good experience.
