Recent reviews by Ghabulous Ghoti

I liked a lot of this game, but I thought there were two major problems that kept me from really loving it. I really loved the sense of atmosphere and exploration, but I was never able to feel fully immersed because of the VHS filter. I know that the "Found Footage" gimmick is part of the game's narrative, but I found myself constantly getting distracted by the filter. It continually reminded me that what I was looking at wasn't real and took me out of the experience. I really wanted to enjoy the cool aesthetics because I really love the whole "liminal space" artistic style, but the setpieces in this game were all muddied up by the ugly filter. I understand that this is very subjective and a lot of people would probably like the filter, but an option to disable it would have gone a long way for my enjoyment of the game. The other issue I had was the movement speed, I found it to be painfully slow unless I held down the shift key for the entire game. Worse was that when moving up or down stairs, or when wading through water, you were set back to your default movement speed. This annoyed me because I go up and down stars significantly faster in real life on a daily basis, I know you don't have to go that slowly, and this discouraged me from exploring more than it probably should have. Again, I get that the slowdown, especially in water, was probably an effort to help the game feel more immersive, but it had the exact opposite effect on me, it just took me out of the experience.

Despite this, I still think the game is worth playing. It's a really cool experience and I loved how it didn't resort to cheap horror tricks and instead just allowed the atmosphere to set in and carry you through it. I just hope that both my issues get some kind of patch, since I can't imagine either one would be especially difficult to alter.

People like this game because they're nostalgic for the OG which a number likely haven't played in a while. The OG holds up incredibly well. This version tried to capture that, but rushed development really hurt it. You're left with a broken, glitchy mess, where the controls feel sluggish and imprecise, where a some levels flat out have less visual detail than the PS2 release did 17 years earlier. I have faith that Purple Lamp did whatever they could, but they didn't have enough time, money, or both to actually finish Rehydrated and as a result it's an inferior product.