Celebrating All Things Spooky: D

Let’s kick off this year’s horror reviews with a classic: D.

When D came to Steam and GOG a few years back, I was intrigued by it because it comes up occasionally when people discuss classic horror games/series.

D originally came out in 1995, so it predates Resident Evil. It’s an adventure game with a big focus on full-motion video (to the point where Wikipedia considers it to be an interactive movie), and the graphics hold up surprisingly well considering how old it is.

You play Laura, a young woman who rushes to the scene upon learning her father has inexplicably gone on a murder spree, and finds herself in a mysterious castle. The game has no save system and a real-time deadline; if you don’t finish within two hours, you’re forced to start over from the beginning.

I’m not a fan of timers in games, but it doesn’t bother me so much when the game is so short – and it did increase the tension in a game that otherwise isn’t very scary.

D is old, and it feels it. Most of the horror moments just fell flat for me. On the other hand, you have to consider it in the context of when it came out, and in that way, I can still appreciate it. Beyond that, it does a decent job of building up its atmosphere, if not in the cutscenes than at least in the mood of the castle itself.

And while exploration is painfully slow (you pick a direction and wait while the character slowly walks forward, because pretty much everything is FMV), the puzzles are still pretty solid. Some of them have aspects that are clearly meant to waste some of your precious two hours, but overall they hold up well.

In short, D isn’t quite a new favorite and it definitely feels dated, but it’s interesting to check out such an old entry in the history of horror games.