Shines Over: The Damned Review (PlayStation 5)

I’ll be honest with you, I’m still trying to figure out how to get over the loss of Bullet from Blair Witch Project. With that said, like a lot of losses, I thought that, by replacing the love of a companion with that of another, I’d somehow be able to magically wipe away the bad memories and, with any luck, summon a new purpose to move forward and, you know, do it all over again. Thanks to Firenut Games’ Shines Over: The Damned, I’m able to make such an opportunity jolt to life, and although I’m still a little beat up about my former companion’s fate, I’m weirdly open to the idea of strapping on some new boots and slugging into a brand-new parallel world — even if it means having to endure all of the same emotional torment that I had previously succumbed to back in Black Hills forest.

On the surface, Shines Over: The Damned isn’t a game that particularly stands out, mainly down to the fact that its themes are predominantly reminiscent of your average psychological horror. Needless to say that, with the ever-looming black hole of loneliness hanging over my shoulders, I still felt the need to explore it, if only to capitalize on the trauma that Blair Witch left me back in 2019. Sure enough, the question I was aiming to ask myself was all rather simple: could the paw prints of a new canine overshadow those I had come to grow familiar with several years earlier? To secure an answer to that all-important question, I had to make the descent into the unknown—a twisted dimension that would ultimately lead me to not only question my senses, but reality itself, apparently.

Down We Go

To be absolutely clear, Shines Over: The Damned isn’t a video game, but rather, an art installation with a few generic walking and puzzle-solving elements. I hate to be the bearer of bad news during times like these, but there aren’t a whole lot of gameplay components to unravel and scrutinize here, what with the bulk of the journey being comprised of corridor exploration and light interactive and often environmental tropes. In other words, it’s a walking simulator, and one that just so happens to build its walls around the concept of allowing players to roam the deepest layers of an opaque dimension, and solve the occasional puzzle that prevents them from progressing. But that’s about it.

The storyline is unmistakably novel: an unfortunate soul who’s joint at the hip with a dog must venture into the seemingly desolate quarters of an old world, and pluck at its last-remaining fragments in order to make sense of its history. Think Scorn, though perhaps with fewer fleshy orifices and mechanical doohickeys, and you’ll have a vague idea of what it’s getting at. Simply put, there’s an unsettling locale to explore, and a myriad of doors that stand between you and the inner secrets pertaining to its heritage. Does this make for a compelling narrative? No, but I’m willing to let it slide, because, you know — there’s a dog, and that counts for a lot, weirdly enough. And even then, one fluffy companion doesn’t necessarily propel an otherwise barebones game out of the rut that it finds itself in. Swings and roundabouts, I guess?

“You Are Dead”

Oddly charming setting and soundtrack set aside, the gameplay itself isn’t all that great, and it’s mainly due to the fact that, well, there isn’t any. For the most part, your objectives either lie with having to leap from one platform to the next, or snap to a dog’s ankles like glue and follow it into nothingness. The only issue with all of this, sadly, is that neither of these things are fun to work through. Arguably the worst thing about all of this is that, even when you do manage to execute a well-timed maneuver, you’re often met with a technical glitch of some sort that winds up with you falling to your death and having to rewind the clock to repeat your mistakes all over again. I’m not saying that the controls are bad, but there’s clearly a lack of polish that numbs an otherwise enjoyable experience.

Don’t get me wrong, at no point did I ever feel frustrated enough to switch off the game and send it packing. Sure, I could’ve parted ways with it on numerous occasions, but there was always something that was pulling me back to relive the same moments— and I wasn’t ever quite sure what it was that was enacting me. Perhaps it was the gloominess of it all, or the fact that the story had no real meaning; in my mind, all of these things would have eventually begun to make sense if I had just poured another hour into the journey. I was wrong, of course, but that’s another story altogether.

The Road to Nowhere

The question that I honestly found myself asking was, will there be a huge payoff at any point — whether it’s written in the climax, or sewn into the margins of some form of post-credits moral? It was the not knowing, weirdly enough, that compelled me to carve deeper, and the lack of handholding only made me want to progress further into its mismatched oblivion, for better or worse. To my surprise, though, neither of these questions ever really received a proper answer, which left me to ponder even more than when I first started out. And that was frustrating, to say the least.

Shines Over: The Damned isn’t the lengthiest of games; in fact, you can see all there is to see and do all there is to do in just under an hour. As there are also little to zero items to return back for, either, this does technically mean that you can brush the entire experience beneath the rug in a single sitting. I’m on the fence about that, too, as I’m usually a sucker for shorter games that have some form of message — but Shines Over: The Damned doesn’t really have one. It is, however, written down as a tribute to the developer’s friend — something that I wasn’t expecting to witness at the final hurdle of the story. Yet, whilst I’m morally inclined to let bygones be bygones, I can’t quite shake the fact that, structurally, there just isn’t a huge amount to write home about.

The other thing that bothers me is the sheer lack of gameplay components. Aside from the odd puzzle or roadblock, there aren’t all that many things to do. Case in point, a good two-thirds of the journey has you boarding a boat and navigating a stream, nothing more, nothing less.

Verdict

From its half-baked world design to its frustratingly clunky controls, and just about everything else that you can possibly deem unlawful in the world of survival-horror, Shines Over: The Damned fails to make a lasting impression right from the get-go — a misfortune that tends to overstay its welcome as you gradually progress from one landmark to the next. Aside from its mechanics being ridiculously shoddy in every aspect imaginable, the game also suffers from temporary frame drops and a roster of characters that, in all honesty, aren’t the least bit interesting or memorable. Sure, the dog is a nice addition to the fold — but that’s really all Shines Over: The Damned has going for it, whereas the remainder of the game is about as shallow as a lukewarm swimming pool in a Saharan desert. And that’s a shame, truly, as the concept could’ve been a real contender.

Perhaps there’ll be a few patches to help tighten up the screws, or maybe there’ll be one major update that’ll allow the game to flow a little more smoothly. Until then, though, it’s hard to recommend Shines Over: The Damned, as it is, in all fairness, a game that is not currently fit for consumption. However, who’s to say that a little elbow grease won’t be able to fix the hinges and elevate the project from its current state of decay? Who knows — perhaps it isn’t quite as damned as it seems to be at face value. If that is true, then here’s hoping the devs can find a way to prove it in future updates. Until then, it’s hard to paint it as anything more than a minor damnation in the world of psychological horror. Sorry, folks.