Platform(s): PC (version reviewed), Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch
Genre: Horror, 2D, Retro, FMV

The duo of Andrés Borghi and Tobías Rusjan (along with developer Saibot Studios) are clearly fans of the Super Nintendo 2D horror title Clock Tower, because their latest game Tenebris Somnia is an homage to that horror title classic. Like the scare-heavy 2D adventure games of yore, you control your main character, Julia, through a surreal and mostly evil aura environment looking for clues and items, and then solving puzzles within the parameter of the place be it combination of equipment or using logic and deduction.

Our heroine is lured to her ex-boyfriend’s apartment, suffering dreams of him being torn apart by monsters and hoping he’s alright. As you reach his place and explore about 10 minutes in, he’s not and you have to go rescue him from an alternate nightmare-scape filled with devious puzzles and monsters trying to kill you. Some puzzles require you to make rooms dark so you can develop film to make a photo that fits on a picture frame in an important room. Others have you flipping through a film reel so that you get the right frame to get an item through magical means. A few get convoluted, but they do break down the steps and have it jotted onto your inventory screen. One of them requires you to destroy your precious save points to move the plot along, which gets tense especially with the game’s surprise enemy spawns.

The twist here? In Tenebris Somnia, we get full motion video cutscenes that flesh out the game’s story and accentuate key moments and reveals. When you are about to fight one of the game’s manic horrors, you get a slick horror cutscene shot by the developer’s film crew partners in Argentina. Julia’s action and emotional moments get the silver screen moment, with her actress Clara Kovacic doing a lot with her amazing facial range and demeanour in an effed-up setting. No expense was spared here, and every live-action scene is shot to horror perfection from its actors in ghost/monster make-up to the eventual gory bits that unfold mid-way in the story.

Tenebris Somnia is an 8-hour survival horror adventure ride, with simple controls and inventory management that are acceptable for this generation of gaming but purposely gimped to make you feel tense. To be fair, the game does take it easy on you with its pause menu where you can rifle through your inventory and combine your items, reloading your weapons as time stops with no repercussions.

Still, dealing with the game’s dreamscape monsters is tough so you still need to run away from most dangers to conserve ammo. The big monsters you fight in the game’s few-but-noteworthy boss sequences will eat up a lot of your saved-up ammo, but they are tense, well-balanced, and are the fun kind of challenging barriers to overcome. And yes, there will be times where you need to use a pipe or wrench against swarms of enemies in certain wave room moments; they’re not my most favourite parts of the game but at least you start at the beginning of the setpiece rather than at the save point when you die.

But what will keep you invested and really hit you in the gut is the game’s narrative. From start to finish, you’ll find out the nature of Julia’s relationship with ex-boyfriend Ivan, and what drove them apart. You find out more about Ivan and also the supernatural forces at play here, alongside key items that unravel as you progress deeper into the hellscape. Without spoiling the plot, you will be surprised and enamoured at how the narrative plays out, exploring themes of obsession and how far you would go to create passion projects. The game’s dive into movie-making is the crux of the whole game, since Ivan is an indie director attempting to make it big with his films.

Unless you’re really not into the 2D stylings of a retro-fitted horror game and don’t like getting lost and stumped at tricky brain teasers, as well as mostly avoiding monsters to get ahead and survive, Tenebris Somnia is an immaculate time that thrives in its unique presentation. While there are one or two tropes in survival games I’m not a fan of, the game’s runtime is short and to the point (with multiple endings too!) while also being a spectacle of retro graphics, 2D survival gameplay with a right amount of puzzles, and a narrative with lovely cinematic flair that has weight and cuts that aren’t for the faint of heart. A hearty recommendation for horror fans, in other words.