So, did I understand the story correctly here?

[HazMat]

Obviously, I'm gonna spoil the entire story here, so if you haven't played this game and have any interest in doing so, I recommend that you stop reading now.

So, in the late 17th century, Susannah was living alone where the mansion would later stand, using mystical powers top help people in a nearby village. A man called Thomas Durham wanted the land, and got her tried and sentenced to death for witchcraft. Before she died, Susannah cursed the land and the Durham bloodline. There was also something there about Faith, Thomas' wife, knowing of Susannah before she dies and thought she was a-ok, but I might have missed something about that last part.

The curse makes the land barren and/or poisoned, and an evil entity starts stalking the Durham family.

Thomas and Faith Durham suffer a bunch of tragedies, but their bloodline manages to survive. In the late 19th century, Henrik Bosch (I liked that guy) lives in a mansion built on the land, and is a distant relative to the Durhams, I guess. He either adopts (or abducts?) a number of young girls from either an orphanage or a hospital or something to try and give them a better life. He also makes little clockwork dolls, which the evil entity possesses and uses to feed poisoned apples to the little girls and kill a police officer who comes to investigate, and then lets the possessed dolls kill him.

In the 1940's, Betty (who was definitely my favorite) is a distant relative who moves to the mansion (is drawn there?) and marries the man who currently lives there called Gene. She really, really loves Gene, and when he's called to fight in the war, Betty becomes desperate to save him, and when it becomes clear that she can't take his place, or simply travel to Europe and simply get him home, she tries desperately to contribute to the war effort in some way, but she's foiled at every attempt, which the evil entity might be encouraging supernaturally. When she learns that Gene has died, she commits suicide in the bathtub.

Then, probably in the 80's or 90's, a couple called Felicia and Richard Briar, moves in to the mansion. Felicia is of the old Durham bloodline, and into magic and charms and stuff. The evil presence starts making Felicia paranoid, especially concerning their daughter Cassandra, and Richard, being a psychiatrist (psychologist? The one who can prescribe medicine) starts medicating his wife. I assume the evil entity starts altering Felicia's mental problems so that the medicines are always wrong and makes things worse. Felicia is driven to light the house on fire, and Richard tried lowering a toddler Cassandra down a window to save her, but she falls and is rendered blind. I guess we can presume that people came to investigate the fire, found Cassandra, and placed her in an orphanage (I didn't know those were a thing anymore).

Cassandra grows up, and as an adult she starts having nightmares about the house, and goes to investigate. She walks through the different eras where the entity has killed her ancestors, and then finds herself at the tree where Susannah was hanged from. She frees Susannah, and I guess during that time she's forgiven the Durhams for the whole thing, or regretted that it affected people other than Thomas? The collective of ghosts help Cassandra defeat the evil thing, and the house is for some reason on fire. Cassandra jumps out the window, and then finds herself at home, where she and her boyfriend have an exchange that confused me, although when I think back at it, I guess that exchange was a flashback to when he picked her up outside the burning house after she jumped out the window.

Is this a reasonable interpretation of the events?
There are also a few things I'm wondering about.
- Was the house actually standing there, or was it like that spooky story about the hitchhiker who is invited to spend the night at the kindly old couple's house, and then when he talks about them in the nearby town the following day they say that house burned down years ago and when he goes back sure enough it's just charred ruins?
- So, about Susannah- she seems cool, even though she was the one who set the evil on the Durhams all those years ago? Like I said, did her spirit change its mind? Or, like, did the pain and horror by which she died unleash some sort of angry spirit and she couldn't help it? What's up with that?

[obiwankabg]

Good rundown! You're correct on about 90% or so. It all comes back to the curse, so in instances where it seems like, for example, Betty drowned herself, the house was making her think she was boarding a ship. The house finds your weaknesses and insecurities and exploits them.

Susannah did bring about the curse, but it was out of desperation and meddling with forces she didn't quite understand.

[HazMat]

Originally posted by obiwankabg:

Good rundown! You're correct on about 90% or so. It all comes back to the curse, so in instances where it seems like, for example, Betty drowned herself, the house was making her think she was boarding a ship. The house finds your weaknesses and insecurities and exploits them.

Susannah did bring about the curse, but it was out of desperation and meddling with forces she didn't quite understand.

Hey, thanks for responding.

Aah, okay. I see now. As Betty was rejected time and again (again, perhaps the curse's doing?) and was getting more and more desperate and gradually losing touch with reality, and by the time she drowned herself in the bathtub, she was really out of it, perhaps not realizing what was happening. This is all assuming she actually was rejected- perhaps the letter correspondences were all in her head.

I'm guessing it was the same thing with Felicia. Between the curse's influence and the medications, by the time she set the house on fire, she had lost all grip on reality. Although the part with her suicide was also a little strange. Did she commit suicide right after or during the fire? The house must have been standing for her to hang herself in it, so either it was put out and she wasn't taken away anywhere, or she partially came to around the time of the fire. She also seemed to felt the presence of someone, and I was under the impression that it was Betty. Did she feel Betty's presence and that made her think the supernatural things going on in the house were benevolent?

Henrik seems to have had the best understanding of what was going on in the end. He seemed to know that there was something very wrong with the house, but by then, the curse had killed his wards and his will to live. I need to replay it to find all the Durham touchstones- I'm pretty sure I missed some of those.

And Susannah didn't consciously curse anyone, it's just that she was magically inclined, and the manner of which she died let some Thing From Beyond enter the physical world and give it some power- mostly concerning hurting Thomas Durham and his family.

I really liked this game. It's a little rough in places, but the concept was great and the gimmick was interesting. I've always held that a survival horror game with a disabled protagonist would be a great idea.

Personally, I hope there's a sequel where Cassandra is a clairvoyant investigator. Still blind, but also still psychometric, and the ghosts of her relatives can give her supernatural insight into all kinds of subjects- Richard knows medicines, Felicia knows charms and magic, Betty knows guns and military things, Henrik knows mechanical things and metallurgy and stuff.

[Francis]

Great job, I just rage quitted the game after chapter 1, because she is a little TOO blind for my taste. But was interested in the story.

[HazMat]

Originally posted by Gabriela-Elicia:

Great job, I just rage quitted the game after chapter 1, because she is a little TOO blind for my taste. But was interested in the story.

Aaw, too bad. I liked that whole feature. I guess perhaps it wasn't the most optimal way to implement it into a game, but A for innovation and effort I say.

[Francis]

Originally posted by HazMat:

Originally posted by Gabriela-Elicia:

Great job, I just rage quitted the game after chapter 1, because she is a little TOO blind for my taste. But was interested in the story.

Aaw, too bad. I liked that whole feature. I guess perhaps it wasn't the most optimal way to implement it into a game, but A for innovation and effort I say.

I like the "blind, but can see" stuff. But I found it to be much better in "Another Sight". In Perception I felt really blind and had to whack that stick like an idiot because it was so black. Then the presence got angry and I provoked it by jamming the stick even more often into the ground, because I was p*****d off because I can't see. So... that little feud with the demon-thingy ruined it for me.

[HazMat]

Originally posted by Gabriela-Elicia:

Originally posted by HazMat:

Aaw, too bad. I liked that whole feature. I guess perhaps it wasn't the most optimal way to implement it into a game, but A for innovation and effort I say.

I like the "blind, but can see" stuff. But I found it to be much better in "Another Sight". In Perception I felt really blind and had to whack that stick like an idiot because it was so black. Then the presence got angry and I provoked it by jamming the stick even more often into the ground, because I was p*****d off because I can't see. So... that little feud with the demon-thingy ruined it for me. :TheFlamingo:

The storymode might be for you then. And that's not to be derisive- I mostly played it in storymode myself.

[Francis]

Originally posted by HazMat:

The storymode might be for you then. And that's not to be derisive- I mostly played it in storymode myself.

But than it's not scary anymore, I guess. What does the presence do in that mode?

[HazMat]

Originally posted by Gabriela-Elicia:

Originally posted by HazMat:

The storymode might be for you then. And that's not to be derisive- I mostly played it in storymode myself.

But than it's not scary anymore, I guess. What does the presence do in that mode?

Oh, yeah there is that I guess. Storymode was good for me because whatever part of my brain that handles being scared by video games overloaded in 2003 when I played Silent Hill 3 and hasn't worked properly since.

[Francis]

haha I still get scared when my mind suggests
"Hey, wanna play Silent Hill 3 again?" - "No! GTFO brain!!"
One of the scariest games ever. And in PS2 times you were so helpless. I bet if it were made in 2020 I would feel more agile in it. Heather felt so real when a creepy huge ass Bouncer stumbled towards her. Like "Not gonna shoot that, just run! D:"

I guess that's part of the reason the presence didn't scare me in the Normal mode. Once it was angry the rooms were finally lit with orange-reddish light and there was no nightmarish creature bouncing around. Just some ghost.

[HazMat]

Originally posted by Gabriela-Elicia:

haha :TheFlamingo: I still get scared when my mind suggests
"Hey, wanna play Silent Hill 3 again?" - "No! GTFO brain!!"
One of the scariest games ever. And in PS2 times you were so helpless. I bet if it were made in 2020 I would feel more agile in it. Heather felt so real when a creepy huge ass Bouncer stumbled towards her. Like "Not gonna shoot that, just run! D:"

I guess that's part of the reason the presence didn't scare me in the Normal mode. Once it was angry the rooms were finally lit with orange-reddish light and there was no nightmarish creature bouncing around. Just some ghost. :lunar2020ratinablanket:

Oh at first I thought you were talking about the corridor with the light that chases you in Silent Hill 3. That was the worst/best part. Thanks for mentioning Another Sight though, that looks fun.

[Francis]

Sure thing, Another Sight is really awesome. Story is a bit vague, bit the fun part is the gameplay itself.

[Lin]

Thank you for that great summary! That is how I would understand the story, too. You just had some more details pointed out. On a second walkthrough I will get the story much more! Can't wait. :)

[HazMat]

Originally posted by Lin:

Thank you for that great summary! That is how I would understand the story, too. You just had some more details pointed out. On a second walkthrough I will get the story much more! Can't wait. :)

No problem.

[RufusDaws]

Any tits in this game?

[HazMat]

Originally posted by RufusDaws:

Any tits in this game?

None that you can see.