Gloomy Eyes PS5 Review
Summary: Making the macabre sweet and cute whilst challenging players to solve puzzles via two different characters.
4.3
Macabre Magic
Let’s get it out of the way to start with… it’s not hard to see the Tim Burton influence here. The description of “Tim Burton-esque levels” is about as on the money as you could get, and that’s a brilliant thing!
Gloomy Eyes has a lot of atmosphere and character to it, and they both really help to draw you into the world. Coupled with the narrator, who sounds as if they are recounting a classic tale to you as you are heading off to sleep, the game definitely grabs you from the start. That aforementioned tale essentially involves two unlikely companions, Gloomy (the titular character), a sweet zombie boy (no, that’s not an oxymoron… here at least) and Nena, a mischievous young human girl, who together must work to bring back the daylight.
The gameplay is arguably a big part of where this shines (partial pun intended). You start as Gloomy but very soon are introduced to Nena, at which point you can control her. The trick is to switch between the two characters to overcome obstacles and solve puzzles. For the most part, this works really well and it’s certainly my sort of multiplayer game… co-op (the fact that it’s one player co-op is great for those of us without people to play with). I did, however, encounter a slight issue when I had to move an item but I hadn’t moved Nena out of the way… once the item had been moved I was no longer able to move it back and as a result Nena could no longer move… effectively soft-locking the game. Fortunately, checkpoints are reasonably frequent so it doesn’t cost you much progress to just restart from the last one.
Each of the areas you need to work through are actually little dioramas and can be viewed as such (by clicking the touchpad). You can rotate around to find hints as to what you need to do or to look at where you need to go… or just to enjoy the worlds that have been built for you to play in. I will say that I found that any form of manipulating the camera angle (both in diorama view and in the normal view) is unpleasant… it doesn’t feel overly free-flowing and often results in just a totally obscured view… fortunately you don’t really have to use the “free look” style to solve anything… it’s really just to give you a different perspective (and possibly a throwback to the VR origins).
Final Thoughts:
I had quite a bit of fun with Gloomy Eyes. There aren’t any jump scares or frightening elements… it’s all very “cutesy” “horror”… absolutely Tim Burton-esque… think The Corpse Bride or The Nightmare Before Christmas specifically. In fact I could easily imagine a line of toys of the characters and book nook versions of the dioramas… who wouldn’t want a Gloomy or Nena plushie? But in all seriousness, Gloomy Eyes is a fun, low-risk game that provides a nice little bit of puzzle action with a captivating story told by a lovely voice (I believe the original narrator was Colin Farrell… I assume it is still him in the non-VR version… either way… lovely story-telling). It’s certainly worth a play either for adults or children alike!
About the Author
Chris O'Connor Father of four, husband of one and all round oddity. Gaming at home since about 1982 with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Moving on to the more traditional PC genre in the years that followed with the classic Jump Joe and Alley Cat. CGA, EGA, VGA and beyond PC's have been central to my gaming but I've also enjoyed consoles and hand helds along the way (who remembers the Atari Lynx?). Would have been actor/film maker, jack of many trades master of none.
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