Memorable Moments: Eternal Darkness - Sanity's Requiem

There are so many great games out in the world ready and waiting to be consumed by individuals.  Some games have many memorable moments that can stay with us for a long time in a similar way to certain pieces of art, books, music or film.  What make games special is they have the unique ability to allow a person to interact with the story and the world in ways that other mediums cannot.  Games like 'Life is Strange' and 'Until Dawn' allow the audience members to participate in a story that has branching narrative paths, which mean many people's experiences can differ in the same title.  It can create that water cooler effect where people can talk about the same title and have an interesting discussion about their own unique experiences.  Even games without branching narrative paths can create some impactful memorable moments, which can affect us all uniquely.

Moment: Choosing the difficulty setting

Format played on: Nintendo GameCube

In the majority of games the player would select their desired difficulty setting on the title screen, where a piece of text representing the difficulty would be waiting to be selected.  Eternal Darkness however, proved to use this feature in a more creative manner, by incorporating the options within the gameplay.   It would not be until the end of the first tomb that the player would be given the option of choosing a difficulty setting.  By choosing 1 of 3 artifacts, each representing a fictional god, the player would essentially be offered 3 different degrees of difficulty.  Choose the green artifact and the player's sanity meter would be the most susceptible, choose the blue artifact and the player's magic meter would rapidly drain or by choosing the red artifact the player's health meter would become vulnerable.  Also, depending on which artifact is chosen, story events would play out slightly differently, which in turn added replay value for those who wanted to see everything the the game had to offer.  For those that persevered through all difficulties they would be rewarded with the ultimate and true ending.  The concept of choosing a difficulty setting in such  way was rather revolutionary at the time and only helped with the immersion of the story.  Not only did the feature change the mechanics of the game, but it altered sequences in the main story, meaning that each playthrough would offer something unique and new.