System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: Free
Comfort Rating: Green (No Movement)
Genre: Adventure
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers, Gamepad, Keyboard & Mouse
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG
Description: Our story takes place in Daiusu Village, an isolated hamlet in Japan built by persecuted Christians. But the Shogunate has given way to the Meiji Restoration, and now the villagers have built a great church and hope to bring new life to their village. Hamomoru Tachibana, our protagonist, visits Daiusu to catalogue its local history and folk tales.
A peaceful village, striving to enter the modern world and remember its past. However, one day a figure appears who seems to be none other than the Saint of the old village legends, and the village changes immediately. The villagers worship the Saint, and Hamomoru does not know how to respond. Are the Saint’s “miracles” real? And what of these people who claim to be “of the Dead”? We hope you will experience Daiusu Village, and its most curious tale, manifested in 3D.
Review: You play the role of protagonist Hamomoru Tachibana as you go around a Japanese themed village searching for answers on the how this “Saint” is seemingly performing miracles. This is more a graphical novel than an RPG, so you will be doing a little bit of clicking using the Oculus remote here and there, but most your time will be taken up with reading.
But read on as this storyline soon gets interesting and things in this Christian of villages are not what they first appear. It’s a case of point here to here and point over there to go there. All set in a dreamlike set with some crazy viewpoint moving patterns mixed in.
While I enjoyed the RPG style and the pretty interesting storyline in The Midnight Sanctuary, I just found myself wondering what the point of it being in VR was. It could just have easily been played on a flat 2D screen. Also, why release the demo when the full game is nowhere to be seen! Yes, it looks OK and the storyline keeps you reading, wondering what will happen next. But I never felt in control, like I was little more than an interactive RPG novel.
