I have always had a strong love for horror games ever since the day I was a kid, watching my dad play a rented copy of Silent Hill on the ps1 at my grandmother’s house. My love for the genre continued when I picked up the ds port of the first Resident Evil when it launched. I would proceed to play through it so many times that I could navigate the entire Spencer estate with my eyes closed and would often challenge myself to single-save runs. The ds was my favorite little handheld and while I slowly shifted towards more JRPG style games, the love for horror was still strong. I recall seeing a game called Dementium on shelves of my local game stores but never had the courage to pick it up. Although I missed my initial chance to play it on original hardware, I am grateful to have the opportunity to play it today and experience all the horror I missed out on.
Dementium: The Ward is a HD port of the title that was found back on the DS. This HD port manages to take the dual screen horror game and move it over to a single screen without putting the original experience at risk. This review is here to cover the PS5 version of the game due to its release today but it is also available on the Nintendo Switch as well so you can still get the portable experience in some capacity.
When we boot the game up, we are greeted to our character being trolleyed down the hallways of an eerie hospital that looks like it would fit right in with the town of Silent hill, with blood covering the walls and haunting echoes filling the hallway. One thing you will notice right away is the fact the game looks extremely grainy and has a low-fidelity look to it. This is due to the fact that the original game released back in 2007 and this is a port of the remaster that was done in 2015. If you enjoy this look then you can continue through the game without ever changing it up but if you want something with a bit more polish, you are able to switch over to a remastered style that cleans the visuals up here. All the screenshots here will utilize the remastered art style simply due to the fact that the older style tends to hurt my eyes when blown up on a bigger screen. I played the switch version of the game as well and did not find this to be an issue so it is something that is more of a preference than anything else.
As we wander through the haunted hospital, we are tasked with taking out the game’s small selection of enemies with the usual survival horror loadout including a pistol, shotgun, and a buzz saw that replaces our standard baton when we find it. The enemies we will be facing off against consist of basic zombie like creatures as well as some disturbing worm enemies that sound like a crying baby as they slither towards you. The introduction for these worm creatures does a wonderful job of making them seem unsettling but as the time goes on, you will simply find them to be more of a nuisance than anything else due to their small hitboxes. I went from trying to hit them with the baton to conserve ammo to simply blasting away with whatever I had the most ammo for. The zombie-like creatures can be taken out with the baton with minimal issues if you are able to keep your distance or strife around them. I genuinely wish the enemies were a little harder or presented a challenge outside of being more bullet sponges but they did manage to make me feel uncomfortable so they managed to serve their purpose in that aspect.
Combat is extremely simple and we don’t have to bother ourselves with worrying about running low on ammo since there is an abundance of it just laying astound in the various rooms we will be exploring. I felt like there was a little too much around on just the normal mode but this might stem from the fact I used the Baton on anything that wasn’t a boss and ran like hell when I was able to. The enemies do have a habit of rushing you the moment your flashlight hits them so it is important to be ready for whatever may be around the next corner. I found myself dying quite often due to the fact I wasn’t actually prepared for whatever was waiting in the next room. Since you are unable to carry both the flashlight and a weapon at the same time, you will find yourself trading off the security of knowing what’s down the hallway for the ability to take out enemies. While this isn’t as bad as it seems, one boss fight is abysmal due to the lack of vision and the fact that it is able to gun you down from across the hall while you cannot see it.
The haunted hospital we will find ourselves navigating does offer up a couple of puzzles that require us to think about how to get to the solution but the hardest part is navigation via the map. There are no markers on the map to indicate if a room has been thoroughly searched or if a key item was left behind so you will find yourself revisiting rooms quite frequently when it comes time to do some backtracking. I found myself ready to walk away from the game after receiving all the keys for a briefcase that I found in another room since I was unable to track down the suitcase room again. The map did nothing to really ease this frustration and by the time I found my objective, I was ready to walk away. There aren’t many moments where Dementium: The Ward drops the ball but when it does. It feels like it goes all out. The navigational issue aside, I did find myself getting sick at the camera swaying as our character moved through the hallway but simply chalked this up to being a product of its time. I understand patching this out would take away from the original experience but I would love to see it down to help make the game more accessible for players like myself.
When we aren’t taking out the cannon fodder of normal enemies that will rush you the moment that your flashlight hits them, we will be taking on a small list of boss enemies that usually boil down to the same strategy; circle around the arena and take the boss out with our best weapon before they die. Once again, the goal here is to be a short and interesting story without bogging us down with convoluted enemies but I would have liked to see more boss variety.
While it sounds like I am being mostly negative here, I want to reiterate that this is an extremely fun little adventure that is sure to please any horror fan that is looking for a shorter experience to run through. The corridors are haunting and the story does provide us with a very cliche but well done twist that has me ready to jump into the sequel, should they remaster it as well. With a solid 60fps and high resolution textures to give the game a more modern feeling, Dementium: The Ward is a wonderful addition to any survival horror fans backlog and is worth checking out.
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