Basilisk - 2000
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I really enjoy the mortifying feel of finding something you probably shouldn't have. Great execution of this, and I am still far from discovering most of the stuff you crammed in here.
I do wish, however, that along with the other ingame settings, you could add an auto run row (0, 1 off, on). It would make moving around and combing the levels a lot less intensive on the pinky. Might be a weird complaint, but it's hurting. My pinky... Keep it up!
As a person over thirty I understood in about 30 seconds that the original Basilisk is presented under the literary conceit of being an unfinished SNES game and Basilisk 2000 by the same developer is presented as an unfinished game on an unknown platform somewhere around 2000.
I don't mind any inexactness in the game premise, but if we want to get pedantic this would have to be a PC game, not a console game..
The other comments here are a little too focused on the looks. Okay, let's go over that. The PS2 launched in 2000 and the Dreamcast was already out. Games on those consoles would look notably "better" than this. The consoles beforehand would look a little worse, unless they used lots of pre-rendered assets (as was the craze at the time), which would require fixed camera angles if used for the environment.
But the problem isn't the graphics. Or well, not how good they look. It's the fact this game's genre was synonymous with the PC in the 90s to early 2000s.
- Daggerfall, 1996, MS-DOS only
- Diablo II, 2000, PC only
- Baldur's Gate II, 2000, PC only
Some of these games were just too damn big. Diablo II was 2GB and Baldur's Gate II was 3GB. The latter would've needed at least 5 PS1 discs, more if we consider that some things have to be copied to every disc, and since the game is not as linear as FF7 (1997) or Chrono Cross (1999), both of which had 3 discs, there's no way to sort what goes on what disc to minimize the switching.
But Daggerfall (1996) was less than 200MB, which would have fit on a single PS1 disc. It was still a PC exclusive. I believe the real reason is that western-style RPGs gradually evolved from text adventures like Colossal Cave Adventure (1976) and fully retained their strong PC association all the way to the 2000s. And I believe the primary reason that this association changed is because Microsoft entered the console market in 2001. Morrowind was available on Windows and Xbox. Everything available on Windows was on Xbox. And this encouraged the other console developers to better support and encourage games formerly limited to the PC.
Finally, since the game "was not finished", these are not the final assets. So we can't be sure how the game would have looked when it was done. It was very common at the time to push back or remake a game in development for a new upcoming console. So even if this had been originally slated for PS1, if development had continued this would likely have switched to PS2 and looked a lot different anyway. Or, more likely, it would've been on Windows and Xbox.
Even after the PS2 was released, plenty of developers continued to release games for the PS1 for some time. This game fits in that timeframe - and probably got canceled in-universe due to the disc-space issues and lack of funding to support a transition to the PS2.
Not to mention the near guaranteed failure of the game since it's an unpopular genre on the platform it's intended for.
It makes sense if you consider it for long enough.
Hey KIRA! I am just starting on Basilisk 2000, but watched some vids and its incredible! I wanted to say I don't have twitter, but saw that you posted about the Bangor Subway tunnel and my jaw dropped! I live 2 minutes away from that subway at the airport mall, and go there frequently. Sucks the airport mall is 90% empty storefronts now. I had no idea you visit Bangor Maine, hopefully I see you around sometime, I do research at uMaine at orono. Thanks for the games, btw.
One of the best games I've ever played. The concept of playing the game through the DevTool itself was executed extremely well and I am surprised that more games like this haven't been made. Piecing together what happens inside the actual game and real life is a blast. There are also some frankly jaw dropping moments, both from the horror elements and some of the subversive content within it. The only criticism I have is the hall of skeletons, as it breaks immersion early on and is said to be an easter egg only. Overall fantastic game and I hope to see more games utilize this concept.
As a person over thirty, nothing takes me out of these "found footage" horror games quite like when a project pretends that the SNES could run a game that had Playstation 1 graphics.Why? What do you gain by getting a detail this significant wrong by a whole console generation?
Yes, the SNES had Mode 7 graphics which allowed for some limited 3D effects, including scaling and rotation of sprites, and later on, the SuperFX chip, which allowed for a small number of flatshaded polygons. It absolutely did not have bloom, 3D shadows... no lighting of any sort, really.
The most it ever got used for was flat 2D maps viewed from a 3D angle like in Chrono Trigger, or flat-shaded full 3D games leveraging the Super FX chip like Starfox.
You would never,ever see a SNES game with fully-textured 3D models like this. That's a PS1 thing. The N64 would later add gourad shading and texture interpolation. Then the PS2 tied it all together with larger texture sizes and better lighting and interpolation. At some point, Doom 3 on PC introduced the concept of normal maps, and from then on graphics were basically a solved problem, and the console wars became mostly all about optimization, middleware, content, and more powerful hardware, rather than any visible innovation in graphics display techniques.
Not everybody is old enough to remember this history, but googling it is not hard.
Seriously, why not just call it a Playstation game!? I get that older technology = scarier, but you can get in that general ball park without committing to full-on anachronism. I feel like I was just watching a movie and I saw a Roman centurion wearing a wristwatch.
This isn't supposed to be an SNES game. "spiritual successor to the unreleased Super Nintendo game Basilisk". Nowhere does it say this specifically is supposed to be one.
Not sure if maybe you just left a review on the wrong game or not, but the "SNES" game is overhere. I think it's better to leave your review there instead, since it's not related to this specific game at all.
Wait, so the "unreleased super nintendo game" wasn't part of the "found game" lore? That is to say, the idea of Basilisk being a game that was started and then not released isn't a part of the backstory they made up for Basilisk 2000?
I'm so confused. I thought the core concept of Basilisk 2000 is a haunted rom of an unfinished game that we, the players, are picking through to get spooped by the ghost or whatever. I thought the text description of the game on this site was ARG-style backstory.
I guess you're telling me it's meant to be literal? Basilisk 2000 is sincerely meant to be a "spiritual successor" to a game that never came out in the first place? What does that evenmean?
Edit: No, wait. Now that I've read the description of the original Basilisk, I can see that it actuallyis what I thought the description of Basilisk 2000 was saying it was. I think the real problem is just that it says "snes" in the description. It's a red herring, and it's not supersceded by anything later on the page.
Granted, I read the description wrongly. That much is clear. But even re-reading it now, it comes across as really vague. It's not always clear whether the phrase "the game" refers Basilisk or Basilisk 2000. I came along (and hadn't previously heard of either game) and thought Basilisk 2000 was purporting itself to be a Unity wrapper for Basilisk.
It's just a big linguistic mess of a description. There's two real games about two fake games, and they drop a phrase like "the game," apparently trying to compare the new real game to the old real game couched in a framing device of describing how the new fake game relates to the old fake game??? and now I've gone cross-eyed.
He NEVER said it was a SNES game.
He said that this is a "SPIRITUAL SUCCESOR" to a SNES game.
It does not need to be made for the same console as the original,
just like doom eternal does not need to be made for the DOS system.
Like a sequel,
it improves by upgrades to hardware,
which is realistic.
Games in the real world evolve with the hardware.
So lets all chill out,
kay?
sorry for such a late reply ><
it just pointed steam at the executable, set the "start in" location to the containing folder, and explicitly told it to run using proton experimental. might be worth checking that the .exe is targeted properly, the spaces might make things messy ^~^
ran it on the steam deck, if hardware comes into question
This is a serious title with serious effort put behind it - and the execution matches the effort, perhaps even exceeding it. It REQUIRES patience, curiousity, and an unending hunger foreyesknowledge and understanding of what this even is, but it rewards you in spades for it.
You NEED the previous effort, though, to get the full experience, and you need to play them in order: search for "Basilisk" on the creators page to get the entire thing working.
Go in BLIND - even mewriting this and telling you what to expect and what to get feels like too much as-is. Seriously,DON'T do yourself a disservice by looking anything up about this game - enjoy it, and enjoy it thoroughly.
And take notes.
wowwwww that was incredible holy crap. Wow. I had to look at some youtube videos a couple times, and I did NOT figure out the snake medallion hint haha which is now so obvious.... but goddamn what an incredible game. I'm sure I missed stuff but seriously just...really amazing. The atmosphere, the way its designed, everything is just excellent.