Lust from Beyond Review
Release Date: March 11, 2021
Developer: Movie Games Lunarium
Platforms: PC
Price: $19.99
The beauty of the Horror genre is that it can come in all different sorts of presentations and aesthetic, each with its own theme that aims to provoke and illicit emotions and reactions that can range anywhere from terrified to repulsed, flummoxed to deranged, and beyond. Whether in the presence of a malevolent force, in a haunted building, or on sacred grounds, the feeling or uncertainty and eeriness can be painted many different ways, and in the case of Lust from Beyond following up from its 2018 predecessor, Lust for Darkness, it focuses on the occult and erotica to define and showcase its psychological freights. It's easy to look at Lust for Darkness's erotic dressing as a sort of exploit to immediately gaze towards it and wonder just what's going on, but truthfully Lust for Darkness and Lust from Beyond both do it in a sort of tasteful way that more so accentuates the narrative and religious undertones that drive its gameplay and use anatomical references as a way to sculpt its unique environments, statues, objects, and the like to give its canvas of eroticism while something much more sinister is going on.
Lust from Beyond, much like Lust for Darkness before it, continues its shock-from-imagery approach while making sure to continue providing an engaging experience that keeps things memorable aside from just remembering what it is that you saw, but making sure that feeling of uncertainty and discomfort lingers well after you've finished playing, but also have this odd sort of pull that makes you gravitate towards coming back and getting all collectibles and achievements as Movie Games does a great job at having a structured and competent design philosophy that puts in just enough depth where it matters without fully overwhelming the player or making the game feel like it's overstaying its welcome. Playing as Victory Holloway, your goal is to find answers to all the strange dreams you've been having - dreams that don't seem remotely normal and clearly hold some sort of message or destiny - and doing whatever it takes to unravel the true meaning of the abhorrent visions he's been having where pain and pleasure know no difference. Lust from Beyond, like its predecessor, combines the elements of desire, fascination, and fear to help keep its story and gameplay gripping, with twists and challenges in just about every corner.
It needs to be addressed immediately, however, before we go any further that one of the first things you'll notice when starting a new game - which is preceded by a simple yet clean main menu - is the egregiously long load times that is without a doubt the worst when starting up the game whether for the first time or to load a previous save file. This can feel like it takes ages as you can be waiting up to about three minutes wondering if the game is going to crash or not. Thankfully in my playthrough the game never crashed once and, if anything, actually ran extremely well outside of its loading issues, and while you won't *always* be waiting upwards of three minutes, even at its quickest you could still have plenty of time to have a bathroom break or make yourself a quick sandwich. As you can imagine, because of this, a big sense of frustration begins to build when sudden deaths occur (such as accidentally falling off of a high structure or making a blind wrong turn), and it ruins the immersion entirely -- a huge shame seeing as Lust from Beyond does well to grip you and keep things fairly captivating otherwise. It's arguably one of the most dreadful parts of the game, as all of its other systems - while in the realm of survival horror - are rather reasonable if you're familiar with the genre and only really become a nuisance through poor management, which is already fairly flexible. In addition to a standard health system, Lust from Beyond continues Lust for Darkness's system that is similar to what Amnesia popularized so long ago with an sanity meter, causing things to become more vile and twisted if your stability drops. Though they're not in huge supply, the events that occur in the game that can cause you to see things and make things harder as you go is circumvented by taking pills to help Victor regain his footing, and so long as you're not abusing them you should be fairly fine throughout your playthrough. A neat little addition that I quite can't remember was present in Lust for Darkness are "buffs" that you can acquire to help complement your playstyle, such as increasing sneak speed and allowing for a higher percentage of health as well as a more stable mental state so you're not as affected by stress. Truthfully the game would be the same and play perfectly well even without these, but the addition still gives a nice sense of leverage to play and attune to your preferred methods.
Regardless of how you choose to play, one thing is for certain: Combat is not recommended. Some survival horror games will have you mostly sneak around and then occasionally defend yourself, but you can always usually see where priorities lie in terms of development and polish once combat usually occurs. Any sort of engagement with an enemy rather than avoiding them entirely usually results in some sort of frustrating encounter where a blunt weapon or gun can feel janky, sluggish, or downright broken with hitboxes all over the place that more often than not make absolutely no sense at all, feeling like every swing or shot taken has a hit ratio based off of gacha mechanics. While minimal, Lust for Darkness and Lust from Beyond do contain elements of combat in which, sometimes, you'll have no choice but to defend yourself in some manner where running simply won't be enough, but thankfully Lust from Beyond understands that both you and your character are not expected to be experts of any sort, and instead highly recommend running away instead for your best chance of survival. Confrontation is hardly ever worth it, and Lust from Beyond doesn't pretend to have it all fleshed out like some other survival horror games do that fall in the same sort of general progression and mechanics, so it's much appreciated that the game pretty much tells you to high tail it on out of there to avoid the headache altogether. It's made fairly apparent quickly, anyways, that Victor is not skilled in close quarters combat, and with the sluggish nature of his swings and the like, it's a wonder why anyone would even bother to attack those that are chasing you, especially when you're already outnumbered to begin with and left to fend for yourself. Lust from Beyond has undoubtedly grown into a much superior version of its predecessor, however, and while the story may not be as strong, it's no doubt that as a studio Movie Games has listened to community feedback from Lust for Darkness and subsequent standalone demos of Lust from Beyond to make sure they have their most refined game to date, with not only a much more intuitive and seamless system as a whole, but graphically pushing itself to even greater heights.
Lust from Beyond is a successor to Lust for Darkness in more ways than one as it's not only much more polished and refined than its predecessor, but also a bigger, deeper, and dare I say more *fleshed* out game as a whole. While the narrative isn't as strong or consistent as Lust for Darkness due to its change of characters through its chapters and back and forth between its real and erotic dimensions, the vast environments give much more flavor to Lust from Beyond's setting and makes it much more enjoyable to explore and play through, with a few collectibles hidden throughout and enough puzzles to keep things engaging and the brain stimulated. It overall makes the game feel much more whole, and because of the more sensible decisions between its puzzle and level design, there's not nearly as much frustration when it comes to objective and direction that unfortunately plagued a lot of Lust for Darkness's fundamental design. Lust from Beyond has a sense of craftsmanship that goes well above your typical horror game, and in terms of level design in general - thanks to its setting - has some of the most unique environments you'll likely ever see. Too many horror games or those set in specific genres follow tropes that can feel stale or bland with your usual dilapidated house, dark hallways, generic demonic being, or the sort that feel all too familiar and tend to make you roll your eyes, but Movie Games continues to show that their prowess in delivering unseen experiences is up there with Bloober Team as the new masters of horror. What's even better is that for those that may be interested in Lust from Beyond but may either not be old enough or simply don't want to see any of the more graphic adult content the game provides, it makes it accessible to those with both an uncensored and censored mode options that's always made immediately available once the game boots up, regardless if you've already started a new game or not, meaning if you've begun the game in uncensored mode, made it half way and realize the more erotic images may not be to your liking, a censored mode is made available that doesn't require a new game to do so. Lust from Beyond does a lot of things right in what you'd typically want from a sequel, but at the same time the saying "don't fix what's not broken" remains true here as well, keeping things familiar to those who have played the first and the horror titles that prefer a more linear and stealth approach for its survival methodology. Lust from Beyond may have its quirks and slight bugs, but overall is a well-optimized experience that stands out in the influx of horror games from a plethora of studios we seemingly get every week that still borrow from a tired formula. As someone who loves the horror genre deeply, games like Lust from Beyond remind me why I do, and it's because there's this sense of creativity that's sometimes unparalleled compared to most other genres, and that just about anything can be made into a terrifying experience with a slight change of perspective.
PROS:
A clear successor in every way, providing much more polish, refinement, and sound structure over its predecessor
The environmental detail and design really draws you in
Atmosphere and puzzles feel a lot more focused, making it easier to concentrate and enjoy
CONS:
Some character models are low detail
Occasional interaction bug where prompts won't work
A huge thank you to Movie Games for providing us a copy of Lust from Beyond for the purposes of this review