Layers Of Fear Review
Official Score
Overall - 70%
70%
Overall Layers Of Fear is a creepy game that misses the scary mark. The experience is worth going through if you have the extra cash but don't expect to be scared out of your mind by it.
Layers of Fear attempts to bring horror to you from the perspective of a painter. Is the game a stroke of genius, or will the game leave you sleeping in your chair? Check out our Layers Of Fear honest game review here to help you make your choice!
Layers Of Fear Review
[line style=’solid’ top=’10’ bottom=’10’ width=’100%’ height=’1′ color=’blue’] Layers of Fear tosses you into your mansion and then says play. While you have no idea what the objective is at first, you quickly find out you need to finish your painting. This is meant to be your best painting yet, so you will need to find all of the right pieces to get it right. Paint and easels right? Wrong. Layers of Fear sends you on a journey through the mind of a psychotic, alcoholic painter as he searches for all his tools. Each piece you find tells a story and reveals more about the sinister painters family and his methods. By the end of the game, around 2-3 hours, you will find out all about his “creative” process.I can’t really knock it for the story, it works well for this type of game. I can knock it for the scares though. Yes, there will be some jump scares in the game, but they are few and far between. The game doesn’t really deliver on the whole scary thing but it does pull off creepy. You deal with a plethora of fears such as heights, rats and dolls. The dolls and paintings will always be looking at you and various noises will have the hair on the back of neck standing up. The spot that was prime for jump scares was often spoiled by making it far too obvious. You will literally see the person who is going to jump scare you and then you walk up to them and bam, it happens. Not sure why they took this route.
For the most part the lighting in the game is great. The use it to make a room more eerie, or to play tricks on you with the shadows from outside. Sometimes you are even robbed of light just so you will be put on edge for a moment or two. That’s a great use of lighting. A not so great use of lighting is placing tiny checker pieces in pitch black areas that you need to find. You have no flashlight or anything like that so when it is dark, it is dark. Other than the lighting, the sound helps add to the game and creates an immersive experience. It provides music that helps set the tone for the game and sound effects that will get into your head.
I played on PlayStation 4 and for the most part the game performed well, in a technical sense. I had a few framerate issues early on but towards the end it was really starting to stutter – not something I would expect from a game that doesn’t appear to push the PlayStation 4’s limits. When opening doors or in rooms with too many objects the game would slow down quite a bit. The game never crashed or froze entirely but I definitely noticed the frame drops on more than one occasion. Outside of the frame issues I didn’t really run into any glitches or game-breaking bugs.
Overall Layers Of Fear is a creepy game that misses the scary mark. The experience is worth going through if you have the extra cash but don’t expect to be scared out of your mind by it.
[infobox style=’success’ static=’1′]This review of Layers Of Fear was based on the PlayStation 4 version. A digital code was provided by the publisher.[/infobox]
Thanks for the great, edited review Johnny_Hurricane. The game might not have the jump scares, but it is very creepy, I felt like it was inspired by PT, and it won’t be the first I imagine.
Definitely inspired by PT. I agree with the score and that the jump scares were overall pretty predictable. I was a bit disappointed with the length of the game (2-3 hours) and the ending was a bit uninspiring. Thanks for the review Johnny!
This is a nice review
You deserve eggs Kappa
I’ll have to give this a shot! I’ve been looking for a new horror game to play, haven’t found a really decent one in a while though…
I completely agree with the jump scares. They were way too predictable and not only that but the stereotypical “spooky” icons were just not able to be taken seriously. Good review!
Great Review Johnny! I can easily agree that the scares become boring fast and doesn’t hit the level of scariness it should. Looking forward to seeing another one of your reviews 🙂
From what I’ve seen played of it, by yourself and another in the Hero Network, game actually looked sort of fun. Still looks enjoyable, but I wish the creep factor was higher than what you perceive.
Definite sad-face over that one.
Great review Johnny. I wasn’t a huge fan of this game once it got going, but it wasn’t bad. I’ll keep an eye on the site, because I want to see more reviews from you guys.
I would rate the game the same as well. I think the jumpscares in the game are the kind that I’d fall off my chair to because of how sudden they are but then they start getting slightly predictable. It seems inspired by PT, since the graphics look similar, in my opinion. 7/10 would play again. Great review, by the way!!
I havent played this game but from what ive seen it looks pretty good
Hmm interesting review regarding how lackluster the game is in the scary factor. I agree how it misses the mark in being scary and how you can see the jump scare coming. I’ve seen gameplay from the hero network streamers and found the story at least equally interesting. The effects were nice to help scare me, but I was quickly desensitized as the game went on. Thanks for the review.
this review literally saved my life
this review is very good! i think im gonna buy this game now 🙂
this game is awesome, love watching jumpscares to this game even though i would never play scary games like this
this game seems like a very good game to play. alot of jump scares. pretty damn scary. im not a fan of games with jump scares but i still think this game looks pretty good to play.
Great review Johnny, probably won’t get it until it’s on sale though, I want a true jump scare game.
Horror games thrive on the immersive soundscape. You miss that, and you miss the “scary mark” like Johnny mentioned. Juggernauts like Dead Space 1, Silent Hill 2, F.E.A.R., all have audio cues and sound effects that are very immersive and truly scary at times. They bring you in, and hold on tight to your attention. In this, some of the “scares” were eyerolls, ruining the immersive moments.
The review was right on the mark (pun intended), and hopefully Bloober looks past the explosive popularity of Layers Of Fear, learns from the mistakes. Looking forward to that day!
“misses the scary mark” ya I totally wasn’t scared watching people stream it…. Also a cool thing to note about this game was the development strategy, they released Early Access a long time ago but only revealed part of the plot, when it was fully released most people had already heard the name so they were more likely to play it.