Intro: This year, in the world of gaming we have seen games released and delayed faster than babies being born after Woodstock. We’ve seen several titles come to fruition, some in the making for years. And then, we see an unexpected title come to life and save a year of waiting on games to come to fruition. Amnesia Rebirth is a game and takes place 100 years after the Dark Descent. Vitae…Life…The search for immortality. Vitae is Latin for life and can extend the life of a person if consumed in generous quantities. In each game that is the greatest search that each protagonist has, the search for longer life and to remember who they truly are.
Pregnant and In a chaotic world: much like any amnesia game, we start off confused disoriented and asking to allot of questions. Tasi Trianon is an archeologist who wakes up after the plane she's in crashes she then has Amnesia in which she is recovering the lost memories for the entire game. At a certain point, she realizes that she is pregnant, and (at an increasing speed) gets bigger, and bigger as time passes to her amazement. Through the game, she is recovering lost bits from the passengers that escaped the wreckage, and also finds her dead husband in the process, which sends her into the semi-chaotic mental spiral. While searching for all her missing team members she finds things that she did not expect, along with uncovering the truth that has been buried away for over 100 years. The young French woman who is very much pregnant and is producing Vitae for two has to keep her fear levels low. Much like the previous Amnesia games you can hide, throw items, and keep track of your sanity levels. Tasi is more of a Lara croft I feel since she is put in every hellish unimaginable circumstance while carrying a child and comes out victorious.
Amnesia the Dark Descent, and this universe of the 1930’s ties together beautifully! With the notes mentioning Brennenburg castle, the orb room, and Brennburgs discoveries on Vitae, etc.
. I found it wonderful how they kept everything from the Dark Descent and molded it with a new story that continued (in a sense) where the first game left off!
In the world of amnesia Rebirth, there is the Creation of this machine for death that gets turned into energy, or in some cases torturing a person until their death to receive vitae as a sustainable energy source, the environmentalists would be proud. Each game gets darker in its motive in how energy is used. The first game was used as mystical energy revenue that prolonged life, or even made the person immortal. In machine, for pigs (which was sixty years after the Dark Descent, ) Oswald Mandus continues the work of Brennenburg, and now in Amnesia Rebirth we see the manufacturing of Vitae on such a grand scale that its ability to power an entire city/shrine that the empress presides over and that keeps her alive. Death brings life, life that is manipulated/tortured brings eternal life, an interesting concept.
Monsters, Mechanics, Mayhem OH MY! So, I have NEVER, and I mean NEVER loved the mechanics of a game more than I have this one. They are smooth; they are not glitchy at all whatsoever! There are normally some glitches in movement in a PC game, but with this one there was none whatsoever, so hats off to the dev team! The transitions from different scenes, whether it's cut scenes, waking from being killed, or the character's movements it was seamless! I am a stickler for controls and ease of use, and this game raises the bar for a lot of PC games in my opinion. Now, in accordance with amazing control work, there is also amazing monster character design, it kept in the same tone with the Dark Descent, but was unique, re-imagined, and actually spooky! Let's start with the mutated ghouls, which are also known as harvesters who are turned into their form from prolonged forms of fear from what I gathered which in it itself is fascinating that fear can turn one into a monster. These harvesters collect pain and suffering from humans to produce vitae for the empress and her city. Now, this next monster we are discussing is my favorite and is something so unique and original. They are the ghosts of the other world's alchemists and magicians who perished in the empire's collapse in the destruction of the Great Gate. They look like something straight out of bloodborne, and are ethereal, flowing, soul-eating monsters that make my imaginative musings ruin rapidly. Much like ghouls, wraiths hunt for vitae, and when they were once human they used so much vitae that they became corrupted to an extent from excessive use of said vitae and control stones to have power over the ghoulish harvesters.
Yes There is Vitae In Real life, Well Sort of: Scientifically there is such a thing as “vitae” it's just not called that. Adrenochrome produced by the oxidization of adrenaline (epinephrine). The derivative carbazochrome is a hemostatic medication. If we want to take this a step further we could put this into reality with the example that an Adrenochrome was made from the activation of the Amygdala which performs a primary role in the processing of memory, decision -making, and emotional responses (including fear, anxiety, and aggression). This wouldn’t make all that much sense considering the fact that adrenochrome is a hemostatic medication used to stop bleeding when in this game, you need A LOT OF BLOOD to produce vitae, so kind of contradictory but it will work for now.
Hope, a Resolution, or Maybe Just Tasi’s Down Fall: Final Thoughts
Getting to the end of the game, Tasi gives birth, the doctor who you were trying to get to for a better part of half the game runs away and the empress tries to take your baby. It was all leading up to the point where Tasi had to make a choice….There three endings in this game, the bad ending where you leave the baby with the empress and you turn into the wretched thing you’ve been running from, a harvester. Ending two, which is the good ending where you take the baby and escape back to Paris, and the third ending where you destroy the world in which you reside killing you, your baby, and all the ghouls and wraiths alike. I got the harvester ending because I thought leaving my baby in wraith Esque ethereal hands would work, no it didn’t. I was fooled; I was tricked and was turned into a veiny ghoul goblin. This game is a masterpiece and is the best Amnesia game to come out since the Dark Descent. The story, the controls, the characters, the monsters, the ominous feeling of going past the point of no return all in the name of the conservation of life and the concept of immortality.