I have had this game wishlisted for almost 3 years and I really wanted more out of it. While I do give the game an overall positive recommendation, there are some extremely easily fixable things with the game that could make the experience significantly more enjoyable for the average player.

POSITIVES: The overall story, while obviously very Silent Hill inspired, had its own take and felt they made it their own. Very beautiful and well crafted environments. The use of the hospital and train station and subsequent mix of the two was a fun well thought out continuation for the story. All of the characters within the game are distinct and have very clear personalities. Most of the puzzles were fun, unique, and were enjoyable to do.


NEGATIVES: First of all, knowing the game was delayed multiple times and still seeing the issues it had are the primary reasons for my disappointment, as many of them could have been solved in QA. Subtitles were oddly timed or just incorrect entirely. Had a few bug issues regarding screen loading, interactions, and swapping items in the menu. I had a few issues with camera clipping and going into areas I wasn't supposed to have access to and almost soft locking myself. We weren't given the time to get to know or appreciate the characters we were introduced to and as such, we didn't care about the outcome of what happens to them. This game, despite the delays, ultimately feels unfinished.

I would still recommend it as something that is relatively inexpensive and overall pleasant to play, but I REALLY hope the developers spend some time and update and patch the largest impacts to the player experience and make the game run smoothly.

Post Trauma is a sad case of a game that makes strong first impression but completely loses steam shortly after. There are aspects of the game that are absolutely worthy of praise, the visual design for majority of the game creates fun looking environments, small changes that occur as you hit certain triggers are a great touch, i.e. randomly appearing and moving mannequins. The music has big ups and downs, there are tracks that are unique and feel like they fit really well into this world and style but then some tracks shift and you end up listening to ''Yamaoka at home''. Puzzles much like music have great moments but also some feel almost abhorrently lazy, much like the game as a whole, some of the most fun horror game puzzles occur in the first hour or so and then, it seems like the team gave up, ran out of time/money, combination of the two.

The game is fairly short, my 4.3 hours is including going off to grab a drink or some food. It's not difficult (at least on the ''normal''/intended difficulty) and the puzzles are well presented in good number of cases, and the ones that are almost too vague are fairly easy to brute force if you at least understand some of the idea behind the design of it. Combat is never really all that good, or even fun, even being gimped by having a stamina system Roman runs faster than most enemies and can easily juke those that catch up. I've had to use two medkits, accidentally used third when I was absentmindedly flicking through weapon shortcuts while walking around the maze towards the end of the game. None of the enemies pose any challenge from moment one they appear, bosses have obvious blind spots where you can stand and poke them to death without taking a single point of damage. Navigating the environments can be annoying with some of the camera angles being weirdly broken, not switching to the next one until you're almost another screen away, this is alleviated slightly by all the levels being only a fraction in size when compared to the levels the games Post Trauma claims to be inspired by were, you'd think it'd be cutting down on dead air, even if there are still some more or less empty rooms that don't do much for you.

I think my biggest sore point with Post Trauma is how it handles its story, characters and the obvious admiration the dev team has for Silent Hill 2, and don't get me wrong I do love me some Quiet Mountain 2: Electric Boogaloo Sad White Boi Adventures, but also Team Silent knew how to handle the themes, weave a narrative to make sure all characters embody a specific aspect of the story, you as the player, experience leading you towards an ending the game deems to be appropriate for the way you engaged with the story and gameplay. I still go back to my PS2 and play the game, even with the remake out, but that's the thing I can just go back and do that. Post Trauma seems to be wanting to deal with the themes of trauma, guilt and sorrow, but never really does, it doesn't give the characters any quiet moments to contemplate or really challenge their personal biases, or that of the player. The game several times shifts in POV to that of a different character, the brief school bit was probably the least obnoxious one, the police department ones on the other hand were unintentionally hilarious, mainly due to the internal dialogue from the character, channelling Shadow The Hedgehog so hard, you'd think you can hear Chris Chan singing in the background, while giving you only the vaguest idea about this character, genuinely just making them extremely funny and hard to take seriously.

The story does try, but we never really get any proper insight into the world, backstory of any character. Complete lack of any major text logs, diaries, memos, notes...the staple of any PS2 horror game is baffling, it's the laziest but also the simplest way to bulk up your world building, make people get invested into characters they'll likely to never encounter or foreshadow future story events/combat encounters. So the way it ends up feeling is bland mix of a few interesting ideas and a summary of Silent Hill 2 breakdown video on YT. I hate saying that about something obviously had a good amount of effort and care put into it. Post Trauma is a game that goes with style over substance, I'd love to see the studio take another jab at the genre, just have them do it without the attempts to ape something even a major studio with full backing could not completely capture in a remake of the said game.

I'll paraphrase one of my favourite random internet quotes ''Silent Hill 2 is the best and the worst thing to happen to the survival horror genre.''

Couple notes on the game that I couldn't fit anywhere:
- subtitles don't match the voice over, either subtitle script is missing words or the lines don't match completely
- the map on the wall in school segment I'm pretty sure doesn't show the player position correctly (the ''you're here'' arrow is in the wrong position on that map
- sometimes the game just randomly spits out an error message loading your save, crashing desktop
- the weapon shortcuts sometimes don't work with the weapon you get in the chapel after the fight
- the dodge almost feels like it has no place in the game, Roman's pretty unfit and functionally it'll get you hurt more often than not, and strafing around enemies is just way more effective

I have been on the look out for a good horror game. There's something very cathartic when finishing a good horror game. Post Trauma hit my radar because of the Horror Games Community on Twitter (@horrorvisuals) and due to Gabsmoulder's playing the demo. So is it worth the hype? Yes and no.

Post Trauma focuses on Roman, an older gentleman who wakes up on subway train and no recollection on how he woke up there. He then solves a puzzle, gets off the train and finds himself in a nightmare world with pulsing tentacles. So where is he? And can he leave?

Post Trauma hints at what traumas Roman went through to be stuck there, but nothing is fully given on what he did. The story feels like a fever nightmare. The comparisons to Silent Hill are somewhat inevitable. They both contain heavy stories, dreary visuals that lets the environment tell part of tell the story, and some exploration.

Game play is very much steeped in the puzzle side of horror games. Most of the puzzles are environmental in nature in that you have to pay attention to what's going on around you. My favorite puzzle is the blood pressure one as there are readers on the wall. And once I figured out the logic behind it i was proud of myself. Be prepared to use the note section in your phone to figure things out. Yes, there's an inventory limit of 6 for weapons / ammo / med kits. Key items have their own slots and I never ran out of space. There were a few times I had to re-run the area to find missing items. As such, I really want my own map. Only 1 level has a map, and it's a picture on the wall. Then there's the super obtuse puzzles, like the grid one. I have no clue how the solution was figured out.

Then there's the combat. It's clunky. Not the good kind of clunky. It's the bad kind of clunky. Dodging isn't easy. In some ways it's easier to avoid using the lock on mechanic and just manually attack. There's no stockpiling on ammo as it'll only show up if you have the need for it. I only held 1 extra package of the pistol and shotgun shells, respectively the entire game. Thank goodness it isn't the emphasis.

Graphically, the game is dark and moody. There's a few different areas and they look unique. Everything moves fluidily. There's a weird charm with the game. However, there's something going on with the engine. I don't know if it's a glitch of the developer or with the engine proper: I've loaded saves and there's been 2 times that Roman hasn't loaded in; he was in a cut scene and he disappeared for a few moments. There have been times the textures and details have loaded in. Roman's facial hair looks like it's ready to jump off his face at times. The title screen has textures loading in as well. It definitely ruins the immersion.

Continuing this trend of unrefined elements is the controls. Let me be clear: Roman responds well to the controller and it's easy to figure out the right direction despite the static camera angles. It's in the menus that they fail. The lower left hand corner says to go back push the B button (playing on an Xbox type controller), it won't go back when the save menu and pause menu are up. Thank goodness there's a resume play option or I would have been stuck.

Sound design is rather solid and do a good job of helping to set a dark atmosphere. Attacks are squishy as they sink into the flesh of the monsters, the train track rails being ridden on, and the wails of the enemies.

So is Post Trauma worth it? I purchased the deluxe version for around 15. I think 10 is the right amount for this game. It isn't the instant horror classic I was hoping for. It comes really darn close. The highs are great while the lows are mediocre PS2 style horror. The fact that it retains a solid quality from start to finish is super impressive given that a small development team made this game. I'm hoping a patch gets released to smooth out all of my complaints, especially with the graphics. And it leaves me excited that their next project could be even better. So here's hoping that Red Soul Game's future is bright --Errr-- gloomy!