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In Sound Mind Review


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325227074_InSoundMindboxart.jpg.6151469c5e5aba3c1c958f36a97782e2.jpgIn Sound Mind jumps on the psychological horror game trend with a puzzle-focused adventure crawling with creepy ambiance and a mysterious overarching plot. Sadly though, the scariest thing about this game is how it runs on the Switch.

 

You play as Desmond Wales, a psychiatrist in a small town, though initially all you know is that you've woken up in the shadowy basement of an apartment building where clearly something is wrong. The psychiatrist angle dovetails nicely into the psychological horror of the game: you're not a soldier or a warrior, and in fact the levels are structured around your patients and their troubles. It definitely establishes a spooky atmosphere early on—like many horror games the best part of In Sound Mind is the first level or two, when you don't know what to expect and have limited ways of fighting back. Around halfway through the game though, the story takes a pretty dramatic turn toward a larger, overarching conspiracy, which to be fair is handled pretty well here but is perhaps not as interesting as the more intimate story of a psychiatrist haunted by the success or failures of his patients' treatments.
 
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The gameplay focuses on exploring eerie environments and solving puzzles to progress, with some light combat elements that grow over the course of the game. The environment and puzzle design is on point: each level of the game takes you to a new, sprawling area filled with nooks and crannies to inspect, all of which is naturally covered in shadows, so your trusty flashlight is key while exploring (and of course there's a battery meter, so you don't want to overdo the flashlight either). The huge areas are both a strength and a weakness for In Sound Mind: they're perfect for giving you the feeling that you're never quite safe, and unknown forces can leap out of the shadows at any time, but some of the environments feel big just for big's sake. You end up sprinting from one key object to another with nothing but empty scenery in between, not to mention that you can easily get lost since there's no HUD map. Sure getting lost is kind of the point for a game like this, but it leads to some unsatisfying gameplay moments.
 
The puzzle design, at least, is pretty consistently sharp. Each level introduces some new mechanic or ability that spices up the gameplay, and the environmental puzzle design works nicely to encourage exploration without ever getting too complicated. You might find yourself lost or stuck for a bit occasionally, but given the size of these environments the puzzles are actually pretty nicely contained to individual areas. That said, the puzzle design can be a bit repetitive at times as well, since 90% of the time it's some variation of "find the key," but there are still some satisfying challenges to puzzle out here.
 
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The combat, however, leaves much to be desired. You start off unarmed and can eventually acquire a gun plus a couple other weapons. Part of the blame I'm going to lay at the feet of the console port of what is clearly originally a PC game, because aiming is clunky and downright atrocious at times. But even allowing for that, the combat is just dull. There are only a couple of types of monsters in the game and they mostly just run at you—far too quickly to aim smoothly—and even when you do take them out, there's nothing interesting about the threat they pose, certainly not to the level of ingenuity that the puzzle design shows. It's so half-baked that it probably shouldn't have ever been a feature of the game, especially if the developers wanted to lean into the psychological horror angle.
 
The other major misstep of In Sound Mind is the infrequent but consistently frustrating platforming. First-person platforming is always going to be a tricky challenge to nail down, but this game does it particularly poorly. Your movements are just too clunky and awkward—you certainly don't have the grace or precision needed to land long jumps to tiny platforms. And in moments when falling means instant death, you're treated to an entirely too long reloading screen. Thankfully these platforming moments are relatively rare over the course of the game, but you'll dread them any time they appear.
 
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However, the true failing of In Sound Mind is its appearance while running on the Switch. The game is so blurry and low-res you'll likely assume this is merely a slightly upgraded port from some 20+ year old game, not a recent release. And although looks aren't everything, the visuals here are so poor that it's almost laughable. Worst of all, they can affect the gameplay to an extent. Sure the environments are supposed to be hazy or shadowy, but it's genuinely hard to see things here, which again makes keeping your bearings a bit of a nightmare. The sound design is at least decently preserved on the Switch. The ambiance audio is appropriately eerie, and the voice acting is decent, though never amazing.
 
In Sound Mind promises a decent psychological horror concept that is brought down by clunky combat and platforming, and then utterly tanked by the game's technical performance on the Switch. The puzzle design is engaging and the story's twists will keep you on your toes, but if you're interested in playing In Sound Mind you'll likely find a much better experience on any other platform than the Switch.
 
Rating: 4 out of 10 Minds
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