Like most Nintendo consoles, the GameCube is remembered for childhood fan favorite games, such as “Mario” and “Pokemon” titles. But it did have more mature-themed horror games, some that were even exclusive and not found on the Xbox or PlayStation 2, like “Resident Evil 4.” While “Resident Evil 4” has since been remastered and ported to other systems (including the Switch), one game that, to date, is still only available on the GameCube, is the enigmatic “Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem.”
“Eternal Darkness” was an inventive horror game that masterfully employed tropes like creepy monsters, disturbing gore, and spooky settings, but inflicted psychological terror as well. Your character could take sanity damage in addition to physical damage, and as your sanity damage increased, weird things would start happening, like weird noises and statues following you with their eyes. Even crazier, the game would lie to you and pretend that your controller was disconnected or that it was deleting your saved games, which could instill a real, pure terror in the player that something happening “in-game” to your character could not. Games rarely blend with the real world in this fashion, and it was a thrill to play. “Eternal Darkness” was widely praised, but struggled and failed to get a sequel. It would be a slam dunk for Nintendo to bring it back as a Switch port.
