Game EXP: Organ Quarter (MQ2)

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Organ Quarter through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played, and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]

Organ Quarter
Systems: PlayStation 5 VR, Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3/3S, HTC Vive
Release Date: October 19, 2017
Publisher: AMATA K.K.
Developer: Outer Brain Studios
Time Spent: ~4 Hours 38 Minutes 
Playthrough Videos on YouTube

When I saw that AMATA had published a virtual reality survival-horror game, I was pretty excited.  My time with Last Labyrinth was a good indicator that they knew how to develop single-room-style escape room puzzles in a virtual reality space, so putting their publishing arm behind a game developed by Outer Brain Studios was a pretty decent indicator, before I looked up anything about the game, that this was going to be a wild ride.  However, after four and a half hours, I have officially hit both a skill and technical wall that we will get to after we lay some contextual groundwork.

Organ Quarter is a survival-horror game in the truest sense of the word.  There are slowish-moving humanoid monsters, and there are (currently) different types of guns with limited ammo and health that can be found scattered throughout the different areas.  Of the enemies I've encountered, they all take significantly more damage with head shots (for those that have heads), and take anywhere between three to five shots, while others seem to only take one.  In two instances, I reloaded from a previous save because I felt that I had wasted ammo, the first time being when I first encountered a shambling enemy, and tried shooting from a distance.

One complaint I have that's directly tied to shooting the enemies is the control scheme.  You move with one hand, which also has access to your inventory and map, and the other hand holds a flashlight and your weapon (your weapon takes on flashlight functionality, so there's no having to shoot in the dark), and allows you to snap-rotate.  When I first started, I opted to shoot with my left hand since I'm left-eye dominant, but this meant I was using the right controller/joystick, which felt very awkward.  When I switched to using the left controller/joystick for movement, it became much more comfortable, as did turning with the right controller.  Unfortunately, even in virtual reality, if I try to aim with my right eye, my shots are off ever so slightly.  This has forced me to fire at nearly point-blank range with the pistol, which isn't too much of an issue against the basic grunt-type enemies, Trypos, who just lumber at you slowly.  The faster-moving Pegman is more of a problem as it will also lunge at you when you're in range.  The projectile acid-spitting Retches are terrifying, as their long necks and bobbing heads allow them to look around corners before the rest of their body makes the turn.

The gameplay, up until I decided I was unable to progress any further, was a great throwback to "old school" survival-horror games set in a virtual reality space.  There are no enemies to encounter until after you acquire your first gun, and all of the enemies in the starting area are appropriately frightening while still being easily dispatched with the single-fire pistol.  Once you acquire the sawed off shot gun, you now have the option of a higher-powered gun, but at the expense of far fewer rounds found scattered around.  Do you use three rounds from the pistol to take out a monster, or one blast from the shotgun, hoping that all of your shots hit, otherwise you'll have to fire again, or maybe switch back to the pistol for the killing shot?  Do you shoot at the bouncing spider creature, knowing that it takes only one bullet, or do you try to sprint past the three or four that are currently scuttling around in the hallway between you and what you hope is a door to the next save room?  It can be a pretty fine balance between hoarding your ammo for the end of the stage boss fight and making sure you get through while taking as little damage as possible.

Four and a half hours in, though, I've decided to call it quits.  I'm at the boss fight at the end of the nightclub area, and the game is throwing too much at me while trying to shoot with my non-dominant hand.  It honestly feels like there is just too much going on to take in, and it feels like a jump in skill level that's just too much.  Let me try to break it down.

The boss is a creature inside of a metal shell with eight tubes, four on either side.  There's a fleshy mass that passes between each of the tubes and the round shell body in the center that the creature is in.  Once you shoot one of the fleshy masses, the battle starts, and the entirety of the boss creature starts rotating clockwise.  While the boss starts bobbing up and down and spinning, it fires projectiles at you that you have to move around to avoid.  There is also a rotating platform with a spike blade that sticks out that sweeps the playable area, although it retracts to the opposite side as this circular structure also rotates clockwise.  While the boss is moving, you again have to hit one of the fleshy masses, and in doing so, the whole creature drops to the top of the rotating blade platform, and a cage door opens, revealing the body of the creature within the device.  This is when you shoot it.  After about three seconds, the cage door closes, and the whole boss device thing starts again with its bobbing and spinning, although this time faster if you hit the creature within the device.  So you're moving to avoid the spinning spike blade that's sweeping the floor (and you can't jump over it because there's no jumping in the game), moving to avoid the projectiles, and trying to hit a seemingly random target that's moving up and down and spinning, all the while firing with my non-dominant eye.

In my final attempt, I did try going back to shooting with my left hand and moving with my right, but that felt too awkward.  I also tried changing the moving mechanism from standard to teleporting, but that didn't allow for the quick movement that I would need to be constantly moving around the room while aiming at the boss.  I am willing to concede that I'm missing something about this boss fight.  Like maybe I'm supposed to use the shotgun to shoot at the masses as they randomly move between the tubes, then use the submachine gun when the cage opens up.  But then I'm afraid that I'll run out of ammo, as I don't have much for either of those guns, and I'm genuinely thinking that you have to hit the fleshy masses eight times, each from a different pipe, along with the creature behind the cage.

Unfortunately, this is where my journey with Organ Quarter ends.  I was very much enjoying the gameplay and the terror and thrills of playing a survival-horror game akin to the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill in a VR setting, where an unsettling encounter with a single enemy puts you on edge.  Where a darkened cave with limited visibility is more terrifying than having to go up against a single boss for the 10th time.  I'd like to think that I'd come back and beat the Nightclub boss in the future, but in the meantime, I just need to step away rather than go in and hope that I might beat the boss.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Break the Cycle that I'm in