Lust from Beyond

At first when I saw the negative reviews of this game shoulda had the name "Blood from the Beyond" I thought it was just some basement dwelling weirdo who was expecting a strickly porn game.

Now i see they were right. This is a kink game for people who are into gore stuff and driving yourself insane due to 0 direction with puzzles. Do not buy if you want a puzzle game. ESPECIALLY do not buy if you want a porn game.

Weird

Pretty good game, some interesting puzzles. Looking forward to a 3rd instalment if it ever happens.

I want to preface this review by saying that I truly appreciate the goals of this game. I like what Lust From Beyond seeks to capture, and wish more games would try as hard as this game does. However, I have many issues with it. In summation, Lust From Beyond plays like a sex game that got cocky and tried to become a real game, and sex became an afterthought.

There are some decent frights and thrills in Lust From Beyond: interesting sexual tableaus here and there; sound design that very much meets the needs of the game; mostly bad performances (the main character can be unbearable) compensated by a select few good performances (namely Rhea and Johnathan); a couple of decent surprises, mostly cheesy jump-scares were effective, though not my cup-o-tea; and, considering the budget, great set pieces and graphics. Also, I quite enjoy throwing doors and cabinets open. I hope that a lot of time was put into this mechanic, because I appreciate it. There were also two cool puzzles. I particularly liked Chapter 11's closing door puzzle: I wasn't walked through it, and it was satisfying to solve on my own. However, Lust From Beyond fails in the departments of gameplay and story (especially combat and dialogue, respectively).

At times, the twists and turns of the plot tends to be painfully predictable (cliches and tropes aplenty) and the dialogue only compounds this issue--heavy handed rabble, at best. I want to applaud the pacing of this game, but it's hard to, considering the only things that kept me going were collectibles and my silent prayer that there would be something more on the horizon, something to make the tedious gameplay worth it. For the most part, Lust From Beyond fails to deliver. There are a couple of rewarding scenes and areas that do deliver on the cosmic sexual horror promises that it makes, but they are few and far between. I reiterate: this is a sex game that decided it wanted to be a real boy, and in so doing forgot its roots.

This game desperately seeks to fit into the cosmic horror genre with a sexual overtone, but fails to deliver on countless levels: The sanity feature is appallingly underdeveloped. Not only is the sanity mechanic 15 years behind its time, but the visuals and set pieces don't come close to the levels of horror I've seen in many similar indie games made in the last decade. The constant interruption of the protagonist is, unfortunately, very poorly written and equally poorly performed, subsequently harming the overall experience (although the 1st perspective is a keystone of the cosmic horror genre). The false sense of choice (in dialogue options) feels forced, as if added at the last second based on a focus group, and it left me feeling as though I were a child pretending to operate a toy spaceship. In other words, I was a witness to the story, rather than a participant. Finally, the story is cliche and rudimentary. Lust From Beyond isn't very Lovecraftian at all, apart from a few strange words to describe vaguely outlined gods and greater forces. The world of this game is tragically simple: like a terrible Hollywood fantasy film, poorly translated to an interactive media. Moreover, the gameplay isn't scary, immersive, or suspenseful: It's tedious and underdeveloped.

I will sloppily comment upon my feelings about the gameplay and design aspects here: The checkpoint/save system is wack, often forcing one to redo the most tedious parts of a level RIGHT before the point in which the player died or quit; the combat system is as primitive as System Shock (not a bad thing, necessarily, but it's hard to get away with this day and age); the survival horror aspects of this game totally work within its own parameters, and one will likely run out of provisions at just the right(/worst) time if they aren't taking advantage of their surroundings; the textures and environments feel repetitive, speaking to a lack of time/budget/expertise; some essential checkpoints are easy to miss (I walked right past the checkpoint and straight to the objective at several junctures, and I had to run back and forth between them in order to progress); also, there are a lot of problems with enemies, particularly with pathing. I ran into a couple folks who were running into walls, and they wouldn't stop for anything but a blow to the head. As well, some levels (namely Chapter 8) have very specific qualifiers to advance that were often two steps behind me. Drives me up the wall finding out I can't pick up a key item because Amanda hasn't told me to yet. Infuriating.

As well, I must mention that [LIGHT SPOILER, more of a dev note than anything] during the boss fight in chapter 11, after dealing environmental damage to the boss, being too close to the enemy when they get back up results in an instant game over. This is inconsistent, however. And odd glitch that could use the developer's attention.

This game feels like a work in progress. I wish the developers had spent more time/money on the story and mechanics, and less on the mediocre voice acting and graphics. I am disappointed.

it's nice

Beter than i thought and the DLC is worth it

Boring as fuck. Great atmosphere and HR Giger inspired scenery but that's about it.

Sexy, dark and scary; the perfect amalgamation of sex and horror. This one won't be for everyone, but for me its one of my favourite indie horror games.

Outer gods like horror porn with great atmosphere. It also has gallery.

Tired. I am tired, game is tired. Never expected to skip the snu-snu scenes but here we are. The quality of the game itself reminds me of WoDVampire The Masquarade: Bloodlines as in half baked, like someone definitely tried but didn't quite had the talent backing them up. Or the time. Or the intent.
I did do the 2 prequels and some of this but at the Theatre I just stopped after I had just given up and started murdering the oh so dangerous enemies. Game might have some amazing stuff later on, I will never know but somehow doubt it considering the utterly lifeless human models.

Did make me want to try an actually good Lovecraftian sneaky game, like the original Alone in the Dark. Hmm, maybe Forgive me Father, oughta have more action, might revitalize me after this game tried to bore me to death.

The controller are unnecessarily clunky and even with head bob and motion blur off it still causes nausea. Also the story isn't great or entertaining. Comes across a bit flat.

Right off the boat three things already kills any chance of turning me on.

1st; The game informs before the title screen that "immersion" will be better if you play it during the night and with headphones. Sigh.

Immersion is up to the player to decide on how to absorb it, if they have any of the means. Developers should be worrying about how to provide that immersion, not how I decide to have it. That intro message is like saying "if you couldn't feel the horror it's your fault."

2nd, game automatically translates the interface based on the OS language, instead of Steam's language. Rather not translate it automatically and let the user decide it instead. Not only that but, "censorship" mode won't save your decision. Prompting will always pop next time you run the game.

3rd, I never played a game that automatically accepts a joystick without properly changing UI input. In order to change the symbols on screen, you need to manually alter the input in the options, even after you have already been prompted to use a joystick.

I became a number

After the intro, around 40 minutes of gameplay I was suddenly blessed by very interesting objectives.

𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐨𝐫, 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰, 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐱, 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬, 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭, 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐩𝐬, 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐞𝐫, 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐲--

All while the main character was talking to himself, to alert me what I was supposed to think etc. so I could SMELL the low-effort "story" trying to keep me at it and it wasn't working. While I was coming back and forth, searching for bags and boxes I finally started laughing. Soon enough even the doors and the objects of my pain were laughing back at me, until my laughter became manic. I startled my cat several times, I complained about bad life decisions that brought me to this point. That's fourth wall horror right there. When you don't give a xit about the object, but the object gives a xit about you.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3319376640&fileuploadsuccess=1

When my first assignment was over, a second one popped = find Lilly's bag! It took me 45 minutes to fulfill my duties, I started to worry if my refund time had already expired and if I would be literally stuck with this game. Most cutscenes are cut way too short, almost like avoiding to show the good stuff, it gets really irritating after some time. But then suddenly you get to have both stealth dynamics (trying like Agony did) mostly ineffective because AI is too forgiving, and that includes direct combat confrontation. These two logics can spice the gameplay up a bit if you resist all the bad nuisances, but I'm 89% sure that you won't.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3319384250

Attention to details in some objects are decent, simple but effective graphics, ok sound effects, soothing ambience to creep horror in. So the game at least can hit a few good notes in some stuff, but sadly it doesn't matter because of cheap gamey stuff that keeps undermining it. Why did I take so long if the puzzle was so easy? Simple. Because I had no idea some dude would hide his average key inside a well locked puzzle box, or that I had to perform a step-by-step action to find a simple thing inside another.

Hottest stuff = cut short, barely visible. Annoying stuff = 40 minutes to perform. You have been cyberpunked.

Very original not

A caucasian male with a game hero voice and brown hair is looking for -insert generic game trope here- He starts from a simple pacate life -insert generic horror trope here- and go all the way down to a plot twist -do it again here-. So the Giger design and other artistic works were used as inspiration for visual design that may keep things interesting, but does it holds up? I'm 89% sure it does not. You can see how the owners of this game slowly leaves as basic tasks gradually lowers down in comparison, while using the Steam achievements. This casualty is present in most games, including heavy weights like Witcher 3 or GTAV but not with basic beginner tasks.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3319394794&fileuploadsuccess=1

That can mean a lot of things, such as; only buying a game to have cards, this usually happens with cheap games. More casual players could do so because they already want to check some other game. Maybe it just wasn't interesting enough. Whatever it is, I'm now part of the statistics and this game falls quickly to it just as bad as many other games like it. Maybe its the lack of Quality Assurance specially for PC. Steam is only interested to just sell hoping you won't notice anything. Until you can get to see you may have done a bad deal you may not be able to refund it anymore.

It was worse before

The game persists with the first thing of bad stories = character talks to himself all the time, its the cheapest way to move the plot without complex building. Game clearly don't trust your brains neither, giving unnecessary hints no one needs while the ones you need are void. If that's intentional, its like when a vendor adds water into the shampoo bottle.

Game still is better than "Lust for Darkness" since the previous game was so boring as I remember and silly at best. Lust from Beyond at least got some survival mechanics, you even have a mental breakdown meter, you get to use a gun for example then manage inventory. However, what sounds like a saving grace hardly survives the imbalance with all the rest of the game.

I see games promoting edgy "adult" things, and since I love this stuff I just grab as much as I can since its rare. Then when I finally play them, they're usually just silly or outdated, sometimes so weak its just naive-- as if someone just found out about the sex and horror recently and then starts throwing it around. Meaning; if you expect high quality edgy stuff, you're going to find out that sex was probably just a strategy to sell good and fast. Just don't expect it to be like a hot book reading or rare cinema (by the likes of Nymphomaniac) or any great gaming for that matter. There I just said it.

Instead of telling me how to have immersion, the game could have had better voice acting. I don't mean to disrespect the actors or actresses hired to work on this game just because I could find talents in Youtube myself. Also to have betters scripts, because dialogue sucks. Anyway, as our world slowly ends, I still prefer to see bad acting that is actually done by humans, than AI integrations like Amazon Games keeps defending, so at least there is that.

Final Score: 5.0/10 More than eighty nine percent of us will never finish this game

The only way to really hit with horror is to ABANDON gamey culture completely. Get rid of noises that shows "objective completed" and characters talking to themselves; make the game flow with the actual game, not just triggers to activate. Avoid classic American dreams like "family household" or "suburban hero" because dismantling its too obvious. There are a lot of writers unemployed right now ready to do something nice, but ultimately, a lot of indie projects are just vanity projects. Its the only explanation I have to convince me why games like that usually sucks.

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I don't want to play as a rapist. Wouldn't have gotten the game if I realized.

runs like crap on steam deck one min fps is stable at 60 then drops to less then ten and becomes unplayable glade i got it on sale

Ok, this game was a lot better than what I was thinking it would be. Aside from the crude stuff the game itself is pretty interesting. The atmospheric design is fantastic. Not for the weak.

Edit:
Beat the game. Good game.

So ehh, anyone wanna join a cult?
- Bring your own mask

Definately a great experience for the Adult Only version of the game

Se fosse pra definir esse jogo em uma palavra, a mesma seria "bizarro". O jogo tem problemas como puzzles muito fáceis, os inimigos parecem eleitores do Lulu e o "terror" é bem fraquinho. Se estiver procurando um jogo de terror de verdade vai jogar Outlast, esse jogo só vai servir se você não tiver nada pra jogar e quiser passar o tempo.

Pleasure "walking sim" journey to fulfill your lust from beyond joy.

Horror aspect : 3,6* / 5 - Not great not terrible.
Sex (Juicers scenes etc..) : 3,5 / 5 - I like the synergy between be chased and then we get random orgy.
Atmosphere / Backround : 5 / 5 - I did few screenshots of them. Very nice.
Music aspect : 3,5 / 5 - Subjective but overall nothing to win game of the year for "sound aspect"
Action : 2,5 / 5 Few gun missions one end game "boss".
Puzzles : 1,5 / 5 - Tons of them here. Hard to find something sometimes here. 0 help. And you can easily miss some clues/items if you dont click your left mouse button everywhere you go.
Walking sim / Zones speedrun : 4,5 / 5 - Shift W your best friend.
Mansion : Back to Back same 2,5 / 5
Secrets /(Find collectibles in map) : I found them boring to find or even to try - 1 / 5 *E - Didnt get all content to view afterall since i miss few of them. Sadge .
Enemies : Shift W or 2 stab them with letter opener 2,5 / 5
Gore : 2,5 / 5
Aesthetic of world : 4,5 / 5 World feeled nice to be in. In void or story irl.
Cult : 3.5 / 5 "For the Absolute!"
Pleasure characters + story characters : 2,5 / 5 -Scripted fiesta but in okey-ish state
Game decision making to change the twist : 1,5 / 5 - Not so much you can play with here.
Story : 3 / 5 - Playable / Readable
Sex toys /(Finding things) : 3,5 / 5 - Amnesia style you can find them and see them in different view and you can unlock them to see in action of your twisted choice. That also applies for world discovery.
Replay value : Potential for different ending or more secrets to collect to unlock "things" Or just to enjoy ride one more time.

There will be something i forgot but overall game is nice to playthrough at least once. Nicely done world with great ambient feeling.

Worth to buy / Worth to finish. 3,5 / 5 as final rating

I enjoyed the combination between sex orgy + twisted evil void horror with some kind of romance story telling in cult house. Great combo - I love it. Clapping.

Edit:

Thumbs up also for chambers of pleasure collection. I need to say this is one of the better games of this kind.