List of questionably useful advices for people unfamiliar with survival horror genre, or videogames in general.
Alisa Beginner’s Tips
- Rebind the “Use” key.
While default control scheme on mouse+keyboard (or, just keyboard in this case, since mouse isn’t involved in any way) can seem a bit outlandish, it works pretty fine for the majority of the game. However, putting “use” key on CTRL is a crime against fingers. E or F, whichever you prefer, will work just fine, and won’t inflict pain on your pinkie finger.
- Back + double tap Run for a quick 180 degree turn
If only this guide existed before i beat the game twice without knowing that.
- Sabre is the first thing you want to buy.
This blade never dulls, it stunlocks a good chunk of basic enemies, and allows you to clear rooms of those enemies without wasting ammo. And while you can dispatch a lot of basic enemies with it, don’t try to melee more serious foes. Doing a “reload” with sabre will make Alise do a blocking animation, which can deflect certain attacks, and attacking right after the block will perform a swift counter-attack. Do note that not every attack can be blocked that way.
- Not every enemy worth the effort.
It pays off to clear a hallway you will walk through a lot, or kill everything on the way to a boss, but certain enemies, especially those located in isolated room you only gonna visit once could be safely left alone.Your main priority to kill is any enemy you can’t get past without losing HP in the process, and your main priority to shoot is any enemy you can’t safely melee.
- Don’t try to fisticuff the dolls.
Seriously, don’t. Use the sabre instead.
- The pistol is not without its use.
While the damage may seems lacking, it has decent fire rate, and there is alot of ammo for it laying around. But most importantly, it has relatevely fast reload animation, so in a way its safer than other options.
- The cogs dropped by enemies disappear if you exit the room.
Just in case you were wondering. Consider that when evaluating whether you should run into another room from mosnters.
- Enemies position also resets when you exit the room.
This is what allows you to evade a lot of enemies. No matter if the monster was right behind you, entering another room will send them back to their into their place, and you won’t get bitten immidiately upon re-entering that room.
- Check everything. Twice.
Every cupboard, cabinet, locker, etc. Sometimes Alise will make a remark that the contents could be useful, in which case you need to interact with it again to get a free medkit or toothwheels.
- If you under half HP – always heal.
Medkits restore exactly 50% of your HP, so you will never waste a healing item if you below that. There is also no reason to hold on to them, as there are no other way to get HP back, currently. What, did you expect a regenerating health in a PS1 survival horror game? 😉
Also – while they do have lengthy healing animation, the game pauses when you do it, so don’t be afraid to health in the middle of combat too!
- Buying medkits is the safest investment.
Your resources might be a bit tight before the first boss, but after that buying out medkits is never a bad idea. You WILL take damage, no matter how you think you are.
- Enemies also struggle with their movement.
While tank controls can be very clunky, the game is balanced around them, meaning most enemies are not super-agile either. Simple backdealling or sprinting away would be enough to avoid all attacks in the game, which makes sense, since its your only way of avoiding the damage. Sorry, no dodge-rolling in the manor!
- Saving is not free, but its very cheap.
So in case you encounter something like that may look like a boss arena, for example, don’t be stingy to backtrack to saferoom, gear up, and save again.
- In case you get stuck on the infamous “safe puzzle”.
Reload the save. Maybe a few times. Its known to be a bit buggy. Its also randomly generated, so don’t try to skip any steps with it.
Also, since this puzzle is a pet peeve of mine, here’s the only hint for the puzzle in this whole guide, in case we got same brain model: the sheeps have NOTHING to do with the safe code - If you ever die because the game is glitched, or bugged, or your weapon suddenly stopped shooting…
Shake your fist and scream “DAAAAAAMN YOU CASPER!!!!” as loud as you can. I find it very relaxing, personally. Then restart the whole game before loading back.
- Thats all, folks!
Do let me know if any of that was useful for you. I’ll update the list when Mr. Casper Croes puts cut content back in the game, but until then, remember – there is no rope.
Thanks to Shoe-Zen for his great guide, all credit to his effort. you can also read the original guide from Steam Community. enjoy the game.
