From its opening disclaimer to the eerie safe-room music and retro presentation, it’s clear that Heartworm wears its inspirations proudly. Vincent Adinolfi, the game’s solo developer, clearly has a deep love for Resident Evil and Silent Hill games. Sadly, this homage to those influential titles of the genre is superficial at best.
This game it borrows a lot of different elements from them, but doesn’t really seem to understand why these worked in the aforementioned classics.
Heartworm follows Sam, a young woman whose grief for her deceased grandfather sends her down a path of occult conspiracies and a strange, abandoned house that is said to lead to the afterlife. From there she arrives in a surreal dimension to visit various locales that taken on the form of painful memories of her life. Silent Hill 2 fans who are now salivating at the thought of a psychological journey through trauma, should not keep their hopes up. This game fails completely at creating a connection with the character and what’s on screen.
Sam fights boring-looking static humanoids, fungi-filled wild dogs, a giant spider and other types of creatures – all whilst trying to brave a dark neighbourhood, a sunlit forest and an office complex. Sadly, for something that is supposed to be all about metaphor and allegory, everything feels disconnected from the heroine.
It’s as if the developer had some interesting ideas and just threw them in the pile, forgetting to add any symbolic relevance. As a result, it’s hard to get immersed within this world. It doesn’t help that Sam’s occasional monologues, which offer small peeks at her life in a failed attempt for character building, are narrated with by a one-note actor. A bored-college-girl-working-as-a-cashier voice, perhaps.
Heartworm is undeniably successful in establishing atmosphere, however. The PS1-era aesthetic is excellent and enhances the weird, dreamy vibe of the places the heroine will explore. As for the music – it’s great, but leans more towards melancholy than horror. Calling this a horror title is completely wrong. Enemies are mostly worthless, shambling creatures that can slow you down, but not really threaten you. They are an obstacle that can easily be bypassed rather than something that can hurt or creep anyone out.
That monster managed to land a blow? Don’t worry as the main character will soon be swimming in first aid kits. The low challenge on offer makes the inventory management and planning (a very important element in survival horror) a needless tactic. Players are better off saving space for key items instead of wasting the few available slots with ammo.
Heartworm doesn’t manage to leave a lasting impression with its attempts at telling a story. Sadly, the gameplay follows suit, which is a shame because this is loaded with cool ideas. As an example, the main tool of the trade is a camera, and Sam can briefly light a dark area with its flash. Is this ever used in a creative way, like the flash waking up monsters or increasing/decreasing the scare factor of a scene? No. Also, apart from the reason for why she “kills” foes with a bloody camera never being explained, there’s nothing that makes the use of it matter much. Sam just aims and pulls the “trigger” as if handling a typical revolver, whereas in, say, Fatal Frame – players need to wait for the enemies to come closer to maximize damage.
There are many puzzles to solve and, along with the atmosphere, they are the only redeeming factors. Unfortunately the quality isn’t consistent. For every thought provoking and tough but fair puzzle, there’s one that’s tedious, or even worse, a bit too cryptic. The bulk of the gameplay, however, and ultimately the thing that kills the fun, is navigation. Forget the wasted potential, the weak narrative, or the absent horror elements. The worse thing in Heartworm is that areas are needlessly large. Backtracking is frequent, and as such a lot of time will be wasted on uneventful walking between locations, just to find a simple key. Rinse and repeat the process over and over.
