Before we start the review, I would like to thank Dumativa for providing us with the game and enabling this material to be created.

Art, Sound, and Story: A Dive into the Fascinating Perimeter

The Paranormal Order brings a universe where paranormal creatures exist and they can break the barrier that exists between our world and the Other Side through fear. Now, the question remains: what causes so much fear? And how to fight against this being? More than that, how to fight against fear? In "Fear Enigma," we will have to reflect on some of these questions during our adventure in an attempt to rescue Mr. Veríssimo, the leader of the Ordo Realitas group (an organization dedicated to dealing with the paranormal). 
 

Initially, we find ourselves as Mia, the daughter of Mr. Veríssimo, accompanied by her partners Sam and Agatha in an attempt to save her recently disappeared father. We are about to enter the Perimeter, a place that until then did not exist, but apparently, for years, the Order had been conducting large-scale investigations. I will stop here to avoid giving too many spoilers, as the plot and facts should be presented as you progress in the game - after all, the game is a mystery, right?

This brief introduction of the Fear Enigma context takes place as you arrive at the Perimeter and begin your investigations at the Strach Mansion. The first impressions that the game leaves, meanwhile, are extremely positive, especially in terms of artistic issues: the story and all the lore, the visual art as a whole, the graphics, the world design, and the lighting, as well as the audio aspects of the game, such as voice acting and the soundtrack, are all presented with very high quality.

The game's storyline is super captivating and develops at a pace that makes everything very pleasant and digestible. It leaves you curious, while not taking long for you to get the information and progress. Fear Enigma is a mystery that doesn't leave you frustrated, just more and more captivated. It is very fun to explore the entire Perimeter and understand what happened in the Order's operation, as well as what the God of Fear and the Fear Enigma are. As I said, the narrative progression is amazing and captivating. 
 

The game's art style pleases me a lot, mixing pixel art with some textures and more realistic lighting that allows for richer environments with more detail - in this sense, it reminds me a bit of Core Keeper, which also has this blend of styles and also has a very beautiful visual -. Dumativa does an incredible job in the world design of Fear Enigma and brings rich scenes that completely immerse you in the universe. The documents you find during exploration are so well done that it's a pleasure to read - you can see the care that went into the game -. You come across various photos, letters, and reports that tell you the story of that place as you progress, and all of them are very well crafted, which makes you immerse in that universe very easily.

Not to mention the music and sound effects that accompany us on our adventure. They integrate you into Mia's shoes and keep you uncomfortable for much of your exploration of Fear. The melodies of the soundtracks and the sound effects convey a feeling of something abnormal, insecurity, and terror all the time. I believe that fear is much more easily induced by sound than by vision - I feel that the strangeness caused by the audio is much more primitive and uncontrollable - and, in this aspect, Fear Enigma delivers an incredible survival horror experience.
 

To conclude my praise session, I would also like to talk about the puzzles and mystery that Fear Enigma offers us. The puzzles, in general, have a good level of difficulty, meaning they are not so hard that you want to abandon the game, nor so simple that you can solve them without even thinking and rethinking. For me, the most incredible thing is that the puzzles are always related to the plot and context of the game, making everything more immersive and building a captivating world. All the puzzles are linked to the progression of the story, to the universe, and to the characters, which makes the experience much more lively and fun.

Between Polish and Challenges: The Mechanics of Fear Enigma

Despite the incredible artistic part, unfortunately, I will not evaluate the game as entirely excellent. This is due to some technological limitations and controls and combat mechanics that I believe could be a bit more polished. 

Starting with the technological issue: I think the game's graphic optimization could be a little more well-worked, as there are scenarios where the game runs at 80-90 fps (frames per second), while in others, the game is capped at 35 fps. Although I am not a great expert in the field, I believe it is related to the lighting and shading of the game, as the environments that have the most frame drops are those that have more objects with different textures, which implies more shading and more lighting effects. Anyway, what matters, in fact, to us players is that the game is running poorly in certain scenarios - because my computer is well above the recommended requirements... so I believe that players with more basic PCs will not be able to run the game easily -.
 

Next, I would like to talk about the controls and combat mechanics. In general, the game's combat is quite simple: you can shoot enemies and strike them with melee attacks, without having dodge or defense (unless you are playing as Mr. Veríssimo). Shots are the easiest way to take down opponents, however, the shots don't always hit, even if the aim is on top of them. The melee attack, on the other hand, is dreadful... Unless you keep running from side to side to force the opponent to miss the attack so that you can then strike. In this logic, if it were to play like this, I believe it would make sense to have a dodge command - I feel a bit of a lack of being able to block or dodge, but I also understand that it is part of the survival horror genre -. Finally, I feel that melee combat is not effective, nor fun.

Another mechanic in the game is the possibility of eliminating some opponents silently (stealth). You just have to crouch to make less noise and be able to grab them from behind. However, it is a mechanic that often lets you down because enemies simply see you if you are not completely behind them. So it's not like it's not useful, on the contrary, stealth elimination saves you ammunition and is very quick, however, sometimes the opponent simply notices you even if you are doing what was supposedly right for him not to notice you.

A Landmark in the Brazilian Game Scene

Despite my recent criticisms, I think that when we weigh the positives and negatives, we will see that the positives are much heavier and have a much greater impact on the experience than the negatives. However, I think it is important to highlight such analyses because it is these details and polishings that turn a good or great game into an excellent or a masterpiece.

Finally, I think of Fear Enigma as a great game to leave its mark on the history of Brazilian video games, whether for its quality or for its entertainment. It is a project that, being entirely Brazilian, made me very happy when I played it and realized how good it was, as if it were a feeling of pride. It is a very artistic game that captivates us and immerses us in its universe, and therefore, I recommend it to all those who seek a game with a mysterious and enigmatic touch with elements of terror.

Remember that, for the production of this review, Fear Enigma was played on the Windows platform (PC), through Steam.