At first glance, Fobia: St. Dinfna Hotel looks like an old-school Resident Evil game which is correct for most parts. Fobia – St. Dinfna Hotel is a first-person shooter survival horror game in which you play as a journalist Roberto who goes to Treze Trilhas to investigate strange things happening there and decides to stay there in a hotel called St. Dinfna and then the story takes a turn when he is stuck in it and has to find a way out. Fobia: St. Dinfna Hotel was released on 28th June 2022 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox series X, and S and on PC via steam.
Story and Narrative
The game starts with Roberto going to the town of Treze Trilhas to investigate strange things happening there and during his stay at hotel St. Dinfna after which the game is named after. More strange things happen and the protagonist Roberto has to escape the hotel. The whole plot of the game revolves around you, the player figuring your way out of the hotel through puzzles. The story does start off interesting with the player discovering the camera and finding out hidden things in the environment but it feels lacking in horror elements and in the end, it makes the player feel like wanting more out of the story.
Gameplay and Mechanics
The gameplay of Fobia St. Dinfna Hotel focuses on solving puzzles and managing your inventory like Resident Evil games. Combat of the game feels a lot similar to like Resident Evil 7 and Village with more focus on First person shooting and enemies attacking you from above sometimes to give you an occasional jumpscare. The gameplay mainly involves puzzles and exploration rather than focusing more on straight-up action. So, this might be a bit disappointing for players looking for some gory first-person shooting action might be a bit disappointed.
There are various enemies in the game with glowing parts with cool designs but it enemy variety could use some slight variation and in the end combat ends up feeling lacklustre. Fobia – St. Dinfna Hotel also has a camera mechanic which gives you access to the camera by equipping the camera one can find hidden things in the environment like codes for some safe or some hidden safes with access to healing items can be found in the environment with the use of the camera. The game also features a New game+ mechanic which is great since the game has a lot of replayable value.
Visuals, Sound and Performance
The graphics of Fobia – St. Dinfna Hotel are quite similar to the graphics of Resident Evil Village textures look quite detailed and crisp. Fobia – St. Dinfna Hotel offers two ways to launch a game on PC one is in dx11 mode without raytracing and one is dx12 mode with raytracing. The game also comes with Nvidia DLSS which can also help with performance in RTX cards. As for the lower-end cards game, unfortunately, does not support AMD FSR right now but the game is quite well optimized and runs fine on the lower-end cards with a few minor stutters here and there. I played the game on GTX 1650 game ran above 60 fps with custom settings used with some settings set to low high or medium. The game looks quite good with detailed environment designs but character models look mid- tier and could use some polish. The sound design in Fobia – St. Dinfna Hotel is incredible though for the best experience with the audio of the game I would recommend using a headphone.
Brass Talks
I had a fun time playing Fobia – St. Dinfna Hotel with some frustrations regarding puzzles and lack of a map. During my 10-hour playthrough, I barely had any performance issues. The game is currently priced at 699 INR on Steam and for the price, it’s completely worth it and players looking for some horror action game after playing recent Resident Evil titles should feel right at home. Although it lacks some iconic antagonists like Mr X and Lady Dumitrescu, it should fill a void in your horror games until a new Resident Evil title drops. Fobia – St. Dinfna Hotel is available right on PS4, PS5, XBOX ONE, XBOX SERIES X and S and PC via steam.
Real Talk
If you want a Resident Evil-like horror game with a heavy focus on puzzles and exploration I would highly recommend you to check this out.
FINAL RATING: RECOMMENDED