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| NinjaGuyX reviews A Chair in a Room: Greenwater, a VR psychological horror game with puzzles, and memory fragments. |
By NinjaGuyX
You like scary games? Yeah, this game is scary. A Chair in a Room: Greenwater comes from 2016, right when VR started exploding in popularity. I have mixed feelings about this one, so let me break it down.
First and foremost, this game felt genuinely innovative for its time. I haven't played many games from that era that actually used motion controls properly, so it was refreshing to experience VR the way it's meant to be played. That said, the movement speed was painfully slow. I appreciate that real locomotion is there, but it was clearly designed to ease in brand new VR players.
The graphics, though? Genuinely impressive. The way the flashlight reflects off surfaces and the shininess of certain objects still holds up. Some newer games could honestly take notes.
A Chair in a Room: Greenwater Builds Its Horror Around Memory And Guilt
So this is a puzzle horror game. You play as Patient No. 6079, waking up in Greenwater Institute with no memory of who you are or what you did. Over six chapters, you piece together your past. Are you a killer? A fugitive? Or just... crazy? That's for you to find out.
After each chapter, you're brought back to your room, which acts as a hub. Place the right object on the board, and you're pulled into one of your memories. Simple, but effective.
You'd think the hub would double as a save point, but oddly, I jumped into my second session with only about fifteen minutes left in the final chapter. Strange. Though honestly, I'll take it, because my first time launching the game? No save at all. Now that's scary.
A Chair in a Room: Greenwater Leans Into Psychological Horror
Speaking of scary, the jump scares sit at about three out of five on the trouser scale. You'll still want your VR legs for this one, but make no mistake, this game leans much harder into psychological horror than cheap frights.
The puzzle sections are straightforward, nothing that'll leave you stuck for long if you're familiar with the genre. You'll mostly breeze through. There are also some genuinely cinematic moments that feel almost artistic. It's nice to slow down and appreciate them. But then there are sections where you're just... waiting. Forever.
And at one point, out of nowhere, there's a random velociraptor in a window. No context. No explanation. It completely killed the immersion and I still have questions. The ending, unfortunately, didn't land for me either. Everything gets spelled out at once and it feels rushed and forced. The journey to get there is fun, but the payoff falls flat.
The Missing Girl Was My Favourite Part
Now, finishing the game unlocks a bonus chapter called The Missing Girl, and I actually liked that one. You've got a flashlight you have to physically shake to recharge, which keeps a nice undercurrent of tension running throughout. It was a well-crafted room.
The whole thing still clocked in at under two hours though, which brings me to my biggest issue.
A Chair in a Room: Greenwater Needs A Serious Discount
A Chair in a Room: Greenwater is a decent experience by today's standards, but its price point is the real problem. It's time for a serious discount.
I'd rather you put that money toward something like Shattered or Ghost Town, fuller, meatier experiences, even if they're maybe just a touch less unsettling.
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