When I originally stumbled upon Lost in Vivo a few years ago, I dismissed it immediately as a “yet another first person horror themed indie title”. It did seem to borrow more from the classic survival horror instead of being a more pure adventure or purely linear horror roller coaster, but I’ve seen plenty of those go bad as well. The somehow popular Cry of Fear is something that I actively dislike to this day for how much it loved to rely on its extra edgy script, its obnoxious jump scares, its really poorly thought out enemies and level design… Yet, when I’ve seen the game pop up here and there, there seemed to be more to it. It seemed more clever than the majority of titles like this one. So I decided to give it a go whenever I’m in the mood. Well, I was in the mood. And it wasn’t as good as I was hoping it would be.
At its core, Lost in Vivo is your typical low budget indie take on a survival horror-ish title from the first person perspective and on a very small scale. You do get to explore and find items, but each area is very small (probably bigger than the original Penumbra levels, though). And the items are limited to only quest items and ammo, as your health regenerates. And the combat is very easy and throughout a lot of the game somewhat pointless too… All of this isn’t bad and the game doesn’t feel “lazy” with its limitations. Rather, it’s clear that it was done by one developer (with some additional help), but said developer wanted to make every element that is in the game interesting. It’s just that, well, they don’t make it all that interesting a lot of the time.
Not for the lack of creativity, mind you. This game has some really cool moments that you simply do not expect to happen, helped by the lo-fi visual aesthetic. The game will do unexpected things, it is varied and goes into interesting directions. Some of its monster designs are insanely inventive and cool and the game also has several even smaller games in it in the form of hidden modes and “tapes”. Moreover, said little games are still getting updated, which is very nice and gives the developer the ability to do some fun experiments within a released game.
All that said… I can’t say that the game itself, when taken as a complete title, even with all of its creative moments, is all that good. It’s quite serious about its topics and themes, yet it doesn’t seem to have a proper central theme that actually works and makes sense. Rather, it’s a mishmash of half-baked ideas just thrown in a bowl and while they work for the moments they appear in, they never get together in a nice meal. Gameplay is very uneven as well, with some moments being extremely action-heavy, while a lot of the segments not having much if any action in any meaningful way. Yes, it keeps the game surprising and unexpected, but it never feels like a plan, more like a collection of happy accidents.
I didn’t dislike Lost in Vivo now that I’ve finally played it, but I didn’t truly like it either. I admire it, I respect it. I like how it almost never uses jump scares and knows how to build tension and then relieve it without sudden “boo” moments, knows how to be unexpected. But it’s not a game that I enjoyed playing. It was a curious experience, but I wouldn’t want to play it again.