PSVR/PS4 Review: Dying Reborn

What is dead may never die…

Dying Reborn is a curious game. For one thing, there are two versions on PS4…one where VR is required and is shorter, but cheaper. The second is normal and at a slightly higher price, but is a longer game. Why not just have the VR as an option you can select in the menu like Resident Evil 7 or the newly-updated VR game “Here They Lie”?

It’s a baffling decision, but there it is. What’s worse about it though, is that Dying Reborn tries to play the Saw card with it’s puzzles and creepy atmosphere in first-person, and while the puzzles are clever…the scares are few and far between, but it doesn’t matter since the voice-actor for your character is potentially one of the most unbelievable I’ve ever come across. He just sounds half-asleep and sarcastic…he’s one line away from saying something really sarcastic like “Well, THAT sounds like a good idea….”

The worst part about the game is that it’s not even that bad…it just lacks polish and splitting the game into two different versions definitely shows the impact that it has made on the quality of the game as a whole. Combining items to solve puzzles is clever, but it’s nothing new for either puzzle or horror games.

In the end, Dying Reborn simply feels like it started out with ambition but the idea for VR took over and in the end, compromised the entire premise. The only saving grace is that the trophies are easy to get. The visuals are fairly standard and like I said, the voice-acting is atrocious.

The Verdict

If the VR version of Dying Reborn was the same length of the standard PS4 version, then it’d be slightly easier to recommend…but even then, the quality of both games are poor as a result of splitting them up instead of uniting them and increasing the overall quality. The puzzles are decent, but the voice-acting is dreadful and there’s no sense of danger, which is what you want in a horror game…especially in VR. Dying Reborn is sadly DOA.

Score: 4.5