Breathing Fear from Drageus Games is a short, minimalist psychological horror adventure game on Nintendo Switch. Learn more in our Breathing Fear review!
In Breathing Fear, you will take on the role of an escaped convict – orange clothing and all – who goes into an abandoned house for unknown reasons. Armed with nothing more than a fully charged flashlight, you will start to explore the house, the shed, and its surrounding areas for, again, reasons unknown. Breathing Fear is a 2D minimalist adventure game with a bit of a psychological horror twist. The game is an overall short experience, but it does offer different endings, so there’s some motivation for replaying it.
The game is very easy to control since you’ll be moving your character with the left analog stick or the D-Pad, pressing up or down to climb up or go down any stairs or ladders you find. You can interact with things with the A button and can turn your flashlight on or off with the Y button. You will know when you can interact with something because the game will show a big A button icon on the lower right corner of the screen. The flashlight will start with a full charge, but the more you use it, the faster its batteries will run out. The issue is that if you turn off the flashlight, leaving your character in the dark, his heart rate will start to go up. If it ever hits 70, then it’s game over.
While the game is technically a nonlinear adventure, depending on which ending you aim to get, you will need to do some things in a particular sequence. This is the case because unlike most of the adventure games you’ve played before, for Breathing Fear, you can’t just collect everything you find and hope that you can use it to solve a puzzle down the road. For example, the house has no electricity, so if you’re not using your flashlight, then your heart rate will quickly increase. There’s a generator in the basement, but in order for you to be able to grab the gas canister so that you can fill up the generator, you first need to open the hatch to the basement, go check the generator, be told that it’s empty, and then you can go and grab the gas canister and bring it with you.
I can’t talk anymore about the other interactions you’ll have for Breathing Fear, or else I’d end up spoiling this short experience for you. You’re looking at around an hour or so for doing a “perfect run” for the game, but in order for you to do so, you’ll first need to make some “mistakes” along the way that will cost you some valuable time, or that will end up taking a toll on your character’s heart rate, leaving you without much wiggle room to keep it from reaching 70 and you getting a game over.
Breathing Fear is a minimalist psychological horror adventure that is only $4.99 on Nintendo Switch. While it’s a short one, it does offer some replay value for players that like to 100% games since it does have different endings for you to unlock. Can you find all of them?
Disclaimer
This Breathing Fear review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Drageus Games.
