I know this became a bit of a cult classic, but I played it at the time (still have my original copy) and I’m a lot more lukewarm on it.
It does have some neat ideas on paper, but most of the sanity gimmicks are pretty flat and both the story and the visuals at the time weren’t spectacular in a world where people had played Silent Hill 2 the previous year. The anthology setting at least keeps the narrative episodic and self-contained enough to avoid it dragging too much, because the constantly monologuing protagonists would not be able to carry a full game without some variation.
It’s not terrible. As a spiritual successor to Alone in the Dark you could do worse (and we all have since), but it’s a bit of a curio, not a timeless classic. Good to check out, but I wouldn’t feel too guilty if you don’t click with it after getting through the prologue and the first episode, because that’s how it keeps going until the end.
Oh, and it IS covered by Retroachievements.org’s fancy new Dolphin support, so if you want to check it out or revisit it on emulation that’s a fun twist.
“Normal” is very much not the word I’d use.
I’d say it’s a psychological horror thing with a side of body horror. It doesn’t focus more on combat than Eternal Darkness does, honestly, and it’s certainly a lot more straight-up gory and gross. But it’s definitely not a B-movie riff in the vein of Resident Evil, at least narratively, it just mostly plays like it.
The new remake is coming soon. People are a bit worried about execution on that, but if they don’t botch it may be a good place to start with it.