Fear Effect was destined to be a cult classic due to its visuals and bold cinematic presentation, which made it stand out in the survival horror genre. When it came out in 2000, it pioneered cel-shaded 3D anime characters, which were a rarity at that time. Jet Grind Radio hadn’t come out yet, and it was especially unique since Kronos was a Western developer. Their inspirations were to take the best of 80s OVA anime, Blade Runner, Big Trouble in Little China, with a bit of Evil Dead for good measure.
The 3D models stood out against looping, animated pre-rendered backgrounds, bringing to life environments far more dynamic than the static backdrops seen in Resident Evil. This “interactive movie” aesthetic, powered by Motion FX tech, demanded a the game ship on four discs, an honor usually held by Squaresoft’s massive Final Fantasy games.
Fear Effect received a prequel the following year, as well as a planned PlayStation 2 sequel that was ultimately canceled. Fear Effect: Sedna was eventually released, but it was a major departure from what made the original games so endearing. A modern remake was also in the works, but it was canceled. With so much bad luck surrounding the franchise, the best we can hope for is a very straightforward port. How does it hold up? Find out in our Fear Effect review!
Fear Effect
Developer: Kronos Digital Entertainment, Implicit Conversions
Publisher: Eidos Interactive, Limited Run Games
Platforms: Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)
Release Date: February 24, 2000 / August 29, 2025
Price: $9.99
It’s 2050, Hong Kong is dominated by megacorporations and Triad gangs. Three hardened mercenaries, including a seductive ex-prostitute Hana, Glas, and Deke, accept a high-stakes contract. Their mission is to retrieve the daughter of a Triad patriarch, Wee Ming Lam, from a rival gang.
What began as a fairly routine rescue mission for the morally gray protagonists spirals out of control into a descent into hell itself. Nothing is as it appears as the gang finds themselves pursued by Triads, zombies, and demons, as if the plot were ripped straight from a gritty, early ’90s OVA, at a breakneck pace.
The main story arc has Hana, Glas, and Deke getting caught up in new environments ranging from a Bladerunner-esque city to a Cannibal Holocaust-like jungle village, saucy nightclubs, and a surrealist Chinese-flavored hell. The story constantly escalates, putting the main characters in life and death situations, moving along at a brisk pace… so long as you can survive the brutally hard gameplay.
Anyone who’s played a classic survival-horror game with tank controls and fixed camera angles will know what to expect at first. Once you get used to the controls, which are unorthodox even by Resi-like standards, the differences between Fear Effect and its peers start to stand out.
Glas, Deke, and Hana have no inventory limits, which seems helpful at first, but then you realize that you’ll be cycling through the gang’s items and weapons one by one, and in real time. This can be a huge hassle since you can’t pause the action to change weapons when getting surrounded by a mob of armed Triads. Another distinction is that Fear Effect has a basic stealth mechanic, which is handy for stealth kills with a knife, which saves a ton of ammo.
You’ll need that ammo too, because the difficulty is through the roof, even on normal mode, which sucks. The only way to get the best ending is to play on hard mode, which sucks because there are a lot of cheap deaths and beginner traps. The health system is also not what it seems, despite resembling the Resident Evil EKG heart rate monitor.
The “Fear” health system fluctuates the characters’ state depending on various situations. Taking damage from enemies, traps, or hazards will obviously increase the heart rate, but so does getting detected by enemies and running out of ammo while threats are present.
No health pickups exist in Fear Effect, so recovery is skill-based only. It doesn’t decrease naturally; you must actively “calm” the characters by performing certain actions. Solving puzzles, stealth kills, or killing enemies without getting damaged makes the EKG turn greener. This system encourages stealth, precision, and puzzle-solving over run-and-gun, amplifying tension, especially in horror sections.
The aforementioned stealth is rudimentary, but functional. Holding the crouch button makes the character go into a stealth mode where their steps are silenced. Stabbing a guy while in this position, while undetected, is a one-hit kill. Other mechanics include a dodge roll, which comes with ample i-frames to avoid damage during gun battles, but combat in Fear Effect is admittedly one of its weaknesses.
God help you if you try to make Hana use a knife in a gun battle, but if she’s packing heat, expect a war of attrition. Aiming has auto-targeting to the nearest threat, and crouching increases accuracy. Since this plays like a classic horror game, characters are locked in place when shooting. Dodge rolling in four directions helps, but expect to take damage if there is more than one gun-toting enemy.
Combat in Fear Effect is a gamble and a crapshoot. Save points are at fixed locations and don’t require an ink ribbon, so retrying isn’t so painful if you come out of a battle low on ammo and high on fear. Even more helpful is that this new release comes with a rewind and save state feature, making retrying even less painful than ever. This is especially helpful since bosses are absurdly difficult and will kill Hana in two or three hits.
Fighting may seem a bit cheap, but there is nothing more unfair in Fear Effect than the traps. At times, this game feels less like a traditional survival horror game and more like a reimagining of those step-based cinematic platformers like the original Oddworld or Another World. Some screens are traps, and you won’t figure out what to do or how to move forward until you’ve died a few times and noticed the animated background, which is secretly a timer ticking down to a game over.
Just like Another World, despite the trial-and-error adventure gameplay, Fear Effect manages to be stimulating, and a lot of it has to do with its ambiance and mood. This is a very stylish game with moving prerendered backgrounds and awesome character designs that are right out of a forgotten 90s anime.
Unfortunately, the trade-off of having prerendered, animated backgrounds from the PS1 era is that they’re hard-coded at a low resolution. Unless Fear Effect is completely remade with new assets, there is little that can be done with the backgrounds and the sudden switching from real-time to FMV visuals.
The image quality has a lot of digital noise and artifacts due to the liberal implementation of prerendered cutscenes. Performing actions like hopping over a ledge will jarringly switch to a recorded video, and the change in quality is very noticeable. Thankfully, the art direction is just strong enough to barely hold the experience together.
The music combined grungy industrial styles with Chinese folk, making a distinctly cyberpunk feel. Think Massive Attack meets Ghost in the Shell’s soundtrack, and you get Fear Effect’s pulsing sonic scape. It’s a perfect mix for the nightmarish urban setting and the depraved backwoods sequences when Hana is running around with only a towel.
Fear Effect is one hundred percent a product of its era. When Resi-likes were intensely popular, basically all story-driven action-adventure games had to imitate Resident Evil’s template. The commitment to the living background art was cutting-edge and impressive at the time, but became a liability as image quality improved and rendering techniques became more sophisticated.
Fear Effect is still a pretty cool and edgy adventure game that’s elevated by its ambition, atmosphere, and style. The crushing gameplay takes some getting used to, and this new version has the bare minimum when it comes to its presentation. Yet, the core is engrossing as ever and grabs players, forcing them to play by its rules.
Fear Effect was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a code provided by Limited Run Games. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Fear Effect is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), PlayStation, PlayStation 3 (via PSN), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.
