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Shigeru Miyamoto wasn't sure Eternal Darkness should include the "delete your save" Sanity Effect

Did it fool you?
by rawmeatcowboy
09 May 2019
GN Version 5.0

Many Nintendo fans still look back on Eternal Darkness as an amazing experience. The game tried to do a lot of unique things, including its Sanity Effect aspect. For those who don't know, the Sanity Effect mechanic included a lot of fourth wall-breaking moments that aimed to confuse the player. Was the game really glitching out, or was it just screwing with you?

One of those Sanity Effect moments made it look like the GameCube was deleting your save file. While Shigeru Miyamoto was on-board with the Sanity Effect idea overall, Eternal Darkness creator Denis Dyack caught some push-back on this particular moment.

“That [sanity effect] was my personal favorite. I sat down and made sure that meter went really slow, enough for people to start screaming. So Mr. Miyamoto sat down with us and said, 'Denis, what if someone looks at that and gets really angry and throws their GameCube against the wall because they think it's bugged out? Is that our fault?'”

Thanks to Dondom95 for the heads up!

[Link]