Darkest Fear is a role-playing game for the iPhone and iPod Touch that throws you into a world of horror. Your character must discover clues and solve puzzles in order to uncover the mystery. The game succeeds in telling a good story, but falls short of making the user feel in control of their fate.

The story starts off in a dark hospital that you must travel through to discover clues. There are documents to read, objects to find and puzzles to solve along the way. Darkness is obviously the key gameplay element. You have to open windows, use flashlights or create light in any way possible in order to avoid the dark areas of the map. Entering any dark area without light will allow the ghosts and monsters to attack you and drain your life. If you aim your flashlight accurately, you can actually destroy these enemies. Most of the puzzles will require you to maneuver boxes around to open doors, all while maintaining lit areas. These puzzles can be very challenging, sometimes taking up a great deal of time.

Throughout the game, you’ll be able to read documents and talk to other people in the area. These all happen with a pop up dialogue box. There are no voice-overs and no text is read out loud. So, there is a bit of reading to do while playing this game.

The puzzles are definitely challenging, and the story is intriguing. However, what may be the biggest downfall of Darkest Fear are the controls. To move your character around the level, you have to tap on the screen and drag you finger toward the area you want to go. I am not a fan of this type of control, as your finger will block a large portion of the screen, inhibiting your ability to see what’s ahead. Also, your movement is not free, but rather locked into a grid of squares. So, you can’t move diagonal, but only left/right and up/down. This type of control scheme really makes you feel constrained and unable to truly control what your character does. I would have preferred some sort of virtual d-pad instead.

The maps are designed well, the graphics look nice and shadows and light are nicely incorporated into the levels. However, character and monster animations are poor. Your main character feels very much like a chess piece moving around the board. When you come across a hospital patient, they just seem to sit there as if frozen. You just don’t feel like objects or people in the game are real. However, the sound and music in the game are actually pretty well done and do offer a sense of eeriness.

Overall, Darkest Fear takes a special breed of gamer to really appreciate it. Personally, I became very frustrated with some puzzles that just seemed to take way too long to solve, requiring numerous repetitions before completing. Also, the controls are incredibly annoying, having to continuously swipe across the screen to get around and being constricted to a grid-type movement. The bottom line is that the game just isn’t fun or very scary. Therefore, I cannot recommend the purchase.