However, while Alone in the Dark was about puzzle-solving and a few deadly monsters, The Legacy is an RPG. A dungeon crawler, to be precise. Each level is a twisting maze, filled with one-way doors, traps, teleporters and secrets – challenging to navigate even with the help of the on-screen mini-map.

Monsters are also plentiful. From zombies to extra-dimensional beings, be prepared to fight a lot. Combat is in real time, much like Dungeon Master, and each victory gives you XP to improve your stats and skills – but will likely also cost valuable resources.

And that's the challenge: resource management. Health items are extremely rare, as are bullets and crystals that restore magic power. You can rest to heal, but only at rare safe areas – and sleeping makes you hungry, so you're limited by food availability.

As such, Realm of Terror can be a very difficult and frustrating game – one that might force you to load an old save file or even restart if you wasted too much ammo, magic or health early on and can't proceed. Its first few hours can be punishing for newcomers, especially if they spent points on the “wrong” skills, but that's also when the atmosphere is at its best.

Sadly, once you're better prepared, the tension dims and inventory management becomes the main challenge. The game has dozens of weapons, items and puzzle pieces, but you can carry very few of them at once. You'll often find a puzzle and be forced to backtrack to grab its solution. Luckily, the monsters don't respawn – if you bothered to kill them.

Overall, The Legacy is an exotic and charming RPG, with a presentation ahead of its time and some tense moments. But once its Lovecraftian monsters become trash mobs, most of that atmosphere vanishes. It's still great for dungeon crawler fans, but it's easy to see why Alone in the Dark is the superior horror game.