Dementium: The Ward Review - Screenshot 1 of 4
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

Bringing cult classics to a more modern, updated platform can be a risky proposition. What, if anything, do you change, and what do you keep the same? When the game you happen to be porting originated on the DS, a certain degree of change is inevitable given the shift from a two-screen to a single-screen format, so naturally, a careful balance has to be struck in order to rope in new players while keeping original fans happy. With Dementium: The Ward, developer Atooi has opted for the safest route possible, porting its 2015 3DS remaster of the 2007 original over to the Switch with as few unnecessary changes as possible. While this makes for an authentic recreation that helps preserve the game in light of the 3DS eShop closure, it also highlights some of its unfortunate drawbacks.

Taking place within a creepy medical ward, your protagonist awakens with no memory, and it’s up to you to escape from the complex alive, fighting off gruesome enemies and solving puzzles along the way. It’s your typical survival horror but with first-person mechanics; in a way, it feels like a precursor to what Resident Evil would eventually morph into with its seventh mainline entry.

Dementium: The Ward Review - Screenshot 2 of 4
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

Moving over to the Switch, the controls have been updated accordingly and feel very much in line with modern first-person shooters: movement is mapped to the left analogue stick while look/aim is on the right. You can choose between three different control options that swap stick and trigger functions, and you can also invert the Y-axis if you wish. All fairly standard.

There are no touchscreen controls, which is definitely a blessing given how awkward the original's stylus aiming would be on a single screen where it's not needed, but disappointingly, there is also no option for gyro aiming. For many, including this writer, it seems an obvious choice to include this wherever possible, and first-person games like Metroid Prime Remastered have more than proven its worth. Hopefully, this will get patched in at a later date, but for now, it’s a glaring omission for an FPS on Switch.

Regardless, Dementium: The Ward controls pretty well for the most part. You can adjust the aiming sensitive to your liking and the rock-solid 60fps performance delivers a smooth, stable gameplay experience. Loading is also practically non-existent: you can load up your saved game and be back in the action in less than a second. The same goes for navigating through rooms, too. While this isn’t completely seamless, the short transition from one area to the next is quick and painless.

Dementium: The Ward Review - Screenshot 3 of 4
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)

When it comes to the game’s combat, however, this is where its age (and limitations of the DS/3DS) begins to become apparent. The enemies, while certainly well-designed from a visual standpoint, do little more than rush to the protagonist, flailing their arms about in reckless abandon. The boss characters don’t fare too well, either, with an early encounter with ‘The Cleaver’ proving to be a pretty monotonous affair in which you simply walk backward while firing off a few shotgun rounds. You can crank up the difficulty if you want a bit more of a challenge, but fundamentally, the way the enemy AI behaves feels quite basic for the most part, and they become mere annoyances rather than something resembling a genuine threat.

What we do admire about the game, however, is how it strikes a fine balance between lighting up your environment with your torch and utilising your weapons. You can’t do both at the same time which, logically, may seem a bit odd, but it does make for some seriously tense moments. You never know quite what’s behind each corner, and knowing you’ll likely have to sacrifice your visual aid for a defensive item in the event a gruesome monster launches toward you can be nerve-wracking.

In terms of its overall lo-fi presentation, Dementium: The Ward looks to effectively replicate the 2015 remaster as much as possible, and it most certainly succeeds. While this makes for a pleasing callback for fans of the original, there is also undoubtedly room for some improvement to appease newcomers. The environments, for the most part, look pretty identical throughout, which led to a feeling of repetition during the latter portions of the game while making the in-game map near enough mandatory if you’re to avoid getting lost (thankfully, however, the map has been updated for this release to highlight save rooms, which is honestly a godsend). There were hints of variety at points, such as a particularly creepy children’s ward, but more of this was sorely needed.

Dementium: The Ward Review - Screenshot 4 of 4
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)

That said, the atmosphere is wonderful from start to finish, with solid lighting effects, effective use of blood and gore, and a consistent piano tune that somehow manages to sound both unnerving and weirdly comforting at the same time. It’s also a pretty brisk game, clocking in at just three or four hours; less if you're a Dementium veteran and really know what you’re doing. While this might well sound a bit too short for some, it felt like the right length for us given the environmental limitations. And that ending, all these years later, still gives us the willies.

Conclusion

Dementium: The Ward is a safe Switch port that successfully replicates as much of the 2015 3DS remaster as possible while updating the controls for a more modern experience. It's a short game that does suffer from repetitive environments and dull enemy encounters, but the overarching atmosphere makes up for this in spades. If you're a fan of survival horror, there's definitely enough here to scratch an itch, and the solid performance and tight controls make this a port worth checking out.