This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format.

Viviette brings a ghastly top-down horror experience to Switch, wrapped in a 16-bit skin.

Its focus lies in exploration, finding items, and overcoming tricky puzzles in order to progress deeper into its frightening story. Said story takes place in an appropriately (and occasionally absurdly over-the-top) spooky mansion, though to go into detail with its plot would be to flirt too closely with spoilers. All you need to know is that you play as an unreliable narrator, trying to recall the events that led him to a hospital bed. The plot only seeps further into the darkness from there.

The horror-themed mansion explorer may sound similar to a certain zombie-themed IP and yes, Viviette clearly owes a great deal of its tone and narrative to Resident Evil. You’ll solve puzzles based on information and items found elsewhere and you are largely left to your own devices, bar the odd hint. This may cause less-patient players to become frustrated, leading to the old ‘Where do I go and what do I do?’ complaint. However, nothing is exceptionally difficult to figure out if you tackle every optional and interactable element, and the reward of the excellent story is worth the odd head-scratching moment.

You’re also rewarded with multiple endings based on items found and choices made, making the replay factor strong. A minor complaint comes from the irritating death system, which savagely takes an unbearable amount of time to get you back into the game, and back to your last save point.

Viviette manages to provide some genuinely chilling moments and serves to get under your skin, largely thanks to the excellent, eerie sound design. Doors creak, loud bangs make you jump, and the rising ambient soundtrack is employed perfectly to dial the scare factor up to 10. The familiar, SNES-like graphics serve to throw you off your guard, reminding us so much of Final Fantasy III and Secret of Mana, masking the true horror below.

Viviette is excellent at providing something different that takes the best elements of many different games to craft something fairly unique. Despite some minor gripes, it’s a brilliant single-player experience.