We endure the awful Dreamcast survival horror game that’s based upon ‘The Ring’ series, the perplexing disaster, ‘The Ring: Terror’s Realm’.

“[RING], a killer computer program? It’s silly, but it makes me wonder…”

Sometimes a horror franchise hits such a fever pitch that it’s able to make the transition over to other media, like video games. This isn’t always an easy process and obviously, some titles, such as slashers, lend themselves more to the survival horror video game genre than other films. That being said, this is still a relatively rare experience and even horror’s heaviest hitters haven’t gotten truly worthy video games until very recently. That’s what makes Asmik Ace Entertainment’s Dreamcast title, The Ring: Terror’s Realm, such a fascinating project. Hideo Nakata’s Ringu is absolutely not the title you expect to transition over to video games (unless it maybe crossed over with the Fatal Frame series). That’s not to say that it’s an impossible prospect and “J-horror” could certainly use more representation in video games, but unfortunately, The Ring: Terror’s Realm is one of the absolute worst games to come out for the system.

One of the biggest surprises about this property is that it came out for the Dreamcast in 2000, which means that it actually pre-dates Gore Verbinski’s American The Ring by two years. This title actually draws most of its lore and inspiration from Koji Suzuki’s series of Ring novels, even though it includes footage from the Japanese films. The game came out in Japan a month after the release of Ring 0: Birthday and was surely meant to piggyback off of its publicity, but the decision by Infogrames to localize this title for North America comes as a major surprise. At this point in time, America has no relationship with this franchise, let alone “J-horror” in general. Clearly, Infogrames thought that any survival horror on the system could draw big numbers, especially when Resident Evil Code: VERONICA was so hot, but The Ring: Terror’s Realm is a complete disaster on every level, but it’s at least a bewildering train wreck to work through.

The Ring: Terror’s Realm centers around Meg Rainman, a scientist at the CDC who’s on her mission after the cursed “[RING]” game kills her boyfriend, Robert. Meg quickly learns that he’s not the only one to recently die under these suspicious circumstances. After Meg experiences the [RING] game, the CDC becomes under quarantine, which ostensibly keeps her in there for the whole game as she attempts to solve this mystery before her expiration date is up. It comes as a major shock when Meg boots up [RING] and she’s not greeted with a creepy video, but is instead transported into a Tron-esque world like some Sentai Ranger. It’s a bold turn, one that doesn’t make any sense, and something that feels like it would be much better suited in anything else that’s not a video game based on The Ring.

These segments of the game force Meg to navigate via flashlight through dark corridors. These moments of vulnerability have an admirable look to them and you can tell what they’re going for, but they get bland very quickly and feel like they belong in another title. The monsters themselves look like Neanderthals of some type, and again, nothing that specifically screams Ring. Apparently, Sadako’s powers turn people into monkey monsters this time around, too. These beasts also provide zero challenge, especially when ammo is of no real concern here. Even if a bunch of Sadakos were the generic enemy, they’d still be scarier than the alternative. The game switches back and forth between these two worlds, but a major issue is that this “action horror world” is only marginally more suspenseful than the drab CDC segments. The lighting is the creepiest thing. A little variety in the enemies would also go a long ways, but the game sticks to their manbearpig model.

Subtlety is far from the game’s strong suit and characters will just arbitrarily contact you, but you have no idea or context for who they are. None of this matters because they’re just meant to give you exposition and apparently it’s more entertaining to read this through dialogue from someone named “Jack” than off of a document on a table or something, even though there’s no difference in how the game presents this. This lack of personality is present across the board, which is kind of shocking. Everything just feels like it’s there to help move the plot along, not even to scare the gamer, which would at least make this more tolerable. Terror’s Realm is so void of flavor that you could honestly fall asleep while playing it. It’s easily the worst survival horror title on the Dreamcast (and there are some forgettable ones, like Carrier). Notoriously, the game’s review on GameSpy’s DreamcastPlanet was a 1/10 and the title nearly broke the reviewer.

The Ring: Terror’s Realm actually decides to recap the events of Ringu that go all the way back to 1990 and act as a brief primer on Sadako Yamamura’s tortured life. There are allusions to the novel that inspired the films and even footage from them, but the game still barely connects to the canon. Nevertheless, Terror’s Realm discusses how the infamous Sadako videotape has evolved into a virus, which then worked itself into the [RING] video game. This plot is also much more in line with the novels’ take on Sadako, where she’s not a ghost, but rather her memories are transmitted via the cursed videotape.

The Ring: Terror’s Realm tries to get creative with its premise, but it could provide a better explanation as to why Sadako Yamamura does all of this and why she decides to move to the medium of video games. There are brief hints at answers to these questions, like how the CDC is apparently in possession of Sadako’s body, but then it moves into questionable territory where Sadako’s body is used to make a “vaccine” for her curse. That’s a physical vaccine for a spiritual curse. It doesn’t make any sense. This all builds to the revelation that Sadako has somehow built a virtual world that Meg gets stuck in, but to the game’s credit, The Matrix was pretty new at the time of its release.

Terror’s Realm doesn’t even let you find and watch the infamous cursed videotape until the final third of the game and even then it’s an extremely underwhelming experience. It’s appreciated to get a glimpse of this legendary footage from the original film (there are also snippets of Ring 2, with Sadako’s mother), but it also muddles the game’s message since it’s supposed to be a video game that’s now cursed. That doesn’t mean that footage of the old tape can’t still exist, but it feels pretty gratuitous, unless the idea is that Meg is now double cursed (which makes no sense). It’d be nice if after this point in the game Sadako would at least start following you around, but the gameplay or lack of enemy variety remains the same.

Finally, Meg learns that her trusted boss at the CDC is actually a bad guy and wants Sadako’s powers for himself. It’s also worth addressing that the final boss is Sadako, but you fight her with a katana. As you swing the mighty blade at her, she turns into bats, like Dracula, to evade your attacks because this is The Ring, after all. In the end, a very flimsy explanation is given to all of this where basically Sadako just despises that humans are able to do whatever they want and so all of this is some kind of bitter revenge. She wants all humans to die.

The Ring: Terror’s Realm is narratively a mess, but aesthetically and design-wise it’s not much better. Meg always has some kind of grin plastered on her face, like she’s the victim of the Joker’s nerve toxin. In fact, all of the characters have unintentionally unnerving models. Curiously, the game’s character designer is Katsuya Terada, who’s pretty renowned in both video games and anime for his characters, yet these just don’t click.

Basically, only the game’s introductory cut scene features dialogue and it contains some really abysmal voice acting performances. It almost makes you glad that the rest of the game just features text exchanges and no actual dialogue (which is still exceptionally lazy in a Dreamcast title). Additionally, Terror’s Realm contains a really irritating, lazy muzak-style soundtrack, which is not only not creepy, but it actively breaks the tension in the environment. It also starts over every time you go to the pause screen, which finds a way to make all of this even worse. On this note, the sound effects for the menu are all confusing splat sounds, which is just weird. It’s not that kind of game…

A lot of time in this game is spent aimlessly running around an area until you find the right door that will open to progress things along. This is more trial and error than any informed structure. It’s as if The Ring film never leaves its second act where Naomi Watts’ character is just in research and interview mode. Or do you remember that bit in the film where the item, healing jelly, is used to reduce the threat of Sadako? Of course not! This is all also just a very repetitive, fetch-y kind of survival horror title that’s more errands and unlocking drawers than scares and enemies. This slog should last you between six and seven hours, but it feels like there’s 45 minutes worth of content here.

There’s a very rudimentary combat in system in place that feels clunkier than the one present in the first Silent Hill. One the other hand, the title offers a surprising amount of freedom with its camera angles and it allows fixed camera angles, ones that follow you, or go the first- and third-person route. It’s just a shame the game isn’t good enough to actually make fun use of these options. It’s almost like it was added to make up for the fact that other areas in the game are lacking.

It’s painful to see how The Ring: Terror’s Realm intentionally apes Resident Evil in so many ways, like the limited inventory (which looks identical), but manages to make every case even less user-friendly. There are even item crates and freaking door-opening animations for scene transitions! You practically expect to save on a typewriter. Also, The Ring translates to some kind of detective story, not a horror-action title like Resident Evil. A survival horror game based on the Ring series could be great, but this goes completely in the wrong direction and squanders the property. It’s not surprising to learn that the game’s director, Atsushi Suzuki, has no other directing credits to his name and barely any other experience in the video game industry.

The Ring: Terror’s Realm desperately wants to be a Ring game, but then why make its connections to the source material so tangential? This could have just been titled Terror’s Realm and been its own thing to zero consequence. I mean, there are gas leak booby traps in this game that you have to figure out like you’re in Indiana Jones. It’s yet another element that feels completely foreign to The Ring series. On top of this, the title is filled with inner-office politics, a hair growth serum and smallpox scare, and a bunch of weird patients that are holed away in the basement of the CDC that never amounts to anything more than dull padding.

Besides a Wonderswan Color visual novel title and some digital patchislot games that are only available in Japan, no other video games have attempted to tackle The Ring, which sadly means that Terror’s Realm is the best and only adaptation available. The frustrating thing here is that I do like the idea that a video game adaptation of The Ring would turn the infamous videotape into a video game. There are some really clever things that could be done with that premise and a survival horror game could truly tap into the psychological horror aspect of this dilemma where the player is just as concerned about this ticking clock element as the game’s protagonist. A survival horror game based on the Ring series could be great, but The Ring: Terror’s Realm goes completely in the wrong direction and squanders the property. If the team behind Eternal Darkness had taken a swing at this for example, perhaps this could have been really special. As it stands, this remains an interesting survival horror relic because of how much of a misfire it is, but just barely. It also likely killed any chances of a Ju-on/The Grudge video game going into production any time soon (although a Ju-on “Haunted House Simulator” would unfathomably come out for the Wii in 2009).

With how far horror video games and licensed properties have come since the year 2000, maybe The Ring will one day get a proper video game adaptation. Whatever’s made couldn’t be any worse than this. Who knows, maybe a Sadako Yamamura skin for Dead by Daylight’s The Spirit character is in the cards? Or at least Meg Rainman will get added to the list of playable survivors.