Zero Brightness - A Podcast About Horror Video Games · Ecstattic Studio

Zero Brightness Ep. 187: No More Notes (Halloween 2025)

·2 hr 1 min

They keep the metalcore thread going. The argument is still over harsh vocals, Hot Damn, and the way early records can sound better precisely because the delivery is rougher, stranger, and a little self-destructive. Once the singing gets technically correct, one voice hears the sound flatten out, even if the band eventually loops back toward that earlier feel after enough records. Then the game talk takes over. Exit 8 gets described as something that should be beatable quickly, but too many of its anomalies are so subtle that the player just keeps getting reset without a clear reason. That is not tension. It feels more like the game is stalling for time, because the horror comes from obscurity instead of from a system with real momentum. Shinkansen Zero comes up as the better comparison. The hosts like it more because it piles on more moving parts and actually juices the loop instead of leaning on tiny visual changes to carry everything. RNG becomes the real villain. The complaint is that a player should not need luck to make progress through something that is supposed to reward observation, yet the brute-force path here seems to be the one that works. They do see both endings. The good ending lands almost by accident, which only makes the design feel thinner and more irritating. There is also a lineage complaint. If the game helped inspire Chilla's work, came first, and later got expanded, the extra material does not save it from feeling like the simpler version that somehow got less interesting with the upgrades. The ending swerves into Halloween candy talk. Purple wrappers, eBay speculation, absurd prices, and a deadpan Buckshot Roulette bit turn into a little seasonal spiral that feels half joke and half consumer curse. The whole thing ends as a mean, funny hangout about voice, games, and the pleasure of being annoyed in public.

As heard by us

A blunt, specific chat that moves from harsh vocals to Exit 8 and ends up arguing that subtlety can tip into tedium.

The episode starts with metalcore vocal technique and lands on a blunt dislike of harsh singing, with a clear preference for the older sound and a small caveat that the band is not a major favorite overall.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For a metalcore episode that swings from raw harsh vocals to a sharp argument about what those vocals should sound like, press play.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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