The Storyboards and Scripts of the “Hospital” level for Fear Effect Inferno PlayStation 2
This article [Fear Effect Inferno Playstation 2 and its prototypes: the art of video game storytelling], dedicated to unveiling the buried secrets of Fear Effect Inferno, has already guided you through the twists and turns of its tumultuous history, its complex characters, and the technical peculiarities of its prototype. Now let's delve into the depths of the “Hospital” level, where the art of interactive storytelling blends intimately with the thrill of horror.
Each cutscene has its own unique Kronos Entertainment code. The first letter coincides with the level of Fear Effect Inferno, in this case “C” for “Hospital”. The numbers represent the cinematics. Finally, the last letter “N” stands for “Narrative”. The Scripts and extracts making up the Storyboards are numbered in the same way, to link them to the corresponding cutscenes.
On this page, you can view all Hospital level Scripts and Storyboards in the order in which they appear in the game.
Compilation of cutscenes of the Hospital level for Fear Effect Inferno
Clicking on the blue cutscene link, where available, will open the Youtube video on the right at the start of the cinematic (Timecode).
Enjoy your reading!
1)
Fade up:
i/e. carriage, endless abyss - day
HANA’S POV, as she watches the world around her fade into view.
HIGH ANGLE ON HANA, in the carriage, still wearing her infiltration outfit, floating across an endless abyss.
She’s alone in the vehicle now, and as she moves along, cherry blossoms gently fall from the sky in a silent, beautiful rain and bounce off the vehicle.
PAN OUT FROM
VEHICLE and
fade away into:
int. hospital Bedroom - day
Hana lies unconscious in a nicely lit, sterile hospital room.
She fades briefly into awareness; the hospital room distorting around her, then drifts out again.
A nurse walks out of Hana’s room.
cut to:
int. 5th floor nurses’ station - day
The nurse enters the 5th Floor Nurses’ Station, stops, and checks a clipboard attached to a wall.
The clipboard displays Hana’s chart, as well as a series of four symbols, small, in the corner. (The tangram symbols from the Wrist Etching Puzzle)
1)
int. hospital bedroom - day
The nurse plunges the needle into Hana’s heart. Hana convulses suddenly into consciousness and screams.
BLACKOUT
1)
FADE IN.
ext. carriage - day
[Same as Prologue: POV of Hana who is back inside the carriage as she is pulled by the phoenix.
Cherry blossoms begin to rain down from the sky. One lands in the seat next to Hana and immediately morphs into WEE MING.
Wee Ming smiles at Hana and offers her a bowl of soup. Hana takes the bowl. As she raises it to her lips, a cherry blossom lands in the middle, sending small ripples outward.
Hana stares transfixed at the beautiful floating cherry blossom.
As the ripples subside, images of her friends appear; Glas, Deke, and Rain in it.
She turns to Wee Ming, who still smiles as if she is unaware of anything wrong.
The carriage catches on fire.
Wee Ming also catches on fire.
Hana reaches out to help her, but Hana catches on fire herself. ]
2)
Flash-fadeout.
int. tao sword room
Hana plummets downward, flames still trailing from her body. She slams into the ground, but the weight of her fall seems much less than reality says it should be, and she isn’t hurt.
As she hits the cold earth, the flames are sucked off her body, into an array of candles on a table in the room, which then immediately extinguish, as though having swallowed the flames.
She climbs to her feet, perhaps a little surprised that she isn’t hurt, gathers her emotions, and looks around at her environment.
She’s standing in the center of what appears to be a temple chamber, with a casket near one end, beyond the table and now extinguished candles.
A sword sits atop the casket, and she approaches it to look more closely.
Six bulls stand motionless at the room’s four corners, and as Hana approaches the casket, she notices them, watching from the shadows.
They suddenly flash and come to life and begin to approach. She rushes to the coffin and leaps to grab the sword, just as two of the five demons approach come within range.
1)
nt. tao sword room
Just as Hana defeats one of the two demons left, the last demon stabs his weapon into Hana’s heart. Hana clutches desperately at it and screams in pain.
Fadeout.
Fadeup.
int. hospital bedroom - day
She wakes up in the throes of a violent convulsion as the nurse pulls the syringe back out of her body.
The outlines of four symbols (tangrams) flare a brief crimson on her left wrist before fading again.
The nurse taps the syringe without a word or an acknowledgement of her suffering patient, and walks out of the room.
Hana sits bolt upright, still heaving, and looks around; the room still blurring and distorting around her. She sees the silhouette of the nurse, blurred, leaving the room.
Hana
(still unsteady)
Hey…
No reply. The nurse turns a corner and is gone.
She’s surprised to find herself in a hospital bed. Tentatively, she checks herself. Nothing; no sign she was ever hurt.
She climbs carefully out of bed and makes her way over to the window.
cut to:
i/e. hana’s pov – outside the window
It’s a peaceful daylight scene outside, and she watches in grateful wonder as a beautiful bird takes wing. She continues to peer out the window, entranced.
1)
int. 4th floor nurse station - day
Hana finds a medical chart on a clipboard, indicating that she has been scheduled for surgery. She reacts, surprised.
Hana
Surgery?
(sotto)
There’s nothing wrong with me.
She glances into a security monitor mounted on a wall nearby, and the snow crawling across the screen clears up for a moment.
A man (the Black Reaper) is sitting in a waiting room, profile to the camera. Slowly, he turns his head and looks directly at us; at her.
Hana, unnerved, quickly hits the monitor, and the image goes to static once again.
1)
int. hospital waiting room
Hana steps tentatively into the waiting room, where the man in black waits. He looks up as she enters and smiles at her.
Black Reaper
(an observation)
You have returned.
She’s used to fending off lines from men, and it’s almost a reflex. But this is different. This place is strange, and there’s something about this man that scares her on a fundamental level.
Hana
No. You’re thinking of someone else.
The Reaper smiles again, only adding to Hana’s discomfort. She looks at him more closely. A beat. There’s something… but she can’t pin it down. Doesn’t want to. She does her best to get back to business, a bit too abruptly.
Hana
Where – where am I?
(beat)
I need to let my friends know where I am.
Black reaper
They cannot find you here.
2)
Hana
(getting angry)
Just tell me where I am.
Black reaper
You know the answers already, Hana. But only when you truly see will you understand.
She looks at him, surprised.
Hana
How do you know my name?
Black reaper
Your own truth is the key to the prison of your illusion. Seek this to find your way.
Hana
The only truth I see is that you’re wasting my time.
The Reaper stands and turns to face her, graciously.
Black reaper
Goodbye, Hana.
He steps through the other door and is gone. She suddenly realizes how little she wants to be alone right now, and turns to pursue him.
Hana
(shouting)
Wait!
1)
int. hospital waiting room
Hana rounds the corner out the backside of the Waiting Room, and four tangram symbols (raven, peasant, fetus, and box) begin to well out of the back wall, filling in with dark blood. Once filled, they overflow, and begin to bleed down the wall.
Hana gasps in pain and grips her wrist, then crumples to the floor, unconscious.
CLOSE ON her arm, as the outlines of these same symbols flare angrily from her wrist.
Fade out.
Fade up:
int. hospital bedroom
Hana is back in her bedroom.
1)
int. nurse station
Hana places her hand, palm up, under the mechanical device; the Wrist Etching Machine, for tagging doctors and patients at the hospital for area clearance.
Hana activates the machine.
The device transforms into an organic machine with an eyeball shooting out a beam of light.
The beam of light shines down upon her wrist revealing the outlined four symbols unfilled (see pictures below).
She then takes her other hand and activates the panel.
1)
int. nurse station
The organic machine activates. Four bladed fangs grip down into Hana’s wrist causing her intense pain. The machine fills her Tangram symbols. Hana screams in pain.
And then the machine turns from organic back into metal.
1)
int. nurse station
The Wrist Etching Machine turns from organic back into metal.
1)
int. observation room
Hana walks through the door and up to a window in the observation area overlooking an operating theater. She slowly moves to the front glass and watches the procedure below.
The patient on the table writhes in agony. A nurse tightens a strap on his chin, pulling him tighter to the table and preventing him from moving.
Hana watches in horror as the HEAD SURGEON begins sewing the man’s eyes and mouth shut while the patient is wide-awake.
After the sutures are completed, a nurse takes a long, heavy hypodermic needle and roughly stabs it into the man’s rib cage. The nurse turns on a machine and a glowing substance is pumped from the man – as if his very life force or soul was being sucked out.
When the last of the substance is sucked out, the man finally stops his agonized resistance. The nurse disconnects the machine-end of the tube and attaches it to another machine. Flicking it on, a dark, dull fluid is pumped through the tube and into the patient’s body.
The patient transforms into an animal fetus and Hana gasps in horror. The nurse below hears her and points up.
Notified of her presence, the Head Surgeon sounds the alarm. Orderlies race out of the room to find Hana.
Hana flees from the room, but just outside she thinks she sees Wee Ming getting into the elevator as the door shuts.
1)
int. 4th Floor waiting room - day
Hana sees Wee Ming slip out the other doors to the Waiting Room, and disappear around the corner to the left.
1)
int. hospital operating theater
Hana slips through the door, just in time to see A DOCTOR turning to face her.
Doctor
Ah, good. You’re here. We can get started then.
The door slams behind her. Orderlies surround her. She moves – a twitch, really, and they swarm savagely over her, slam her down to a gurney and begin to apply the restraints.
Hana
Leave me alone! There’s nothing wrong with me!
Doctor
(coolly)
I really think you should be leaving those judgments to us, don’t you?
The doctor raises his scalpel. She struggles against the restraints.
Doctor
It’s your eyes, you see.
2)
He looks over the blade, distractedly.
Doctor (cont.)
You have the wrong eyes.
(beat)
I’m afraid we’ll have to remove them.
At this, Hana struggles with a renewed fury, and connects with a kick that knocks the scalpel across the room, but an orderly plunges a syringe into her arm, and everything starts to slip away.
fade out
fade in
Hana wakes up screaming in her hospital room bed, or at least, it seems like the same bed, but everything’s now askew, and filthy. None of the angles quite line up. She climbs out of the bed and passes the window – a storm rages in the darkness outside. A flash of lightning reveals a raven tearing a bloody strip of flesh out of something long dead and putrid. It glances her way, then flies off.
Out of the corner of her eye, it almost seems as though the door to her room is bleeding.
But only for a moment.
1)
int. 5th floor nurses’ station, filthy - dark
Hana picks up and reads the clipboard, which displays a few charts and some other information, but prominently written across the top are the words,
“Patient Hana Tsu-Vachel: surgery completed. Patient due for psychiatric evaluation at 5:35.”
She puts it back on the desk.
1)
int. hospital, poltergeist hallway
The hallway strangely warps and appears to be getting longer and longer. The hallway seems to move ahead of her and now Hana finds herself again near the Nurse’s Station in the hallway about 15 feet back where she started earlier.
1)
int. hallway outside elevator, filthy - dark
Two orderlies come at Hana from inside the elevator door, muscle her to the ground, and inject her with a bent needle.
During the struggle, Hana rips a mask off and we see that it has no face.
We see one of the orderlies with a straight jacket in his hands.
Hana blacks out.
Fade out.
1)
Fade up:
int. padded cell
Hana wakes up in what appears to be an old, padded psycho ward. Smears of dried blood line the walls.
Hana peers up into a ceiling that appears to be spinning above her. A shadow passes from the ceiling and slips out her door.
Hana goes to the door and looks through the window.
INTRO psycho-patients. Wounded, bloodied psycho patients are leaving trails of blood around in the hallways as they scurry away.
Hana turns back from the window. We see, though she doesn’t, the White (Reaper) man unlock her door. Hana turns around at the sound, but no one is there.
1)
int. psycho ward, unpadded door - night
Hana slams herself into the door and dislocates her shoulder. She screams in pain but contorts her body to work her way out of the straight jacket.
Hana finishes taking off the straight jacket and is now free.
She is forced to pop her shoulder back into place by slamming it back into the wall again.
She reaches to the door and pulls out the surgical knife.
1)
int. monitoring room
Hana uses the key on the door and enters the Orderly Monitoring Room.
As she comes inside, three orderlies see her, but don’t move. They step aside as we reveal a close-up of the nurse without her mask.
Suddenly the Nurse alerts to Hana’s presence, points at Hana, and the Orderlies flank her. The Nurse stays in position.
1)
int. hydraulics room
Hana shoves her knife in the panel as she adjusts something with her other hand. The panel sparks.
cut to:
int. hallway outside elevator
We cut to the Elevator door in the hallway and see the door open up (ALT VIEW C048L/C114L), but also see two Orderlies and a Nurse head over to it from a nearby hallway.
Cutscene C030N (5 extracts making up the Storyboard)
1)
int. psycho ward, outside elevator
Hana whips the straitjacket across the nurse’s face, and as she reacts, gets the straps around her throat and pulls.
The nurse struggles desperately, kicking and flailing, as Hana hauls back on the straps, but can’t get free.
With a final tug, Hana finishes her off and she slumps out of view and to the floor.
Hana throws down the straitjacket after her in disgust and walks on.
1)
int. elevator
Hana runs into the elevator and it suddenly starts falling.
She stumbles and falls as the momentum picks up. She braces for a crash, but it keeps going at furious speeds.
After a moment, still with no crash, she looks behind her at the door and sees more strange images of horrific things pass like fetuses, tongues and eyes in specimen jars, extracted teeth, maggots, rotting cow jaws.
Sound continues to increase in volume, and the elevator starts convulsing. The elevator walls push into her. Hana pushes back, but her hands go through the walls. She pulls her arms back and they are bloodied as they are now intestines and fleshy veins.
The interior lights flash off and then on. Now decomposing bodies surround her and Rain’s is among them. Hana sees her, closes her eyes, covers her ears, and screams, almost inaudibly against the furious noise of the falling elevator.
Suddenly the noise and motion stops from the Elevator. When she opens her eyes, the elevator door opens and she finds herself in a new area.
1)
int. tao sword room
Hana walks up to the sword and takes it, but as she does, the Ceremonial Fire burns backwards and extinguishes.
For a moment within the flames, a ghostly image appears.
1)
int. morgue
Hana makes her way out of the Tao Sword room, and soon finds herself in a strange metallic tunnel.
She squeezes through a panel at the end hole and finds that she has just come out of a body storage drawer into a morgue room.
1)
int. hospital morgue
Hana looks back to the incinerator as the door suddenly flies open. In the center of the chamber, a coffin suddenly comes rolling in from the incinerator.
Hana approaches it.
As it comes to rest, Hana reads along the side to see her name and her birth and death year dates: 2024 –2049. She is terrified, but reaches out to open the coffin, as she kneels on a little platform above it.
She looks inside, but it is empty. She relaxes somewhat at this.
In a flash, the doctor appears behind her and knocks her into the coffin face first.
The coffin lid slams shut. Hana turns and kicks and bashes at the inside.
Cut to:
ext. cemetary – rainy day
Rain kneels beside the Hana’s open grave, before a large clay urn, in which a low flame burns. Glas stands over her, holding an umbrella to shield her and the flame from the pouring rain.
cut to:
int. coffin – rainy day
Hana lets out a ferocious kick, and the coffin lid bursts open, letting in the sullen daylight and the rain.
She clambers to her knees and looks up to see Rain, above her, burning an offering.
She struggles to get out, but the wood planks of the coffin hinders her from getting to her feet.
Hana
Help me, Rain! I can’t – ! Please help me!
2)
After another moment, Rain stands, still looking at the coffin.
Hana tries, with difficulty, to climb free of the coffin.
A tortured sob finally chokes past Rain’s defenses. Then another. We see now that the object she’s clutching to her chest is a framed photo of Hana.
Glas hangs his head now, his hair hiding his face.
Hana gets to the edge, but is slipping.
Hana
Rain!
Rain’s head snaps up.
Glas turns to face Rain, but she’s looking back at the grave, and continues to focus on the soaked ground.
Hana continues to struggle, and manages to climb free of the coffin pit and clamber to her feet.
Glas approaches and puts his hand on Rain’s shoulder as Hana stands in front of her, pleading.
Hana
(quietly now)
Rain, please. Please talk to me.
Rain doesn’t move, and continues to look at the grave. A beat.
Rain tears herself away from the grave at last, and buries her face in Glas’ shoulder. Glas is startled by the unaccustomed contact, but warms to her and returns the embrace.
Hana turns to look at the grave around which they’ve gathered. In shock, she realizes that it’s her own. She stumbles back in horror, and tumbles back into the open coffin.
As she hits the base, it gives way and she plummets into darkness.
3)
Hana opens her eyes and finds herself back inside a coffin, and with all of her strength; she bursts through the lid. The doctor turns to face her.
Doctor
Now you know.
She starts to turn away from him.
Hana
No – this isn’t happening.
Without warning, and with a savage speed, he hurls a scalpel toward her, which grazes her throat in a spray of blood. She clamps a hand against the wound in pain and wheels to face him again.
Doctor
Oh, I assure you it is. I intend to show you just how real hell can be.
Hana removes her hand, sees the blood, and draws the Tao Sword.
1)
int. hospital morgue
Hana is knocked out. The doctor reaches down and starts to perform surgery on her. Game Over.
1)
int. hospital morgue
The Doctor runs to the door just as organic body parts start erupting out of it like Rodin’s Gates of Hell.
A few arms pull the boss through it.
Hana makes a decision to follow, and elects to jump through the mangled parts.
cut to:
int. blood extraction room
The hands and arms throw her into the Blood Extraction Room.
As she gets up, suddenly a shower-sprinkler turns on as a rain of blood spews down from the ceiling. We see the doctor being lowered into the room.
The boss metamorphoses into a huge creature. Tubes and machinery connect him to the ceiling.
Hana takes a step back now all bloody. In his new metamorphosed state, he laughs.
Doctor
The blood burns, doesn’t it? It should. The substance of life hurts the dead.
Hana takes a moment to recover, then faces him.
Hana
I don’t mind the blood - especially if it’s yours.
We see strange organic changes in the room behind her. The door she had just come through is now covered in organ parts.
1)
int. blood extraction room
The Doctor boss screams savagely in pain. All four machines are gone and the boss can no longer regenerate.
Body parts suddenly punch through the walls and hold her immobile.
The body parts haul Hana back through the undulating organic wall, and she tumbles into the Morgue outside the hallway door.
cut to:
int. psycho ward
The body parts heave Hana out into the Psycho Ward like bar bouncers ejecting a drunken patron. She lands hard, and the sword tumbles out of her hand and clatters across the floor.
The wall behind her seals back together with a pulpy squish.
As Hana reaches to pick up her sword, a motley assortment of corpses shamble around a corner.
1)
int. psycho ward
Hana takes out her sword and slashes through the wooden door.
cut to:
int. blood corridor
She makes her way through a tangled corridor of organic body parts until she ends up back into the boss room.
cut to:
int. blood extraction room
Something new comes over the boss as she hacks her way back through the corridor. For the first time, a real hint of fear. He’s used to the ordinary, terrified, blubbering souls, but this one just won’t stop, and he’s run out of options.
Hana finally gets through, stringy bits of hacked meat still hanging from her hair and clothes.
She takes an unidentifiable bit of organic goop from her shoulder and flings it to the ground, where it lands with a wet slap.
Hana
My turn to play doctor.
She casually flicks a bloody bit of funk off her chest and readies her sword.
1)
int. blood extraction room
Hana is utterly destroyed by the boss. Game Over.
1)
int. blood extraction room
Hana stands over the incapacitated doctor.
Doctor
So you think you’ve won? Think you’ll get your petty little life back? You’re a corpse like the rest!
She raises her sword.
Doctor
(with a savage desperation)
Don’t you understand? You’re in hell! I belong here. And so do you. You can’t destroy me.
Hana
Wanna bet?
She rams the sword through the fleshy mass of his brain, and lightning streaks through the doctor and up to the ceiling causing the whole room to light up. The disgusting mass of flesh expands away from Hana and explodes.
Behind the doctor, Hana now sees a new organic door. Hana escapes through it. Her clothing mystically changes from a bloodied gown into rags as she enters the City of the Dead.
Cutscene C040N (0 extract making up the Storyboard)
1)
Game Over Narrative for the Hospital Level.
You can download the 32 Hospital level Scripts for Fear Effect Inferno PlayStation 2 below
The 214 Scripts and 1597 extracts making up the Storyboards constitute the admirable scenario of Fear Effect Inferno PlayStation 2. These conceptual materials are spread across 4 levels and brief revisit of one of them. Reading and examining them are excellent ways of soaking up the game's special atmosphere and projecting yourself into the work of Kronos Digital Entertainment. Here are the other documents, assigned by level, dedicated to FEI's Storyboards and Scripts.
We'd like to thank the team at Kronos Digital Entertainment (Mobygames link to Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix) involved in the Fear Effect Inferno project for their efforts in bringing a new, exciting episode to PlayStation 2. We can only feel sorry for them that they couldn't follow through on their desires and creations!
Special thanks to:
-
LemonHaze (from Team Wulinshu) for digging through the game files and creating the “Fixes”
-
Benedikt Scheffer for creating the Fear Effect Inferno PS2 Cover
-
Vince proofreading the english articles
-
Hicks proofreading the french articles
-
fred_derf who wrote the introduction for the main page
-
La Rétrogamerie for their help with writing some articles, especially the Walkthroughs
-
Didier Chanfray (Art Director at No Cliché) for his explanations about the Storyboards
-
Joan Igawa (Character Texture Artist at Kronos Digital Entertainment) for her kind replies to my questions
Similar prototypes (Unreleased): Agartha (DC) - Emulateur officiel Megadrive (DC) - Castlevania Resurrection (DC) - Half Life (DC) - Dalforce XOP (DC) - Flinstone (DC) - 4 x 4 Evolution PAL (DC) - Ring : L'Anneau des Nibelungen (DC) - Ecco 2 (DC) - Kyskrew (DC) - Propeller Arena (DC) - Geist Force (DC) - Scud Race Tech Demo Dreamcast - Shenmue 2 US (DC) - The Red Star (XBOX) - Heaven's Drive ( version japonaise de Burnout 1) pour PS2 - Jekyll and Hyde (DC) - The Grinch Jap (DC) - Worms Pinball (DC) - Quake 3 Arena version japonaise (DC) - Vectorman PS2 - Fear Effect Inferno PS2
Feel free to have a look at the "other Unreleased games" I found" For the more curious among you, I created a "List of all the unreleased games of the Dreamcast".
