Sean Seanson interview: A debrief on his Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix review
"Rolling through a small army without a scratch sure has its charms."
Way back in 2023, I discovered Sean Seanson through his fantastic PS1 mixes on YouTube. But it was his in-depth retrospective videos that made me a subscriber to his channel and Patreon. This week, he published a Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix retrospective, a video I've been looking forward to ever since he announced it a couple of years ago.
Fear Effect, developed by Kronos Digital Entertainment and released in 2000, took me by surprise when I first played it that same summer. With its FMV backgrounds and punishingly difficult but fun gameplay, I kept coming back to the game, and have done so in subsequent years. Seanson's video from April 2022 was a fantastic watch that nailed what the game entailed and how hauntingly random it became as players reached disc four.
However, its 2001 sequel, Retro Helix, passed me by as I owned a PlayStation 2 by then, with the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo packaged with Zone of the Enders taking up all of my time. Thanks to a 2026 re-release on consoles and PC, I've finally played Retro Helix, and it's another good time, though I got lost at times due to some puzzles or wondering where to go next.
Having spoken to Seanson in 2024, I reached out to him again to chat about his new retrospective video that just came out, all about Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix and other games in the series.
Another Fear Factor
When you first covered Fear Effect, did you always plan to cover FE2 in its own video, or was there a nagging feeling of wanting to cover every title instead?
Sean: The plan was always to cover at least as far as FE2, since it's the only one really relevant to the PS1-centric nature of my videos, but I definitely wanted to make some time for Sedna, Inferno, and whatever the remake was eventually going to manifest into, just to give some context to the series’ journey up until this point.
Of course, things have changed quite a bit since the original video launched, with the prototype of Inferno appearing online and the remake being cancelled and eventually turning into a remaster of the OG PS1 games. So, in this case, waiting might have been the best option, as I have a lot more to work with.
The cancelled-third entry, Inferno, is a big "what could have been" - did it feel exciting or even bittersweet to play the leaked build?
It was both exciting and bittersweet. Seeing a next-gen vision of Fear Effect, even just in video form, was already bittersweet, but now getting to play it and see how much it looked like Fear Effect on steroids was really something.
Of course, this leaked build is very rough and lacking in polish, but the changes to the combat and movement, alongside the enhanced visuals, at least from a fan's perspective, made me think the game was on a good path. It just raises further questions about what might have gone on between Kronos and Eidos that led them to scrap the project altogether.
One takeaway I get from your FE1 video is how good it looks, but how awkward and comedic it plays, especially with the iconic rolling. Did it almost feel like coming home with the rolling again in FE2?
The funny thing about FE2 is that rolling, while still present, is almost entirely nerfed as a gameplay feature. This is partly due to FE2 providing you with a ridiculous amount of weapons and ammo in almost every situation, so the optimal tactic for combat is to gun down enemies before they can even look at you, meaning rolling is less of a necessity.
But even when I did get caught out in a bad situation and tried to resort to my old trusty roll, I found that its iconic invincibility frames from FE1 were now entirely absent, leaving me to just roll around while getting shot with a bucketload of bullets. So, on one hand, maybe a better, more realistic change, but I'm also sad to see it go from a comedy perspective — rolling through a small army without a scratch sure has its charms!
There’s a 3D control system this time – did it feel like an improvement to you, or did it introduce new problems when recording?
As a tank control diehard, I knew I was going to play through the game au naturel, but I decided to give the new control system a spin just to test it out and get an idea of what I was missing. It controls pretty much as you'd expect, which is "walk in the direction you press."
I don't necessarily think that style of movement is optimal when it comes to fixed camera angle titles, as the quick perspective changes can cause you to run in the wrong direction quite easily, but more movement options are always a welcome feature, and I'm glad they were added to the modern port of the original Fear Effect. Still though, tank controls 4 life.
A Helix De-Brief
The opening focuses on introducing Rain. What were your thoughts on Rain and how she fitted into the overall story of this prequel?
Rain was a very welcome addition to the series, and the whole game really revolves around her to a degree. The first half of the game is a nice introduction to the character, her skill set, and her relationship with Hana, which is clearly romantic but has a light-hearted, flirty feel.
It's in the second half, where you rarely play as her, that she becomes the reason for everybody putting themselves in so much danger. It's here that you can see how strongly Hana cares for Rain, where she'll literally travel to mystical lands to keep her safe. There's a lot more I won't go into for the sake of spoilers, and it's also very clear this game was mostly a primer for the events to take place in the future PS2 release, Inferno, but Rain is a positive addition and definitely has more substance to her than the advertising campaign lets on.
You had to re-record the footage – did your perception of Retro Helix change on the second playthrough?
Luckily, I left enough time between the original recording and this second playthrough to almost purge the original playthrough from my mind. One of the side effects of playing so many PS1 games each year is that you very quickly forget about some games you played in the past. But coming back to it here again did re-ignite a lot of memories for me, especially around some of the weirder scenes (Rain getting kidnapped in the sewers) and the incredibly overpowered Taser, which I love with all my heart.
Now that the video is out, are you happy that you covered Inferno and the others, as well as Retro Helix? Or could the sequel have stood well on its own?
The core of the video is still centred around Retro Helix, since it's the only other title that really offers the full-fat Fear Effect experience that the first game offered, and I think it would have easily been a standalone video. When I talk about Inferno and Sedna towards the end, it's mostly to provide context on where the series went and how it changed compared to the PS1 originals.
Although Inferno in particular does provide a lot of important information about the characters and what was in store for them in the future, it's exciting to not only talk about how wild that was going to be, but also to show off the numerous big improvements to the gameplay and visuals. Sedna, I didn't particularly enjoy it, but it would have felt wrong to leave it out entirely—it's part of the series' history after all.
Inferno is also one of the first PS2 games you've now covered on your channel. Are there plans for more games from that generation to feature soon?
There are always plans! I've been teasing a lot of PS2 stuff in videos over the years, and if I were better at buckling down and making all the videos I had planned, I'd probably be well into the depths of the PS2 library by now, but it'll happen eventually for sure. The PS2 library, similar to that of the PS1, is a treasure trove of odd little experiments, and I'm very excited to give some of them a spotlight when the time comes.
An Inferno with a Sedna
Fear Effect Inferno felt like a holy grail of something we were likely never going to play—up there with the Sonic 1 beta until it became available. What was it like to get that running and play parts of it?
It was kind of surreal because Fear Effect Inferno was one of those lost games that had a huge amount of documented media out on the web. You could look at hundreds of gameplay images, videos highlighting the motion in the backgrounds, gameplay, cutscenes... the works! It made me hopeful something like this could happen, and now, actually getting to sit down and play as Hana in these locations and watch these cutscenes in the flesh, it gives me a whole new appreciation of the work that went into this game and what could have been.
You can look at all the images and videos you like, but you don't really experience a video game until you've played it, and playing Inferno was a real treat. You've got to really respect the people documenting and keeping these pieces of history alive. Who knows what we'll play next? I'm crossing my fingers for that Titan A.E. PS1 game.
Having covered all of the games now, is there one FE title that you enjoyed playing the most, whether that's for your enjoyment or for the purpose of making this latest video?
While there are some definite quality-of-life and gameplay improvements in Retro Helix, I think the original still stands as the best overall experience from start to finish. I enjoy the distinct split between the four discs, with each featuring very different and memorable locations, boss encounters, and puzzles. It makes me still consider it the idealised Fear Effect experience. However, Retro Helix is a close second for sure.
You mention this early on, but there's not a lot of love for Sedna, as it strays so far from the original games. Was it a challenge to motivate yourself to cover this for the video?
I always try to go into a game with an open mind, and I'm especially wary when it's a series with loyal fans, and there's a negative reaction to a change in gameplay compared to the originals. But sadly, Sedna, while maintaining a lot of the Fear Effect DNA, just wasn't a very enjoyable game to play.
I had a lot of friction with the isometric gameplay and found the gunplay and stealth sections to be rather awkward in motion, but I was surprised at how well they nailed the feel of the puzzles and also the visual style in the cutscenes. I just wish the isometric sections, which make up the bulk of the game, matched up.
Even Sedna has its fans, though, and look, if an isometric stealth-action game set in the Fear Effect universe sounds of interest to you, it's probably still worth checking out in a sale for those curious. It wasn't for me, but I can see the effort the devs put in, and it's far from a lost cause.
Looking back, do you think Fear Effect is an underrated series of its time? Could it ever make a comeback someday, beyond these recent remasters?
I'm not sure if I'd call it underrated - it certainly has its fans, but at the same time, it's a game with some very noticeable quirks and flaws.
If you were to compare the game mechanics to a contemporary like Resident Evil, it's clearly a more basic experience on a gameplay level. Fear Effect's story, characters, and presentation really do a lot of the heavy lifting for its weaker elements. However, the things it does well are so good that I'd always be up for another game set in this world, with the same level of visual flair and some upgraded gameplay.
My thanks to Sean for speaking to me once again.
It's always a treat to talk to Seanson about how he approaches his videos, and it's certainly been worth the wait to watch this one. The amount of detail he's covered in almost three hours, considering he had to redo much of the footage, is an impressive feat.
His section about the cancelled third game, Inferno, was also great. I've always wanted to play it, and thanks to a recent leak, many can now. There's also a trove of previously unreleased documents that you can find here.
If you're unaware of Seanson but you're curious as to what he's published so far, you can watch it all on his YouTube channel. But he also has a Linktree, which includes all of his links, including a Patreon.
