Fashionable survival horror video games seeking to recapture the aesthetics and essence of traditional titles from the ‘90s typically make one deadly mistake. You see, when followers who had been round to play Resident Evil and Alone within the Darkish: A New Nightmare on the PS1 look again, they accomplish that with a degree of fondness that, frankly, makes the video games sound like the very best issues since sliced bread.
The reality, nonetheless, is that the earliest survival horror titles, with their awkward controls and glued digital camera angles, haven’t aged notably effectively; heck, there’s a cause so lots of them are getting trendy remakes. Veterans will ceaselessly adore them (this author included), however newcomers typically come away questioning what all of the fuss was about.
So when a sport launches that’s successfully an homage to the survival horror growth of the late ‘90s, there’s a superb likelihood it’ll fall flat with out the advantage of private nostalgia. Crow Nation, fortunately, manages to keep away from this drawback totally. Developed by SFB Video games of Snipperclips fame, it is a style sport that effortlessly captures that particular ‘retro’ feeling whereas including a wealth of recent conveniences to make it really feel utterly recent.
Going down in a dilapidated amusement park, Crow Nation stars Mara Forest, a particular agent investigating the mysterious goings-on whereas looking for the park’s founder, Edward Crow. Upon her arrival, it’s not lengthy earlier than the true horrors of the park are revealed, with ugly creatures often known as ‘Company’ shuffling all through an surroundings suffering from perplexing puzzles, locked doorways, and purposefully obscure notes and messages.
In brief, it’s the quintessential survival horror expertise, nevertheless it does away with the entire dated mechanics that you just may need anticipated. Beginning with the apparent, full 360-degree motion is applied right here over tank controls, whereas the isometric digital camera might be rotated at will. That is notably essential with Crow Nation, as the sport’s world has been designed to be scrutinised rigorously, so that you’ll end up always rotating the digital camera to see what merchandise could be hidden in an alcove, or which creature could be lurking within the shadows.
Naturally, you may dispatch the creeps with an assortment of weapons (although like all survival horrors, merely legging it out of the way in which is equally viable). Firing your weapon requires you to face nonetheless and purpose with the best analogue stick, supplying you with full management over the place you need to sink your bullet.
It might probably really feel a bit of twitchy at instances and, relying on the angle of the digital camera on the time of aiming, it may be a bit awkward nailing essential headshots. All in all, although, it’s a system that works much better than the trial-and-error mechanics seen in classics like Resident Evil. If you happen to miss your shot, it’s totally your fault, and ammo actually isn’t plentiful on this amusement park.
What’s good is that whereas Crow Nation actually isn’t a straightforward expertise (except you go for the ‘Exploration’ problem setting), there are many alternatives to spice up your probabilities of survival in the course of the six-to-seven-hour expertise. Med Kits and ammo packing containers might be present in bins, whereas crates or show cupboards typically disguise equally helpful gadgets or weapon upgrades.
It looks like a little bit of a bet with the crates specifically, as you’ll have to expend a treasured bullet to see what’s inside, however the devs strike an incredible stability of offering a serving to hand whereas sustaining an appropriate degree of problem all through. If you happen to occur to get a bit misplaced, there’s a helpful trace system that you should utilize as much as 10 instances throughout your playthrough, pointing you in a obscure, however helpful course.
One thing we despised, nonetheless, was the environmental traps that begin cropping up as you progress by the sport. These pop up out of nowhere and are sometimes situated in areas you’ve already explored, supplying you with a false sense of safety. The issue, nonetheless, is that they’re not scary or intelligent, they’re simply irritating. We nearly threw our Change out of the window after spending a superb chunk of time making some respectable progress, solely to die by the hands of a falling chandelier whereas limping to a close-by save room. Completely infuriating.
It is a blip in what’s in any other case an exceptionally well-crafted survival horror. It’s robust to say whether or not you’ll discover it outright scary or not, nevertheless it’s actually creepy sufficient and the familiar-yet-modernised mechanics will doubtless enchantment whether or not you benefit from the old-school classics or desire one thing a bit extra up-to-date.
The purposefully blocky visuals may take a little bit of getting used to — notably since they’re juxtaposed in opposition to creepy, ambient music (plus an exquisite, ethereal save room theme), groaning zombies, cackling crows, and sinister lighting results — and we might have appreciated a number of the room transitions to be a tad faster to load, however when you’re after one thing that can scratch that ‘retro survival horror’ itch, Crow Nation is leagues above a lot of the competitors.
Conclusion
Crow Nation is a superb retro-flavoured survival horror that manages to pay homage to the ’90s classics whereas offering a bunch of recent conveniences that make the sport really feel recent and, extra importantly, enjoyable. Exploring the creepy but charming titular amusement park is a pleasure because of its wealth of intriguing secrets and techniques and nasty creatures. There are a couple of annoyances that preserve it from being a masterpiece, like the marginally delayed display transitions and the infuriating traps, however like Signalis earlier than it, Crow Nation is effectively price investigating when you’re after a retro-style horror sport that, miraculously, does not really feel dated proper out of the gate.