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 have 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 most effective issues since sliced bread.
The reality, nevertheless, is that the earliest survival horror titles, with their awkward controls and glued digicam angles, haven’t aged significantly nicely; heck, there’s a purpose so a lot 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 recreation launches that’s successfully an homage to the survival horror increase of the late ‘90s, there’s likelihood it can fall flat with out the advantage of private nostalgia. Crow Nation, fortunately, manages to keep away from this drawback solely. Developed by SFB Video games of Snipperclips fame, this can be a style recreation 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 trying to find 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 affected by perplexing puzzles, locked doorways, and purposefully obscure notes and messages.
Briefly, it’s the quintessential survival horror expertise, however it does away with all the dated mechanics that you just may need anticipated. Beginning with the apparent, full 360-degree motion is carried out right here over tank controls, whereas the isometric digicam will be rotated at will. That is significantly vital with Crow Nation, as the sport’s world has been designed to be scrutinised fastidiously, so that you’ll end up continually rotating the digicam 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 best way is equally viable). Firing your weapon requires you to face nonetheless and goal with the fitting analogue stick, supplying you with full management over the place you need to sink your bullet.
It might probably really feel somewhat twitchy at instances and, relying on the angle of the digicam 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 solely your fault, and ammo definitely isn’t plentiful on this amusement park.
What’s good is that whereas Crow Nation definitely 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 containers will be present in bins, whereas crates or show cupboards typically conceal equally helpful objects or weapon upgrades.
It seems like a little bit of a raffle with the crates particularly, as you’ll have to expend a valuable bullet to see what’s inside, however the devs strike an important steadiness 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 need to use as much as 10 instances throughout your playthrough, pointing you in a obscure, however helpful course.
One thing we despised, nevertheless, was the environmental traps that begin cropping up as you progress by means of 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, nevertheless, is that they’re not scary or intelligent, they’re simply irritating. We virtually threw our Swap out of the window after spending chunk of time making some first rate 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 powerful to say whether or not you’ll discover it outright scary or not, however it’s definitely creepy sufficient and the familiar-yet-modernised mechanics will seemingly attraction whether or not you benefit from the old-school classics or favor one thing a bit extra up-to-date.
The purposefully blocky visuals may take a little bit of getting used to — significantly since they’re juxtaposed towards creepy, ambient music (plus an exquisite, ethereal save room theme), groaning zombies, cackling crows, and sinister lighting results — and we’d have appreciated a few of the room transitions to be a tad faster to load, however should 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 good 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 number 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 nicely price investigating should you’re after a retro-style horror recreation that, miraculously, would not really feel dated proper out of the gate.
