A new indie horror game harkens back to the glory days of PS1 survival horror, with a wonderful homage to the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill.
It’s been no surprise at all to find that the much vaunted second renaissance of big (or at least medium) budget survival horror games is already littered with nothing but costly failures. Regardless of their quality, the likes of Dead Space, Alone In The Dark, and The Callisto Protocol have all failed to become mainstream hits and once again the genre is left solely to Resident Evil and indie developers.
It’s a shame, but horror often works best when it’s low budget and gritty. As bad as the graphics and controls seem now, even classics like Silent Hill were far from state of the art even at the time. In many cases that helps though. There’s a strangeness about early era 3D graphics that can be more disturbing than photorealism. And making it difficult to defend yourself often leads to a scarier game (although it’s a difficult balancing act, that Alan Wake 2, for example, did not get right).
British developer SFB Games, who were behind the excellent Switch launch game Snipperclips, clearly understands this, as Crow Country not only looks like a PS1 title but has many of the same sensibilities in terms of gameplay and puzzle-solving. That helps to keep the budget down, for what seems to be not much more than a team of two brothers, but it also makes for one of the most entertaining horror games of recent years.
Although the graphics are a lot better than what was actually possible on the PS1, the low polygon models and crinkly textures are still highly reminiscent of Sony’s first console. When we first saw the screenshots, we thought it was pre-rendered but it’s not and you can move the camera around very smoothly, which certainly wouldn’t have been possible in 1996.
Main character Mara Forest looks like something out of Little Big Adventure, or the non-battle sequences of Final Fantasy 7, while the inventory screen is near identical to Resident Evil and the weird fog and ugly brown colour filter reminiscent of the first Silent Hill. SFB Games clearly know their retro horror games, but they also remember that they used to be filled with genuinely difficult puzzles and that’s much more important to Crow Country than the combat.
Who exactly Mara is, is one of the game’s key mysterious, as she arrives at a supposedly abandoned amusement park, searching for park owner Edward Crow. It quickly becomes obvious that the backstory is a lot weirder than you’d imagine but the game doesn’t really take itself that seriously, and the various notes and memos left around for you to read are full of wry humour and genre in-jokes.
For better or worse, the game is part of a long list of modern horror titles that isn’t really very scary, but despite its inherent silliness the disturbing sound design and visuals still create an unsettling atmosphere, that you wouldn’t think possible just looking at a static screenshot. There are also some good jump scares in there too, so the game’s not entirely impotent.
Although you do have optional tank controls, for that old school Resident Evil feel, the game’s combat is closer to Resident Evil 4, in that you can’t move when aiming with the analogue stick. However, the isometric camera angle means it doesn’t feel anything like Capcom’s recently remade classic, and it’s nowhere near as fun, but it’s not meant to be and combat is really only a minor part of the gameplay.
Instead, the main focus is exploration and puzzle-solving, which is gloriously 90s in terms of its complexity and implausibility. Whether you’re working out riddles engraved on gravestones or trying to find a crank to get a swan ride working, or watching a video tape for clues, the puzzles are both varied and just the right side of obtuse to be highly satisfying when you figure them out. There’s even an exploration mode you can play where you don’t have to fight monsters and can instead concentrate on just the puzzles.
The puzzles are also reminiscent of 90s point ‘n’ click adventures and are just not the sort of thing you see in a modern video game, even though the layered hint system means it’s difficult to get frustrated by them. You might come for the old school visuals but it’s the puzzles that are the real draw, as you slowly unlock access to the whole park and what seemed like an impenetrable maze of nonsensical obstacles begins to all make sense.
Not everyone’s going to appreciate the retro aesthetic or the amount of backtracking – and we’re not sure if the weirdly long loading pauses are on purpose or because the developer didn’t know how to take advantage of the PlayStation 5’s SSD – but in terms of what the game’s setting out to do it’s pitch perfect. A bit easy maybe, but your mileage will probably vary on that, depending on how familiar you are with the game’s various inspirations.
It’s only around six hours long and while that might have been considered a negative a few years ago it’s very much a positive today. Apart from anything, the whole faux-PS1 look might have got old if it went on any longer, but this is the perfect length for a spot of horror-filed nostalgia. Crow Country is like watching an old Columbo episode on a Sunday afternoon, except where the murderer is a horribly deformed flesh monster.
Crow Country review summary
In Short: A charmingly old-fashioned survival horror that manages to make all the limitations of 90s gaming work in its favour, especially in terms of its enjoyably obscure puzzles.
Pros: The 90s horror atmosphere is great and the exploration and puzzles are not only historically accurate but a lot of fun. Endearingly old school graphics. Useful hint system and exploration mode.
Cons: It’s not really meant to be, but the combat isn’t any fun and the game is overall a bit too easy and not very scary.
Score: 8/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £15.49
Publisher: SFB Games
Developer: SFB Games
Release Date: 9th May 2024
Age Rating: 16
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