The indie scene has been rampant with horror games over the last decade and I haven’t been a big fan of what’s been put out. I got into the genre through titles like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, like most people from my generation. So when I play a lot of modern horror games, they just don’t hit the same way. It’s something about the vibe and the way the horror is presented in-game. I’m also a big fan of retro graphics – N64 and PS1 is my childhood generation of consoles – so when a game has graphics harkening back to that era, in the modern day, it catches my attention. All of this is to say that Crow Country, the latest game by the developers of Snipperclips – SFB Games, looked like a game for me.
I was right, and I am so glad that I was.
Written review
Crow Country follows the story of Mara Forest, a young special agent who has just arrived at the titular ‘Crow Country’ a once popular amusement park that was suddenly shut down by its owner two years prior after an incident occurred that left one of the guests in critical condition. It’s enigmatic owner, Edward Crow, hasn’t been seen since the park closed and his daughter has put out a missing person’s report on him, leading to Mara’s arrival at his last known location.
As Mara explores the abandoned theme park, she begins to run into strange, mangled, creatures whose likeness to anything human varies from being to being, as well as running into actual humans who all have some kind of connection to Edward Crow. The further Mara explores Crow Country, the more the truth around what Edward was up to, and the origins of the ‘guests’ comes to light. It’s a very intriguing story where every character is suspect in some way – even Mara herself.
The intrigue behind this story is wholly supported by the sense of exploration found within Crow Country and the visual design of the game. We as the player view the world from an isometric, third person perspective that’s reminiscent of classic PlayStation isometric games like Final Fantasy VII. This is great for building up tension as it allows the game to hide things in the players peripheral vision that raises the tension. Is that a creature hidden behind a locked door? Did something move behind me in the fog just now? Is that a secret I spy?
That last one is important because Crow Country is full of secrets that offer some great rewards, and finding them all contributes towards the final ranking that the player will receive at the end of the game. These secrets are one of the big reasons players would want to explore every corner of Crow Country, which effectively feels like an outdoor version of the Mansion or Raccoon City Police Department from classic Resident Evil.
Players progress by solving puzzles, many of the key ones requiring the player to find a certain item like keys to locked doors or a crank to wind up clocks. All of these puzzles are really good, with several of them making me get out a piece of paper and writing down secret codes or button combinations that I’ve come across – just in case I need them in the future. The game itself is often quite helpful in this regard with staff notes and pages from gaming magazines scattered all around the park. These often have gameplay tips or puzzle hints and when you find one it gets recorded in a notebook that can be accessed at every save point across the park. And if the player is still struggling, there’s always the Fortune Crow which will guide the player in the right direction – although do know that using this will affect your final ranking. I took the hit so I could test out the feature. I definitely didn’t need it myself. Definitely.
Puzzles are the main focus of Crow Country, alongside the horror obviously. While there are enemies and bosses in the game, combat definitely takes a backseat, as evident by the fact that if you know what you are doing, you can just run past every boss. It will make returning back to those areas a little tough as more enemies spawn later on but it is doable. The player has a selection of guns that they can use to protect themselves, but a lot of the time you’ll actually be using those guns, mainly the default handgun, to solve puzzles. You’ll be shooting targets, shooting glass bottles and shooting cardboard boxes in order to get items, and unlike many classic horror games ammo isn’t really limited. The final gun does have very limited ammo but for the other three, especially the default handgun, I often found myself with more ammo than I could actually carry. Same for med kits and antidotes. They are abundant throughout the game and until the very final hour of the game, I never really felt like I had to run from encounters – unless I was scared of course. Which I was with some of these monster designs. The Spindle gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Nothing shows this deign philosophy more than the games Exploration mode. At the start of the game, the player is asked if they want to play on the default survival mode or exploration mode – which removes all the enemy encounters from the game and just lets the player live in the moment without fear of what is around the corner. Exploration mode is designed for the player who can’t handle horror. The player will still need to solve all the puzzles and the story Is unchanged – the monsters are still out there, hiding in the vents and just out of reach (which in a way provides a different type of horror) – there is just no threat of a game over.
This mode is a great way to just play all the mini-games found throughout Crow Country. There’s a shooting mini-game, a quiz mini-game and several other little distractions where the player can just forget about the main quest and enjoy some light, arcade-style, entertainment. All while basking in the retro aesthetics that sold this game to me.
Let’s talk about that presentation finally. There are a lot of games out there that try to capture the look and feel of a retro title in the modern day but I feel like only a few manage to correctly capture that visual and gameplay aesthetic while still keeping the game feeling modern. Crow Country doesn’t feel clunky to play – it has the option to use tank controls with the d-pad or have more modern controls with the stick, getting the best of both worlds – and visually it captures the feeling of the PS1 while still clearly being more detailed in its design and presentation.
The environments are a great example of this. For highly detailed environments on the PS1, developers needed to use pre-rendered graphics, which then required the use of fixed camera angles. Two of the games that inspired Crow Country, Final Fantasy VII and Resident Evil do exactly this. And from screenshots you might think Crow Country also does this, but it’s a graphical trick. The environments are all in full 3D, allowing for the player to have control over the camera, but they’ve been textured and lit-up in a way to make it look like it’s pre-rendered.
The character models as well, also inspired by Final Fantasy VII, look low-poly where you can see the parts on the arms and legs where the joints are. However, the animation is a lot more dynamic and smoother than what the PS1 could offer and to me, it also looks higher-poly than anything you would find on the PS1, despite the simple designs.
Also making strides towards capturing the retro aesthetic are the visual fx and sound design found across the game. The weather and lighting will change as the night progresses, causing the game to get darker and rain changing the entire vibe of certain areas. You can hear the groans of monsters on the other side of walls and Mara’s footsteps as she walks across different floor environments, including stepping all over the corpses of the monsters she’s killed. And last but certainly not least, the visual filter that covers the entire game, designed to make it look like you’re playing the game on CRT, even when playing on a fresh OLED screen like I was, is the icing on this retro-inspired cake that really sells the visual aesthetics.
Crow Country is a game that follows in the footsteps of the classic survival horror titles and in doing so has become a new classic of the genre. Once I started playing, I really struggled to put the game down and I am very tempted to play the game through a second, and even third time, to see what other secrets I may have missed. There are several times in the story where the player is given a choice and I am curious if this has any effect on the way the story pans out and who survives by the end of the game. It’s a title where I feel like there’s a lot more to discover, even though I completed the game with all the secrets found (supposedly). If you’re a fan of horror, retro games, or heck – if you enjoy playing video games, then you should play Crow Country. You won’t be disappointed.
I want to thank SFB Games and Neonhive for sending me a copy of this game to review, we hope it does them well. To learn more baout the development of Crow Country, check out this interview we did with SFB Games Creative Driector, Adam Vian.
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