I have to be upfront at the start of this review and say, I’m a massive scaredy-cat. I watch horror movies and play horror games and I am always afraid for the duration. Lucky me then, I got to get my adrenaline up by reviewing Crow Country, the newest title from SBF Games.
Retro Revival
Crow Country is a PS1 inspired survival horror game where you play as Mara Forest, investigating the disappearance of Edward Crow. The owner of Crow Country theme park, where else would you be looking for Mr. Crow but the abandoned park itself. So far, so spooky.
Right off the bat I’ve got to say I absolutely loved the visual style on offer here. For a long time, many indie titles have been focusing on pixel art but now we’re seeing some love for PS1 era graphics. Everything looks so authentic from the character models to the area design and I was absolutely charmed from the get go. You can even play with tank controls! Although I didn’t, because nostalgia only goes so far.
The vibe is also spot on. The devs have cited Resident Evil and Silent Hill as inspiration and their love for those games really shines through. The enemies are grotesque and genuinely creepy. Even though it’s not very scary, I definitely got, got on more than one occasion by an unexpected scare.
Gameplay
As you might expect the game follows Mara as she explores Crow Country, solving puzzles in order to open up new locations and gather clues. You wield a pistol for defence – classic – and you can find a few more tools as the game goes on. Shooting took me a little bit of getting used too, given the retro nature of the game, but once I did it functioned as you would want. Enemies take increased damage from hitting weak points, however in true survival horror fashion you really want to avoid combat.
Most of the gameplay revolves around exploration and logic based puzzles. Find a key for this door, solve an equation for this lock. It’s 100% what I’m looking for in a game like this. The map (pieces of which you find exploring the park) handily shows what rooms have unsolved puzzles in them, so you can jog you memory about where a new clue/item may have opened up a solution. There’s also a novel hint system – a fortune teller machine with 10 hints can be accessed in various locations if you are really stuck.
I didn’t find the puzzles overly difficult, but they weren’t too simple either. On more than one occasion I had to get a pen and paper out to work something through and that is thoroughly my jam. As you progress you’ll also unlock various shortcuts to make backtracking easier. Well theoretically. The further you get the more “Guests” appear in each location, alongside new hazards to look out for. Having to dodge all these new obstacles certainly kept up the tension – conservation of resources is a must. I will say, however, that towards the end the amount of environmental hazards felt a bit much. It’s not a difficult game, but as I got into the late game it was like I could barely move without taking some damage which made it a little frustrating.
Modular Thinking
If you don’t fancy having a Silent Hill flashback walking into a corridor there is also a Exploration Mode. I played through on Survival Horror mode (despite my fear of everything, I’m still a 33 year old woman!). I think this is great for those that want to enjoy the mystery of the story, but may struggle with either frights or the retro gunplay controls. I’m even tempted myself to playthrough again in this mode to unlock more of the various secrets hidden around the park.
And boy is there a lot of secrets! Outside of the required puzzles, there are plenty of others to wrap your brain around that unlock a variety of fun things. I won’t spoil anything for you, but I would definitely recommend returning to rooms and flexing that grey matter to find them.
You can also activate a lives system, to make things a little easier. Again the game isn’t overly difficult but these sorts of options are always nice to see.
Conclusion
I don’t want to give too much away, this is a mystery after all, but Crow Country has a genuinely compelling narrative with some very charming writing. Although it’s a horror game, there’s a lot of tongue in cheek humour to be found which cut some of the tension nicely and really made me think of some of the cheesy writing of old school PS1 titles.
The puzzles are well thought out and implemented. The resource management is fairly done (most likely generous for die hard horror fans), with risk reward mechanics of using ammo to gather more supplies. And the gameplay – while deliberately retro – adds rather that detracts from the experience. There’s also a modern control option, but I’d recommend given the retro one’s a chance!
It’s not a long game, but you unlock an extra mode at the end, and there’s even a score to encourage replayability. If you are a fan of old school horror titles you probably won’t find it too scary, but you’ll certainly have a lot of fun with this charming title.
Crow Country was reviewed on PC – thank you to the publisher Neonhive for the code. The game releases on May 9th for PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS4 and PS5.
