4/5 ★ – LCSnoogs's review of Crow Country.

Crow Country caught my eye as part of this new wave of indie horror games taking inspiration from the original Resident Evil. Resident Evil 4 started a conversation about whether horror games have too much action now. Resident Evil 5 made it worse, so in response, indie developers went in the opposite direction. Amnesia: Dark Descent was a horror game with no combat whatsoever. It was a hit and started a trend of indies making similar games such as Outlast and Among the Sleep. Resident Evil 4 is the best horror game I’ve played. While I agree Resident Evil 5 wasn’t as good, I still preferred it to the type of games indie developers were making at this time. Jump ahead to now, I’m seeing games like Signalis and Tormented Souls which bring back the action, but limit it to the level of the original Resident Evil. This works for me as I think Resident Evil Remake is a great game. Crow Country is the type of horror experience I want from indie developers. It hits the Resident Evil mark with its approach to combat, puzzles, and exploration without limiting itself to the style of movement and camera. This allows it room to stand on its own with a unique art style and personality. Crow Country stars Special Agent Mara Forest. She’s a suspiciously young woman sent to Crow Country theme park to find missing person Edward Crow. This theme park was shutdown after an incident where a child was hurt leading to their parents suing the park. Entering the park, Mara sees its deserted, but soon monsters start appearing all over the place. Mara needs to brave the park to find Edward while fighting off these monsters to survive. Part of her investigation uncovers details about Edward and his staff’s suspicious operations at the park and in Brazil. The story is nothing special. There are no characters involved worth taking interest in, and there’s not much commentary to leave me thinking about the world or life. There is some amusement to running into a character I’ve been reading about in notes I discover, but there is no payoff to the initial intrigue their presence causes. There’s one twist, but it was obvious before the reveal comes. The story is not a memorable part of the game. I did appreciate one aspect of the writing. When I started Crow Country, I wasn’t expecting the game to have a sense of humor. Almost all character interactions involve a joke. The game never takes itself seriously, and all characters are introduced in a way that makes them feel silly. It’s a decision that works because the horror doesn’t come from the humans, and the humor doesn’t detract from the monsters. The game never makes light of the threat of the many enemies in Crow Country. Running into another person in Crow Country works as a release of tension from facing off against the horrors of the park. Crow Country borrows the polygonal graphics of the PlayStation era, but with a different goal in mind than Resident Evil. It’s not trying to make its characters realistic with limited technology. Instead, they appear doll-like with spherical joints and hands with sharp edges on hair, clothing, and noses. It’s a cute look on the human characters, but it becomes disturbing on the monsters. The monsters are mostly humanoid, but they have limbs that are way too long, discolored flesh if they have any at all, and may crawl around on all fours like animals. There are smaller enemies that are a pile of goo moving around to poison the player. One enemy is a puddle of flesh and bone that takes a humanoid form when they move in for an attack. The enemy designs hit the perfect spot of causing me to pause and become alert when I see a new one for the first time. A few times the words “what the fuck is that?” popped into my head upon a new monster reveal. It’s also good at pacing out monster reveals. It would often drop a new monster in a room I already cleared catching me off guard. The Resident Evil series even struggles to get this right these days. The game has a V/H/S filter over the screen. It gives the visuals a fuzzy, lo-fi look. Pixels on the screen sometimes come in with the wrong color in different spots. It gives the game a found-footage-style I think looks really nice. I first appreciated it at the start of the game outside of the theme park. There was a red car parked outside. It’s a simple 3D model lacking in texture, but the filter added the texture to it making it feel more tangible. The filter gives this game more out of its simple polygonal approach. Crow Country’s map is made up of distinct locations bringing their own personalities fitting the theme park setting. Among the attractions is a haunted house, water ride, theater, and an Alice in Wonderland inspired dining room with a Mushroom King animatronic at the head of the table. Crow Country’s map is small though, so don’t expect to get lost in here. Some areas are just one room. Other than the attractions are the behind-the-scenes areas reserved for staff. Some of which are terribly hidden from guests which one of the letters points out. The game enjoys poking fun at survival horror tropes. I don’t think Crow Country’s map will be iconic in the way Resident Evil’s mansion is. It’s not a creepy location. I can see the appeal of using an abandoned theme park for a horror game. Malfunctioning animatronics, dangerous, broken rides, rodents and pests, ghosts of guests and employees that died there, wild animals, and so on. This game doesn’t fulfill its potential. The music does help build an atmosphere with its sparse use of piano. It’s both eerie and investigative music. Crow Country’s puzzles never break from the typical survival horror formula. Puzzles require paying attention to the environment and notes picked up along the way to solve them. There are a lot of locks to find combinations to. There’s even some piano playing puzzles as a nod to the original Resident Evil. None of the puzzles are difficult. There is no true standout clever puzzle to write about, but thankfully, no frustrating ones either. It’s enough to hit the spot of what I expect from a Survival Horror game. The combat took a bit to get used to. This game has an isometric camera perspective while allowing full 360-degree control of the camera with the right thumb stick. Aiming also provides full 360-degree control using the left thumb stick. Mara can’t move and shoot similar to Resident Evil, so I have to make sure my spacing gives me enough time take down my enemy before they are in attack range. Getting use to the aiming was tricky at first. I can do more damage by aiming for the head, but it was difficult to be precise with the controls. I eventually got there, and I celebrated my progress. Mara finds a red laser sight early on like Leon Kennedy, and there’s an aiming reticule that appears on the enemy when the laser is pointed at it to help communicate where I’m shooting. What throws me off though is the camera will move behind Mara’s back when I aim my gun. I kept wanting to aim my gun in the direction the camera was facing even if Mara was facing in a different direction, so it becomes disorienting. I think most games will turn the character around to face the direction the camera is in, so this took some getting used to. The game is light on combat though, and enemies can be avoided. I took advantage of this many times until I got comfortable with the combat. Even boss fights have an alternative way of completing that doesn’t require shooting them. This will please the survival horror fans who think Resident Evil 4 has too much action. It’s an inarguably true survival horror experience. Crow Country is a true survival horror game following the current trend I welcome among indie horror. It hits the mark of what I expect from survival horror without excelling at any of the genre staples. Its theme park setting is also not used to its full potential. The creepy monster designs and solid handling of monster reveals help pick up the slack. It’s good enough to be just “another one of those” at this point in time as the genre is having a resurgence. It’s worth playing, and I enjoyed my time with it even if it’s not an all-timer.