Charon's Staircase follows a man named Desmond who was requested to enter an estate which had been closed off for many years. He was tasked to find several documents and leave.

The story was surprisingly interesting and I like how the mystery of what happened to this dead estate was revealed in pieces. Much of it is gotten through documents, journals and letters which is similar to many survival horror games. It didn't do anything too amazing, but it was interesting nonetheless.

The game is on the short side however. 3-5 hours is pretty much all it takes to clear the game without using a guide mostly. The gameplay is shown through first person and you spend most of it just looking through rooms and searching for keys and switches.

There's a lot of jump scares throughout that isn't executed very well, but at least the atmosphere is pretty solid for a horror title.

There's no combat and there's barely any enemies in the game. You can die in less than a handful of parts so people don't have to be concerned with this issue.

There is a decent amount of puzzles though. Some are on the simple side while others got me looking up a guide.

The graphics aren't very good. Probably about PS3 era type graphics. Despite the performance and presentation graphic options on the PS5, they didn't seem to make it any better. Even the frame rate is iffy. The game can be glitchy at times forcing me to reboot the game.

Overall, it's a decent mystery story with some horror elements, but not much content otherwise.

For a base price of 35 bucks this game falls really short. Even half off it doesn’t deliver.

The game takes 3 hours to complete and you can platinum it on one play through if you go through every room. It’s easy to skip sections if you do have a missing collectible though if you write down the key codes.

Pros - atmospheric. It’s a bit eerie and if you like walking sims with uncovering the story by reading then you might enjoy. There’s no fighting- one 2 spots you have to run and one timed event so you can die.

There are jump scares and weird lore that is why it gets a horror tag but there wasn’t much to it.

If you like the puzzle doors in RE Franchise then that’s basically all this game is.

Cons - graphics are ps3 level. Flat. Missing textures. Sometime you could see light through walls that weren’t supposed to have light. Slowed graphics and lots of blurring to render the most basic images.

The game is just too short for the price point. 3 hours with the quality of game was just not worth it and overall the storyline is a hodge podge of other games. Nothing felt new or exciting. The puzzles were were pretty basic too like explore to find a key code or find a doc w a clue.

It’s worth a 5 dollar pickup if you enjoy the pros I listed and it’s a quick platinum you can grab in one playthrough.