Very beautiful and entertaining indie horror game based around Resident Evil and Silent Hill-kinda games! I love the chibi character designs, and thought the set design was gorgeous, as well. I loved the use of color to keep the horror-game element while still bringing the game to life in its own style. The puzzles weren’t too difficult, though some I had to look up as I am Little Miss Snoop on the Internet if I can’t figure out a puzzle in 5 minutes lol. I thought the characters were well-written, and I thought it was fun to learn more about the story as you adventured on. Discovering optional bosses and hidden helpful items (like the mushroom king that upgrades your gun) to aid you on your journey were some of my favorite parts! The final boss was the ultimate best part, though. What a cool story, with a very thrilling and emotional boss to seal the whole deal! So much of Crow Country fit together so perfectly, that I had difficulty putting it down. I finished it in one day!

My biggest complaints in the game would be its influence in old school Resident Evil gameplay and how it changes major aspects in order to make it more player friendly, ridding it of some major puzzle aspects of the original formulas. There’s always health and antidotes readily available to you, with you being allowed to save as much as you want. The constant refilling of the rooms with enemies after killing the first wave was a bit disappointing as well, as I did go in with the mindset of it being like the original Resident Evil and focused on killing enemies near save rooms as to not waste bullets, but it ended up not mattering as new enemies replaced the dead ones after I left the room and reentered. Bullets are very plentiful, too.

These aren’t the most serious critiques honestly, as the unlimited saves and health does keep new players from being scared off. Additionally, I was playing on normal and not hard, so this might have not been an issue on a different difficulty. The enemies refilling rooms quickly is more an issue with me going in expecting something to be like another game, but I still would prefer them to not reappear as quickly, as I ended up just running past most of the enemies at a certain point, as I didn’t see an advantage in killing them.

Crow Country is a really strong indie game from 2024! You should absolutely check it out if you’re interested in what’s good and new this year. Honestly, you should check it out even if you’re not super into the newest games. It has a retro inspiration that attracts modern and old-school gamers alike! An easy pick for one of my favorites of the year.

4/5

A nice throwback to 90s Playstation era horror. I'm not sure if this game resonates with people who don't care about those kinds of games. Crow Country's aesthestic does a lot of the heavy lifting here - the FFVII style art is lovely. And I gotta say, I wasn't expecting to get scared, but there were a couple of jumpscares that genuinely got me!

It has decent puzzles as well. However, I thought the combat felt pretty clunky.

I liked this better than Signalis, by the way, which I'm sure many people would disagree. I just vibed with Crow Country more.

But it's a shame that when the story starts to get interesting, the game is over.

Just finished playing Crow Country and this game is truly an amazing homage to classic survival horror games along with other recent games like Signalis. It's incredibly fun, has a compelling story, and brings in a unique environment for story telling with the Crow Country theme park. It's relatively a short experience to play through, which will definitely make it more enjoyable to replay down the line, so I would definitely recommend trying this game out. The only real complaints I have with the game are that I am not too much of a fan of the aim and shooting system (although I realize that being a game with an isometric focused camera style leaves little alternative), and the other point is that the game seems to crash suddenly if I played the game for too long, which could be a little aggravating since, like a true survival horror classic, there are no autosaves. So keep that in mind, save frequently at your own risk. Other than those two issues, I really love Crow Country.

EDIT: Did a quick little replay of the final boss because I forgot to check something and HOLY SHIT do I love the story even more now man, it's got an excellent twist!