When the indie game market is currently overly saturated with samey pixel art Metroidvanias, it's nice to see a different form of nostalgia art tapped into once in awhile. So is the case with Crow Country, a survival horror game done lovingly in the style of the PS1 classics Resident Evil and Silent Hill. But this game offers its own charm to the mix, featuring an art style (and a soundtrack) that holds much more in common with Final Fantasy VII than it does those formally mentioned titles.

This means that when you embark on the adventure that awaits you in Crow Country, you feel a bit cozier and calmer than you would typically expect to feel in a horror title of this stripe. The music is soothing beautiful, the character models are done in a cute, chibi style, and the monster encounters are sparse enough that they don't feel overwhelming.

The game's graphics and sound provide an amazing atmosphere, but the puzzles are also a refreshing aspect that keep the experience of playing through Crow Country engaging. Similarly to the look and sound of the game, the puzzles also provide a "sweet spot" of just the right mixture of challenge and ingratiation. Yes, the puzzles aren't obvious at the outset, but none of their solutions ever came across as moon logic. Once you get the hang of how the solutions are found, all of the puzzles in the game end up feeling very intuitive and logically sound. At no point along my adventure did I ever feel like the game was trying to outright trick me or be unfair. The puzzles aren't immediately understandable, but pretty quick, with enough exploration of the game world, they become very simple and straightforward.

And then, there is the story. And I will not spoil it here. But what I will say is that it is exceptionally executed. Its simple brilliance honestly caught me off-guard. And it makes the whole experience much more meaningful than a simple nostalgic romp. The narrative helps give Crow County its own identity despite its obvious influences.

The game can also be played as a purely casual exploration game. Which is also a pleasant experience. But I recommend simply playing it in horror mode. Even with the scares, it isn't terribly oppressive.

A thrilling example of how higher effort nostalgia can really give birth to something special. I'm floored.

This will sound like a backhanded compliment but it almost cozy-ifies the classic survival horror. All the basics of the genre are there - the specific suite of weapons (handgun/shotgun/magnum/flamethrower), the UI aesthetics, save rooms, post-game unlocks etc. Yet both tonally and formally it is much less oppressive. Enemies and traps are plentiful but so are resources. The nasties themselves are gruesome and the environments dingy but the writing is frequently leaning towards the humorous and compassionate. The PS1-style, avowedly FF7-evoking graphics/framing of scenes, an OST that's low-key even when dissonant and lumpy character models imbue a sense of nostalgic warmth into things.

The game still carries an unnerving air as the walls groan and creak but it isn't 'scary' or tense in any real sense, more so a rather pleasant jaunt through a singular, heavily interconnected level. The satisfaction comes from the expected gameplay facets: uncovering new areas, becoming familiar with the various paths, solving the kinds of puzzles you've seen in RE/SH (with some charming mixups and occasionally multiple solutions/even multiple ways to find those solutions), finding keys, reading notes - you know the deal but it's all very well-crafted. Progression hits a sweet spot of not so taxing that you'll get stuck for ages yet sprinkles in enough moments where you have to actually stop and think or carefully observe your surroundings, with enemies more of a bit of light friction on top instead of a proper threat. There's a suprising flexibility to the order in which you can do things and when events play out to be discovered on multiple playthroughs. And as is standard with the genre replays are heavily incentivized via a nice compact runtime alongside getting higher completion ranks.

It's a strange experience, in a positive sense. A game that is recognisably 'survival horror' in all respects but ends up being quite comforting to play. Genuinely quite a feat to create something that replicates influences closely yet feels different due to just a few smart changes. The presentation is the big star of that. Every room is gorgeous and rich with atmosphere. Leverages an older style but adds to it using modern lighting techniques and grater detail, losing not an ounce of character in the process. Love some fixed camera angles but having control over the camera along only the horizontal axis is nice, it allows them to hide little things for you to find by rotating it, an almost diorama feel when combined with how the assets are constructed. Builds to a nice little mystery near the end of its story too. Strong, confident work! There's a hard mode coming in a future update for something a little spicier.

oh yeah. it's peak

if you love resident evil this is more of that and it's so so good. there is only one single complaint i have with the game and it's a specific puzzle that.. straight up makes no sense honestly (you'll know when you get to it).

there's so many neat little touches that had me grinning like an idiot. yeah it's only like 4-5 hours long (i beat it in one go) but damn those were some good hours

Probably the best game to come out in 2024. I can't begin to explain how perfect this game is at building it's atmosphere, the puzzles feel very well constructed and I felt the eureka moment on several occasions!

The story takes a real turn I didn't expect, I won't spoil it but you're gonna be going "holy fuck" quite a bit during the final few minutes.

100% please play this game if you can, it's so fucking good!

Well what can I say? Theres so much to love about Crow Country. It's art style, it's satisfying shooting mechanics, it's quirky and interesting story, it's atmosphere. It's all done so well and it's a brisk 5 hour game. I think I spent maybe 4 hours in it exploring plus I'm slow, but it's really just a love letter to the genre but also adds to it in some subtle ways.

This is a survival horror game that just feels good to play. I loved my time with it. Anyone who grew up on classic survival horror must play this ASAP

I had this game on my radar for a while, since the specific games it's clearly influenced by (PS1 era survival horror ala Resident Evil/Silent Hill, chunky low-poly aesthetics ala Final Fantasy VII and other early games in the console's catalogue) just feel laser targeted to appeal to me specifically. I picked it up the day it came out, played through it in about three days, and it absolutely did not disappoint; in fact it even managed to subvert some of my expectations in pretty delightful ways.

Just to start off, this game is gorgeous and its vibe is immaculate. I love that the current generation of indie developers have moved past 2D pixel art as the only frame of reference for achievable visuals given small teams and limited budgets and have truly begun to embrace the early polygonal era, a look that was lambasted for a long time but that I've always felt has such potential for evocative atmospheres. This game is an absolute high water mark example of this. The environments in this thing are universally beautifully realized, taking obvious inspiration from the pre-rendered backgrounds of the aforementioned PS1-era RE and FF games but not limiting itself to pure homage. It has a distinct art style all its own that manages to be grotesque and unsettling but simultaneously charming and...almost cute! It's a weird combo but it works remarkably. Even the camera choices are a really elegant balance between old-school and innovative - while its y-axis is fixed at an isometric perspective, you can always spin it horizontally at any angle, which maintains the feeling of walking around little dioramas of level design, while giving you the freedom to fully explore their nooks and crannies.

Admittedly, in the first hour or two (which, for a fairly short game, was maybe even up to a full third of it) I was not entirely sold on the gameplay. The pacing and design decisions do make for a somewhat slow start. Take for example Resident Evil 2, which starts you off in some smaller environments to explore, and only lets you realize the true grand scope of the police station in retrospect after seeing individual chunks of it. Since Crow Country has you exploring a decidedly smaller environment than that (an endearingly dinky little amusement park presumably located in some midwest backwater), it makes the decision to frontload a lot of the environments and puzzles that pretty much the entire game will be focused on unraveling, right at the start. You'll be discovering dozens of notes that don't feel immediately relevant until you find the location or item that they're referencing, and walking through room after room where it doesn't feel like you can do much besides collect a couple items and try to make a mental note among a growing list of them of the puzzle the area obviously contains that does not feel immediately solvable.

Obviously, the loop of exploration, discovery, and backtracking with newfound information and/or inventory is a core part of adventure/survival-horror game design, but the balance in the early parts of this game feel unsatisfyingly off. It's made even more tedious by the fact that initially, enemies are not particularly intimidating. There are a few narrow hallways here and there where you're forced to make the classic RE calculation of using precious ammo on a monster in your way or attempting to skirt around it to the potential sacrifice of some health if you're unsuccessful in doing so. For the most part, though, environments are pretty wide open, allowing you to easily run past enemies without much thought about them at all.

Thankfully, the deeper you get into the game, the more these problems naturally resolve, and the more satisfying the gameplay loop becomes. Once I had the park mapped out and knew which areas were important to focus on, it became massively exciting to add a new piece to my limited inventory, knowing exactly where to utilize it. There were even a few great moments where, while in the middle of doing something somewhere else, the background cogitations of my brain suddenly came to a solution for a completely different area, and the frontloading of information that this game emphasizes feels intentionally designed to encourage those moments of inspiration, even if that made the initial impression a little underwhelming. Simultaneously, the danger of the environments gets amplified the deeper you get, with not only more numerous and powerful enemies appearing in previously tread areas, but also random traps like falling chandeliers and poison-gas filled landmines. The game still never felt genuinely hard (nor do I think I really would have wanted it to) but it did make backtracking increasingly engaging as I realized more and more how I needed to watch each step I made.

Maybe the area of the game that I found myself most surprised to be enjoying was the story. It has an interesting cast of characters, and I got pretty invested in seeing how it all turned out for them as the picture of what was going on here got clearer. The distribution of backstory throughout the game through newspaper articles and diary entries lying around is maybe not the most elegant of solutions, but it’s a genre staple, and it works. Similarly true to the genre, you spend so much time wandering the corridors, running away from fucked up creatures that it’s always a pleasant surprise whenever you find yourself in a room with another human character. The dialogue isn’t exactly brilliantly written, but it serves the characters well enough, occasional flat attempts at internet humor aside. Most importantly, it stuck the landing at the end, providing a satisfying conclusion along with a couple surprising twists, and also left some of the bigger questions about the implications of what’s hidden beneath Crow Country wisely open to speculation.

So yeah, not a perfect game I suppose, but a supremely charming one that I expect will stick with me.

🇬🇧 full review | 🇧🇷 resenha completa

Jogar Crow Country foi libertador para mim, porque foi essencialmente meu primeiro jogo de “terror”, mas também foi um argumento irrefutável de como um bom game design pode ajudar um título a encontrar um novo público. Sim, o Modo Exploração pode perder um pouco da diversão de atirar por aí, mas o mistério intrigante, os personagens legais e os quebra-cabeças interessantes foram suficientes para não apenas criar uma boa experiência, mas também me prender à tela por algumas noites. Talvez essas mudanças não sejam suficientes para você ficar menos assustado, mas para mim foi o suficiente e estou feliz por ter tentado.

Crow Country is a classic horror game in the style of titles like Resident Evil and Silent Hill from the late 90s and early 2000s. It gives you just enough resources to get through the game, but not enough to kill all the enemies. As you play, you will also pick up various items and read various notes, which you then have to use to solve puzzles in order to progress further. The game does a decent job of pointing the player where to go while the map marks any found, but unresolved puzzles. This should at least prevent the player from getting stuck without knowing where to go. In emergency cases, there is also the crow hint system, which allows you to get a maximum of 10 hints per playthrough that tell you where to go and what you need to solve a puzzle (without giving you a direct solution). Even with all these systems, I did get stuck on one puzzle in the game and I needed help from the community to figure out a solution to it. In another puzzle it also took me a while to notice the numbers needed to solve it. So, keep that in mind when you're deciding whether or not to buy the game.

In terms of horror elements this one is a bit weird. It is surprising how with the game's camera perspective, the game actually manages to create a pretty good atmosphere and make occasional jump scares work. I also think the pixelated, low resolution rendering style, helps the game in the end. The whole idea of the story and the ultimate plot twist (that you can see for coming for a while) works very well. Abandoned amusement park certainly works well for a horror setting and this kind of story. Worth of note is also the game's length, which will take you - most likely - between 5 and 8 hours on first playthrough.

As for the issues with the game - I think the default controls are bad. You can flip the shoot and reload buttons - that already makes them better, but switch layout to modern controller layout - I think makes even more sense. I have tried playing the game with the default controls, but after 4 hours, I was still dropping grenades and shooting instead of reloading, because of how illogical the default mappings are. Switching to modern layout for the last 2 hours of my playthrough made entire experience significently more smooth.

On technical sides there are some bigger issues, though. One of the biggest annoyances being the way this game approaches fullscreen, trying to enforce - now abandoned by Unity - Exclusive Fullscreen mode. I have no idea how even, as trying to set ExclusiveFullscreen in Unity 2022, should result in it falling back to FullScreenWindow. But in the case of this game it doesn't and instead, my Samsung monitor blanks out for like 2 seconds when switching to the game - which is a pain in the ass, when you actually use 2 monitors and have to alt+tab from the game.

Finally the keyboard and mouse support is atrocious and borderline unplayable and I don't think there is an excuse for it releasing in such a bad state (although with indie games and limited budgets - it is understandable, to prioritize one over the other). Still, this again isn't one of those games, where getting a decent keyboard and mouse support is impossible - it requires creating some branches in code, to have different behaviours for mouse and keyboard cause you can't just remap control to keyboard on the fly, but it certainly can be done. And by that I am NOT saying breaking the logic of how you can not move when aiming a weapon etc.

At the end of the day - I recommend Crow Country - it's a good survival horror game. However, make sure you have a controller laying around - otherwise it's going to be a really bad time.

Man this game was amazing. I don't know much about the survival horror genre since I've never really dabbled in them much, but this game was perfect. An amazing game with an amazing story to tell. The atmosphere is outstanding. The music is great. The way no enemies or hazards are introduced to you are damn near chilling. Walking down a familiar area to be met with an unfamiliar face got me every single time.
The creatures are so grotesque and even though I feel like I should be putting them out of their misery, there were just time I'd let them do their own thing.
My favorite thing about this game had to be reading all the lore and in my head i'm telling myself that these characters in the notes are all dead.
Meeting the big three "villains" and seeing that their scheme has just as bad for them as it has for everyone else was amazing.
The regret was perfect.
Piecing everything together in my head and getting to the end of the game and being able to say "I fucking knew it" was amazing.

This was a DAMN GOOD ONE

Crow Country is a very classic survival horror game with a Final Fantasy VII look to it. It's a real fun time overall.

It's a bit friendlier than actual survival horror games of the era, letting you choose between tank and 3D controls, and having an item limit only on consumables.

It's also a little short and easy. I've only died once because I wanted to see the death animation and it took me 4 hours to complete it. This might all sound like the game isn't worth your time, but it's far from the truth. I just wanted to focus on very few things people might complain about first.

Crow Country is really good. I was in love with exploring the abandoned theme park and collecting items. There are a TON of secrets in this game of which I've only found a third. The enemy variety is also pretty nuts, with around 7 or 8 different types or clearly different enemies, along with 4 or 5 different traps. The game clearly doesn't want to be the scariest game ever as evidenced by the Final Fantasy 7-like look, and it is in parts more funny than it is actually scary. That's not to say it doesn't have the understanding of the atmosphere. Enemies might look a little goofy, but when you barely have bullets and are in the dark, it's pretty damn spooky!

The story is quite good and reminds me of the original Resident Evil with a few NPCs just hanging around the park, as most of the time story is told through the notes. That said, the actual plot is very different and quite unique, with its own twists and turns, all of which I've enjoyed.

One of the things that made me breathe a sigh of relief is a feature that any short game must have: Crow Country does have unlockables. I was really sad that the newest Alone in the Dark game didn't, but Crow Country has a new mode along with some goodies that are given to you based on your rank. Hell, maybe something more too, I've just completed it once!

If you've enjoyed Signalis, you should play this game. It's not as out-there presentation wise, but if you like Metroid-y gameplay of old survival horrors, it's a must play!

Oh this was great! Some great scares, a few tricky puzzles, a fantastic art style, and an enticing narrative that had me constantly trying to piece things together and then it adds new pieces that force me to rethink my theories.
I will say the game is a touch too easy, even as someone who hasn't played too many survival horror games, but regardless it was a fun experience the whole way through.
Also you can press Y (or X depending on your button layout) to backstep, I don't think the game ever tells you that despite telling you about most other mechanics. I legit didn't figure it out until I beat the game fghgfghj

Pros:
Great interesting art combining the prerendered feeling of older ps1 games and oddly enough the duplo feeling of final fantasy vii's main character designs.
Interesting layout and map with its amusement park, despite it being mildly connected to mascot horror stuff
Fun gameplay with its odd targeting system
No real jumpscares
The story is well done with its well paced out characters, notes, and revelations. I specifically like how a lot of the ending was hinted at very early on and throughout.
Just the right length for the game's map size at around 5 hours.

Cons:
a few of the puzzles are annoying to try and understand, may get stuck a bit but there's a hint system easily available.

I really just wish there was more, which is a good complaint to have. Back in the day game sequels would be released in like 2 years, i'll be lucky to get crow country 2 ever. Spiritually or Directly. Considering they left the ending on a mild open.

8/10

Floored by how good this game is. The aesthetics, creature design, sound design, and weird worldbuilding/twists are all impeccable. I've never had a survival horror game's story surprise me as much as this one. It's a short game, legit creepy, and packed with optional secrets and puzzles if you really want to poke around. Cannot wait to see what these devs make next.

I should mention, I got a key for this game, and the price COULD be considered a bit steep for how short it is. That being said, there seems to be some replay value, and the overall quality more than makes up for the asking price.
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Um survival horror que volta aos clássicos, tendo bastante consciência do que fez sucesso com aqueles jogos (puzzles bem planejados que são geralmente resolvidos com objetos e dicas deixadas pelo mapa) e do que acabou não sendo tão amado assim. Essa modernização de algumas mecânicas (como a movimentação) acabam causando o mesmo efeito que resident evil 1 teve ao remover a obrigatoriedade do tank control;

O jogo fica muito mais fácil pela agilidade com que você escapa dos inimigos.

Como a mira aqui é lenta, cada encontro deveria ser tenso, mas você facilmente dribla todo mundo e trivializa o desafio. Uma mudança importante, que resident evil 1 remake não fez, foi mudar a câmera.

Já que a movimentação é fluída, resident constantemente se enganava com a posição da câmera, fazendo o jogador andar pra trás repetidamente. Aqui isso é mais gerenciável, evitando esse tipo de problema. Mais uma vez, é um jogo que entende bem os aspectos positivos e negativos que aqueles jogos tinham.

É usar o passado como aprendizado, ao invés de nostalgia pura

Jogo notável, meu favorito lançado nesse ano até o momento