Really liked the setup with the prologue with the whole curse bearer battle royale, was very interesting trying to discover who are the curse bearers and how exploit their weaknesses and/or trick them for falling for your curse. Unfortunately after that it meanders around for way too long only to have half its twists be super obvious or super eye rolly. The other half of the twists are quite good at least and I absolutely love the art style of the characters and how the camera moves around at different angles to frame different emotions and moods.

Decided to play this after Super Eyepatch Wolf's video and honestly am disappointed. It's not bad per se, but just mid as all hell with a lot of potential left out.
The game has a great prologue, but from there goes meandering throughout the entire story with the ending that has an interesting idea, but is really underwhelming.

Pros:
- It has gorgeous visuals. The game is undeniably one of the prettiest VN I've played.
- Has some great suspenseful and surprising moments.
- The story is rather engaging and complex, with some clever red herrings and foreshadowing. Though at times it can feel as a jumbled mess of coincidences.
- Some really creative 4th wall breakage.

Cons:
- No distinct gameplay or exploration, and VERY few puzzles. The game is just a series of simple click-through dialogues and a bunch of text entries.
- The story is very linear, with several dead-end fake endings consisting of a couple of minutes of text and are not even worth mentioning.
- Characters are underdeveloped. The story mostly focuses on the overarching plot or frequent exposition dumps and rarely does any notable character moments.
- A ton of missed potential. The first few hours of the prologue have some of the best moments in the entire game, where you try to outsmart the opposing curse-bearers. It actually feels like a thrilling game of cat and mouse. But after that, you barely do anything like that for the rest of the game.
- The game introduces you to some interesting mechanics and then uses them only once or twice more in the entire game.
- It is relying too much on the cheapest jump scares with a ghost.jpg flying in your face and making a spooky screeching sound. Particularly in the first quarter of the game. Especially made worse by the lack of voiceover or any ambient sounds.
- No voiceover, no ambient sounds and though the music that is in the game is good, it's a very limited number of music tracks that get extremely repetitive.
- A few really dumb anime tropes. Like not immediately shooting the bad guy and letting them get away, or making the player to sympathize with a potential mass murderer because they're sad and unloved, etc.
- Felt maybe a bit too long for how simple and repetitive it is.

In conclusion, not a bad game, but I just can't bring myself to like it much. If only between the endless dialogues it had some more puzzles or actual gameplay like Danganronpa or Zero Escape games. Then I'm sure I would've liked it that much more, and could ignore some of it's problems.
Maybe in the sequel, if there ever is one.

This is some of the smartest use of the ADV format I've ever seen in a visual novel, a real fusion of medium and narrative that has a satisfying conclusion to basically everything you could ask for and leave you clutching your head with how it all works out.

There are also a lot of comforting VN-isms that anyone familiar with this genre would be either ecstatic or disappointed with, up to personal preference really.

Solid characters and all sorts of awesome twists and turns that are only bogged down slightly by a couple odd puzzles and narrative choices that have with weird solutions but do have their own justification, kind of not really i'm still mad over one of the solutions to a puzzle let me be.

Definitely not the kind of game you can binge in one sitting, maybe treat it like a replacement for a tv show or a mystery book.

I hope this gets the attention it deserves and more great things come from this team (despite being under Squeenix's thumb)

Awesome visual novel that kind of falls apart towards the third act at least for me while I did enjoy the ending, all routes were interesting imo but does drag in the middle and gets a bit too trigger happy with unloading information onto you all at once

Starts out as a horror game that unfortunately the game dosent hold for too long as it becomes an occult detective game with a horror backdrop almost immediately that not being a bad thing

The chess match style tension that occurs when making some choices in this game are fantastic, really makes you think what you would do in the same situation, Harue Shigima being a standout character and the route I was most invested in

Fantastic artstyle and creepy vibe, hope to see Square make a follow-up someday, defintely going to go down as a cult classic if it hasnt already, extremly memorable experience and a great surprise, reminds me of those smaller DS/3ds titles that try new things

9/10

there's a very distinct sum-of-it's-parts vibe to Paranormasight- that feeling you get when you're absorbed in a cracking book- that i didn't want to end

always got time for games that tell stories by leveraging the fact it is, indeed, a videogame. to say any more would be spoilery

maybe the best prologue i've ever played?

using 360° camera pan is consistently cool, with some extra 4th wall puzzle gimmicks thrown into the mix. would have enjoyed a couple more of these!

slapped a star right off this thing for using one of the dullest tropes. high school teacher blackmails student to do shady shit. tasteless and overused, but mercifully portrayed well enough not to put me right aff the game

This is an absolute unit of a mystery game that was probably too ambitious for it's own good. The conclusion after about 17 hours of intense debating about theories with my friend was decidedly mediocre (which is probably a generous statement).
Disregarding the ending and despite somewhat questionable writing and puzzles at times, I can only see the time spent as very worthwhile.
I'd say my favorite parts were the atmosphere and the mystique and folklore associated with curses and getting to know an interesting set of characters (very) slowly unraveling horrors and mysteries ranging from last week to nearly 2 centuries ago.
This is one of those games that will stick with me. Not because it is the greatest to ever do it but because of that feeling of suspense and the fun of bouncing ideas about pretty abstract concepts with a good friend.
Thus in conclusion, give it a shot the vibes are immaculate and there's a delinquent dove sticker by the name of High Coo.

It's always hard to comment and review on story-driven games like this visual novel avoiding spoilers. Paranormasight is a well-put-together visual novel that provides a good narrative, interesting characters and plot, and an intriguing setting. The story and plot are interesting throughout the whole game and keep the player engaged in finding out more about the curses that are affecting the City and how the ultimate goal of the curses is/will be activated as well as finding out the story behind it.

Gameplay revolves around reading a lot and making decisions/asking questions to progress. Parts of the game involve a 360 panoramic view that allows the player to inspect different components within the view. There are some very clever uses of in-game files and observations that the player will have to use in order to progress through the game. The soundtrack and sound effects are very good and appropriate for the nature of the game and its setting.

All in all, this is a very solid visual novel that came out of nowhere and it's definitely worth exploring if you are a fan of the genre.

PARANORMASIGHT is a mystery VN with great visual aesthetics and underwhelming story.

I love the edited photos as background imagery, the character sprites look fairly unique and are expressive enough. The menus also look great. My only complaint about the visuals is that chromatic aberration is a bit annoying and there's no way to disable it. The music is fitting though repetition got to me a bit by the end.

That being said, the presentation is probably the weakest part of the game when the writing is concerned - most of the playtime will be spent reading character's accounts on the information you are already aware of, or on the cool stuff they apparently did offscreen.

The story doesn't really have a hook or an overarching theme that would give the player a reason to care about what's going on. I have seen every ending in the game, and I still can't tell you what the story is supposed to be about. The game tells you that it's about the different perspective on resurrection, but it doesn't really explore the concept, it just uses it as a prop. Stuff just happens until the story is over. Every mystery VN has at least one Epic Twist that's supposed to recontextualize what's happened before then, and in PARANORMASIGHT you guess this twist immediately if you've played games like this before, and then the ~10 hours between the start and the end are filled with faffing about doing things that don't really tie together into a cohesive narrative.

Random meta gimmicks would've been cool, if they weren't already overdone by dozens other games that do a better job of tying them into the narrative. The game has nominally non-linear structure, but the progression through the game's story is almost entirely devoid of actual choice on the player's part: the flowchart is full of arbitrary roadblocks that force the player down the single available path.

The characters personalities are fairly weak and I don't think I could recognize most of their lines without seeing their names/sprites. Their motivations are often contrived and the game even draws its attention to it, only to handwave it with a "women be shopping" kind of remark.

The bottom line is that this VN doesn't do anything better than the other VNs with a similar focus already have done.
I recommend PARANORMASIGHT only to people who are really desperate for another fix of a story similar to Zero Escape or AI: Somnium Files.

Paranormasight is a horror and mystery-themed visual novel/adventure game hybrid that stars multiple protagonists with intertwining stories. The game has a ton of really unique and strong ideas both narratively and mechanically. Unfortunately, this is ultimately its biggest downfall, as the game is rather overambitious. It tries to do way too much, and it doesn’t have the time to explore all of its ideas in a satisfying manner. As a result, the experience feels rushed and rather unfulfilling.

The game takes place in the city of Honjo in 1980’s Japan, a time when fear of the occult was on the rise. Throughout the city, several people with an interest in a ritual known as the Rite of Resurrection, which allows whoever performs it to bring someone back from the dead, come into possession of cursed stones. These cursed stones provide them with the ability to inflict a curse upon others if their victims meet specific conditions. Everyone in possession of a cursed stone must use it in order to kill people and obtain enough “soul dregs” from their murders to be able to perform the Rite of Resurrection, and other cursed stone users provide far more soul dregs than regular people. As a result, the cursed stone users must compete with one another in order to be able to use the Rite for their own purposes. You play as several protagonists, each with their own narratives that intertwine with one another.

The gameplay is heavily reminiscent of the investigation segments from the Ace Attorney games and A.I. The Somnium Files. You explore environments that have various objects you can observe and people you can talk to. Normally in these games, locations are comprised of just one or two screens that you can swap back and forth between, but in Paranormasight, the locations are actually full 360 degree environments that you can turn around in. This makes the places you visit a lot more immersive, and early on, the game establishes a sense of paranoia with a couple of jumpscares from behind you, giving you the impression that you need to be vigilant, as you can never be sure whether or not there’s something or someone behind you.

There are other unique mechanics as well. There’s one mechanic in particular that I thought was really clever and executed extremely well, but I can’t really talk about it because I feel like it’s a bit of a spoiler. Aside from that, there’s the story chart, which is where you can view and pick between the different characters and their stories. Sometimes, you’ll need to perform actions in or gain knowledge from one character’s story in order to progress another’s. This generally works rather well, and is one of the game’s biggest strengths. However, it can get convoluted at times, especially during a section in one specific character’s story, which hinges on experiencing one of the most random, out of pocket, highly specific conversations ever in another character’s story.

Despite these unique and well thought out mechanics, the game barely utilizes them at all. As a matter of fact, you don’t even really do that much investigating in general. The vast majority of this game is just talking to people. You rarely need to inspect areas, and that cool and well executed mechanic I mentioned earlier is only used like - twice throughout the entire game. The game as a whole feels too short, despite being a little over ten hours. It isn’t given the time it needs to explore its mechanical ideas to a satisfying extent.

This problem applies to the story as well. The story in general is very heavy on exposition. It’s heavily rooted in Japanese folklore as well as the culture of the era the game takes place in. This means that characters constantly have to explain said folklore, such as what the seven curses are, how they work, the history of the city of Honjo itself, etc. This is in addition to having to explain the different characters, factions, and events unique to the story. Exposition ultimately takes up a huge chunk of the overall narrative, which makes it feel like you’re waiting almost the entire time for the game to get on its feet and kick things off. But it never really does, and then it starts to wrap things up when it feels like there should be a lot more to it. Potentially impactful aspects of characters, certain plot threads, as well as social issues the game brings up aren’t explored to a satisfying degree, making the whole thing rather flat as a result.

I think what ultimately harms the game the most is the prologue with Shogo. It inflates expectations way too much by introducing the game’s mechanics and establishing a tone as well as a majority of the plot threads that you expect the game to have major payoffs for. However, that ends up not being the case at all, and it’s really disappointing.

I really like its presentation. The character art looks nice, the music is appropriately moody, and I think it's really cool how the whole thing is framed as if you were watching it on a colored television set from this time period. It's one of the better elements of the game, and plays a role in keeping you immersed in the story.

In the end, Paranormasight didn’t really leave me feeling much of anything at all. While I wouldn’t say that the game does anything bad, I can’t help but feel that the experience as a whole was rather mediocre. It promises a spooky and thrilling mystery, but it never really lives up to that promise. It is still an interesting read, but it evoked little out of me in terms of emotion. It has some unique spins on adventure game mechanics, but these mechanics are extremely underutilized. The whole game oozes potential that it sadly never quite lives up to.

esse jogo foi uma grande surpresa pra mim, eu já esperava que ele fosse bom pelos visuais lindos e pelas notas na steam, mas pqp q narrativa bem contada.

Cada detalhe nesse jogo é surreal, é tudo muito bem conectado e a introdução dele é muito genial, e o final eu esperava q n fosse tão bom mas eu estava errado, eles conseguiram conectar muito bem toda a historia e pra um jogo investigativo isso é muito louvável, eles conseguiram fazer o jogo continuar interessante até o final, e justificar o porque essa historia esta sendo contada em um jogo do que qualquer outro tipo de midia.

Os visuais são lindos, os personagens são mt carismáticos, a musica é bem boa e os misterios são mt bons, recomendo demais!! Só não dou nota 10 pq a falta de sprites pra cenas mais impactantes me diz q poderia ser um pouco melhor, e a trilha sonora as vezes é mal colocada, como em momentos de tensão que só rola uma trilha engraçadinha, oq eu acho meio ruim.

mas no geral incrível!!! Uma das melhores visual novels que já joguei