This review contains spoilers
capitalism is a disease both literal and metaphorical, or at least that's the message i'm choosing to take from crow country, an adorable survival horror that embodies so much i love about the genre while managing not to be too trite.
the game's premise is admittedly simplistic: it is the year 1990. you play as mara forest, special agent and alleged firearms expert. you have been tasked with tracking down mr. edward crow, whose disappearance has led you to investigate the titular ‘crow country’ theme park he owns - though it’s become dilapidated since its forced closure two years prior.
crow country's influences are immediately apparent; the chunky, polygonal characters bear no small amount of resemblance to those of final fantasy vii. the models are blocky and unwieldy and gorgeous, blending easily into the environments that are seemingly also inspired by FFVII's pre-rendered backgrounds - you know, except for being modelled in 3D.
visually, the homage is fun, but what's more directly endearing about it is the creepy-cute aesthetic with which it imbues the game. sure, there are decaying flesh-monsters roaming the park's various locales, but it's hard not to find yourself completely charmed by the goofy crow motifs and other themed attractions throughout. though it might seem antithetical to the interests of a survival horror game, i now understand there being an 'explorer mode' devoid of enemies, though i think it should have been an extra, unlockable mode post-game.
gameplay is the standard survival horror fare, so much so that the tropes are innately familiar to anyone who's ever played any resident evil game; you roam around the map solving various puzzles and picking up items like keys, health restores, ammo, and of course weapons. as your weapons get stronger, the ammunition becomes more sparse. you can choose to either clear out enemies by confronting them head-on, or run and avoid them entirely, etc, etc. there's little here that's new or innovates much, and i feel like there could have been more of a mechanical element to piecing the 'mystery' together.
(i'm gonna take a slight detour to talk about the puzzles, because the puzzles were the good shit, the "write it down in the manual" shit. rarely so frustrating so as to delay you, but also not too insultingly easy. mostly. it's definitely possible to brute-force a few of them).
at this point i think would be fair to criticise the controls, which leave a lot to be desired. in spite of the attempts to provide both an 'authentic' old-school survival horror experience complete with tank controls, and a modernised control scheme, the aiming is awkward and clunky, and you can't remap individual keys. i ended up using a controller, which didn't help the aiming issue ;--;
it would probably be remiss of me not to mention the story, which is mostly delivered to you through various memos, notes and letters scattered throughout the park. i found this frustrating in my review of signalis, perhaps in part because i felt it that this style of dripfeeding lore and worldbuilding ended up over-promising and under-delivering in its scope, while also leaving a little too much open for interpretation and theorycrafting.
crow country, to me, answers about enough without spelling it out for you, while also delivering a neatly-telegraphed twist or two. for instance, anyone paying attention will notice that mara looks through the "E" keychains if they stop to interact with the display in the gift shop, hinting at her true identity. while this part of the central 'mystery' isn't all that deep or convoluted, it did make the ending feel much more cathartic. mara isn't some renegade cop trying to play the hero, but a kid out for revenge.
i also like the use of the unnamed disease as metaphor for edward crow's greed, which leaves him raw and bleeding and sick. i don't know if there's any actual intended social messaging here - though the world from which the infected are arriving is implied to be suffering some sort of disaster, and i wonder if the 'illness' is supposed to be analogous to the effects of nuclear radiation - but it's what i understood, and i found it surprisingly effective from a game i had no expectations for.
but that being said i would love to see more of these characters and more worldbuilding if you know. there was ever anything more to this. hint hint. pls ;--;
the game's premise is admittedly simplistic: it is the year 1990. you play as mara forest, special agent and alleged firearms expert. you have been tasked with tracking down mr. edward crow, whose disappearance has led you to investigate the titular ‘crow country’ theme park he owns - though it’s become dilapidated since its forced closure two years prior.
crow country's influences are immediately apparent; the chunky, polygonal characters bear no small amount of resemblance to those of final fantasy vii. the models are blocky and unwieldy and gorgeous, blending easily into the environments that are seemingly also inspired by FFVII's pre-rendered backgrounds - you know, except for being modelled in 3D.
visually, the homage is fun, but what's more directly endearing about it is the creepy-cute aesthetic with which it imbues the game. sure, there are decaying flesh-monsters roaming the park's various locales, but it's hard not to find yourself completely charmed by the goofy crow motifs and other themed attractions throughout. though it might seem antithetical to the interests of a survival horror game, i now understand there being an 'explorer mode' devoid of enemies, though i think it should have been an extra, unlockable mode post-game.
gameplay is the standard survival horror fare, so much so that the tropes are innately familiar to anyone who's ever played any resident evil game; you roam around the map solving various puzzles and picking up items like keys, health restores, ammo, and of course weapons. as your weapons get stronger, the ammunition becomes more sparse. you can choose to either clear out enemies by confronting them head-on, or run and avoid them entirely, etc, etc. there's little here that's new or innovates much, and i feel like there could have been more of a mechanical element to piecing the 'mystery' together.
(i'm gonna take a slight detour to talk about the puzzles, because the puzzles were the good shit, the "write it down in the manual" shit. rarely so frustrating so as to delay you, but also not too insultingly easy. mostly. it's definitely possible to brute-force a few of them).
at this point i think would be fair to criticise the controls, which leave a lot to be desired. in spite of the attempts to provide both an 'authentic' old-school survival horror experience complete with tank controls, and a modernised control scheme, the aiming is awkward and clunky, and you can't remap individual keys. i ended up using a controller, which didn't help the aiming issue ;--;
it would probably be remiss of me not to mention the story, which is mostly delivered to you through various memos, notes and letters scattered throughout the park. i found this frustrating in my review of signalis, perhaps in part because i felt it that this style of dripfeeding lore and worldbuilding ended up over-promising and under-delivering in its scope, while also leaving a little too much open for interpretation and theorycrafting.
crow country, to me, answers about enough without spelling it out for you, while also delivering a neatly-telegraphed twist or two. for instance, anyone paying attention will notice that mara looks through the "E" keychains if they stop to interact with the display in the gift shop, hinting at her true identity. while this part of the central 'mystery' isn't all that deep or convoluted, it did make the ending feel much more cathartic. mara isn't some renegade cop trying to play the hero, but a kid out for revenge.
i also like the use of the unnamed disease as metaphor for edward crow's greed, which leaves him raw and bleeding and sick. i don't know if there's any actual intended social messaging here - though the world from which the infected are arriving is implied to be suffering some sort of disaster, and i wonder if the 'illness' is supposed to be analogous to the effects of nuclear radiation - but it's what i understood, and i found it surprisingly effective from a game i had no expectations for.
but that being said i would love to see more of these characters and more worldbuilding if you know. there was ever anything more to this. hint hint. pls ;--;