The world of horror games it is as fascinating as it is enigmatic, a cocktail of mystery, adrenaline, unpleasant and unhealthy situations, and of course… fear. The latter, however, is an extremely subjective thing, and at the same time the balance that can make a title appreciated or not by the public. One of the gimmicks most common is the jumpscare (i.e. being taken by surprise by an image and/or a loud noise), while another – which is not necessarily linked to fear – is to propose themes or references to great glories such. World of Horrorwhich we talk about in this review, is part of this category, and takes inspiration from sacred monsters of the written horror scene such as HP Lovecraft And Junji Ito.
Its rebirth is near…
World of Horror is a title particular in every way, but let’s proceed step by step. At the start of the game you will be asked how to customize the look of your screen, if a 1 Bit oh 2 Bitsand with a large variety of color palette and available display modes. This choice, in addition to being good for customization, was also fundamental for keep the vibes pure and retro given by the game, in combination also with the desire to recreate the full-bodied references to the style of the Japanese horror master Junji Ito.
Inside the game we will find ourselves investigate several disturbing mysteries which are hitting one after another the quiet Japanese coastal town called Shiokawa, in “198X”, a town where our lives will continuously be in danger. In front of a slope, a high lighthouse it stands out over the sea, but unfortunately to access it we will need well 5 keys. What is happening in this lighthouse? Well… you can already imagine it.
The horror we are dealing with in World of horror is a mix of the Japanese classics, and of the aforementioned imagery of HP Lovecraft, which will be present with great fanfare both with the Ancient Gods, both with several of the abominations that we will encounter, or in some situations that we will find ourselves solving. But how does the game play?
Heating
When we select the game type, we can do it in different ways. Removing the single mystery that will act as tutorials, we will be able to warm up with a medium-level mystery, already pre-set, or create customized games. In these, we ourselves will choose our protagonist (among the different ones present, each with different statistics, bonuses and penalties), the Ancient God whose power will have an effect within the game (yes, the very one who is about to be awakened with a ritual in the lighthouse), the level of difficulty (some that calling challenging is an understatement; the difficulty will manifest itself in multiple ways), the backgroundand other small things (but all fundamental).
The most daring they will be able to choose whether to do everything in a completely random way, or to try their hand at “Challenge” modewhere there will be some challenges already created by the developers, in which we will have to survive in certain situations with gods additional specific penalties. Know this, escaping the death of your player will be a very complicated undertaking… also because it will already be a lot in the classic modes too.
Is there really hope?
Precisely World of Horror stands as a very particular role-playing gamewhich alternates phases point and click to gods menu textual. Furthermore, events and scenes are fully illustrated, some in a fixed way and others in a dynamic way. Our task will be as mentioned get 5 keys to open the lighthouse, and we will get one for each mystery we solve. Inside our safe (perhaps) home we will be able to choose which of the five available to start from, and then continue with the others. If you are thinking that once the first one is finished, we will continue with the life points and sanity we have left…you are thinking right. It will therefore be vital to try to suffer as little damage as possible, and to recover when we have the opportunity.
All ours investigations they’ll take us to tough test: in some cases our choices will make us earn a little, but otherwise they will often be small tests to overcome (automatic) based on our values of Strength, Dexterity, Knowledge and so on. It goes without saying that you will fail many (oh, if you fail…) and that the fortune will play a big part.
We will also be able to buy or find objects, weapons to equip, trinket that will be of help to us, but also of magic to be carried out (at a high cost). Obviously we can also be cursed, injuredand have the worst possible misfortunes on our side (and even those that you just couldn’t imagine).
The mysteries
Investigating mysteries will be the central part of the game. These will be presented on a noticeboard in your home, complete with a preliminary description and list of finals already obtained in previous playthroughs (each mystery can have 2 or more different ones). There will be mysteries random: there are quite a few of them in the game, and seeing some that you’ve already played appear will give you an idea of what to expect, which can be fundamental to taking as few hits as possible.
The story varies from mystery to mystery, and let me tell you that each of them is intriguing and interesting, but above all disturbing and creepy for peculiar reasons. We will go from discovering the terrible consequences of a ritual gone wrong to mysterious larvae in a jar, from a funeral wake that is nothing short of sinister to a village in celebration where not everything seems quite right…
The fundamental thing is that between characters, stories and situations, the level of fascination is always very highand it’s one of World of Horror’s greatest assets.
Understanding… and fear
So far there are many positive points, but it is good to move on for a moment from the less pleasant points of the game, which concern the combat systemi menuand the language.
World of Horror makes use of very particular menus: with the charm of the frame of a cathode ray tube TV around the game screen, our adventures will have a lot to make us read: the fact is that each mystery will have its peculiarities, and the places to explore, or the things to investigate, will always be in different places or represented differently. This creates a little bit of confusionbut it is also fascinating. However, the charm is less on the more “fixed” menus, such as that of the player on the right (where you can browse all the pages between status, acquired traveling companions, inventory etc.), or the one that we will have to manage during the fighting. We are not exaggerating if we tell you that such menus are quite intricateand it’s easy to not understand what can be done, and if so, how.
Let’s also say that in all this it doesn’t help at all English language (the only one we can enjoy that is not Asian), which despite being clear and simple for almost the entirety of the title, in some scenes it makes blunders that could make us make the wrong choice (and we have already explained the weight of these choices).
Finally speaking about fearthis it all depends on you. There won’t be many jumpscares, nor situations in which you will have to rush: the dynamic scenes will be few, and the fights themselves will be managed shifts, so you will have all the time to think you need. The fear itself will then only come from contextgive her disturbing stories that you will read, come on horrifying imagesand above all by how much you yourselves will be able to get involved.
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