Crow Country Review On XBOX

Crow Country is an retro inspired isometric Survival Horror game where you’ll test yourself against puzzles and riddles as you investigate the eerie tranquillity of the abandoned theme park.

The premise is you take control of Mara Forest, who is investigating the mysterious disappearance of Edward Crow and the abrupt closure of his theme park, Crow Country.

The game boasts three modes, Survival and Exploration and a recently added Hard mode. An intriguing story, multiple endings and new game weapons for subsequent playthroughs.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility, there is no button re-mapping, but classic or modern layouts to choose from. There is the option to have more lives and an camera aiming swivel. With regards to visual settings, only gameplay HUD and exit arrows can be turned off or on. Subtitle options do not exist and Sound options are equally limited, so should you have sound and eye sight issues, this game would not be for you.

Gameplay

I was first introduced to this game earlier in the year, when visiting WASD. Chatting to the developers was a real eye opener in their inspirations and aspirations for the game. It was clear from the demo, that the game itself when back to the 90’s basics in terms of survival horror, and from that alone I was hooked. 

From the beginning, the game gives you three modes of play: Survival and exploration. The first is your traditional Resident Evil experience, with the latter removing the park's enemies, so you can solely focus on exploration and puzzle solving. Hard mode just beefs up the damage taken and health of enemies.

The game then begins with you as Mara Forest driving to the now abandoned, crumbling Crow Country theme park, and starts in its parking zone. Mara is here to follow up on a missing person's report for the park's owner, Edward Crow, who also has a personal reason for finding him. Soon entering the park, you realise that things are much more sinister and dangerous than first imagined. 

This revelation comes from finding an injured induvial called Arthur laying wounded on the main pathway into the park. Quickly patched up and taken back to your car to recover, and its from here things only get steadily worse, as you leave him again and start to make you way through the park.

The story of the park is then told by discoverable notes left behind by employees, old newspaper clippings, and interacting with a small but intriguing cast of NPCs. Combine this with Mara’s own hidden intentions, the story soon becomes much more darker than once imagined, leading up to quite the dramatic conclusion. It’s this story that then influences the monster design which is far away from the traditional zombie franchise that inspired it.

The monsters aren’t just there to keep things tense either, and actually function as a main mechanic for the game. You see, as the story progresses, the park increasingly fills with these grotesque monsters, making traveling between areas more dangerous and increasing tension. Like any good survival horror, you can avoid most enemy encounters by simply running past them, thus conserving your limited supply of ammo. But with every monster you fail to remove from the area in question, only adds to the numbers as more are added, making the paths more difficult to navigate without getting hurt.

So it soon becomes a balance of using your limited ammo supply to keep numbers at manageable level, whilst keeping enough available for dealing with bosses. Now generally ammo itself is pretty plentiful for some weapons, but the amount you can hold on you, is restricted for all, adding another layer of complexity to keep in mind. 

You start of with a basic Pistol, and as you progress you will solve puzzles to obtain more powerful weapons, like the shotgun, magnum and flamethrower. Each of these weapons can also be upgraded, again by solving puzzles, which will allow you access to a small mushroom creature that will provide said upgrade to a certain weapon. If you haven’t found that weapon already, you wont get the upgrade. Laying around the environment is also weapon laser sights to help with your targeting, and whilst they provide a nice visual touch, thanks to the control system aren’t a necessity.

Aiming here is also unique, as to do so, it locks you in your position but then allows you to freely move the aiming reticule in the direction of your enemy. However, depending on weapon, there is a bit of sway as you aim, which seems to reduce when said laser sight is attached. Aiming and shooting within an isometric view, will take the player some time to get to grips with, as you're aiming both horizontally and vertically at the same time. But by the time you have opened up the vast majority of the games arenas, you will find targeting a much better experience.

The games world has been deliberately created to be smaller curated experience, with 3 arenas either side a central plaza and main street, connecting them all. There is also two sub-floor arena to access later in the game, connected by 4 lifts in each corner of the world map above. Because of its open-ended nature, you slowly expand access to restricted areas by moving back and forth solving of clues and using items. 

To make things quicker, there are interconnected shortcuts in these arenas, that removes the need of backtracking along the main street, but not the potential for danger. Each arena has a map, which once found, will show off all the accessible and inaccessible connecting rooms of that zone, and helping you for back tracking.

And you will back track a lot, due to the games puzzles, which whilst some are focused on being self-contained, others are more cross zone conundrums. The self-contained ones often have a solution within or a room nearby, but game progressing puzzles will require you to expand into other map areas to pick up an item and use it elsewhere, before returning. This is where the beauty of the map's smaller scale works to its favour, as a bigger world would need fast travel to not make the journeys unbearable, and due to that miss out on that tension the world around provides.

Puzzle design is equally fun and brings back the old school method of exploring thoroughly and writing things down if you don’t have a great memory, which I don’t. In one instance I had to resight a code phrase to a Fairy statue before I could gain access to the area behind, however, because this was written in a book a few rooms away, I only remembered part of the phrase, cue post-it note time. 

Other times, I just couldn’t work out what I was meant to do, mainly because I didn’t check the area carefully enough. Regardless, the developers have also thought of a great solution with certain rare statues, that will give you up to 9 hints, dotted about the park. I will say though, by using these, you will affect your end-game score, which you need to keep high.

Why, well like others in the genre, the developers have created in-game rewards for completing the game and gaining a certain rank. No paid add-ons here, this is the proper old-school solution to replay ability, with new weapons on offer depending on said completion rank. There is also crow collectibles to find which add another challenge and will provide you with a new weapon and character skin, again without the need to purchase.

Graphics

The developers stated that their inspiration was Final Fantasy 7 and Silent Hill with a PlayStation 2 retro visual style, and as you make your way through the game, you can see that influence in spades from the sounds, mechanics and aesthetics. I love the visual look and its low poly stance, as it actually makes the game more visually tense in my opinion. Crow Country isometric viewpoint, combined with a free camera movement, provides that fresh modern feel whilst allowing players to enjoy the 3D retro visuals in all there blocky glory.

The landscape isn’t just rendered backgrounds of yester year either, with them being fully 3D interactive as you search for hidden items within your surroundings. This is elevated further when the lights go out later in the game or when you are in the sub-levels and are forced to use your pocket light. The modern day light source picks up the subtlety of the retro models aesthetics whilst casting superb shadows, that somehow provides a more sinister effect than if a low-poly inspired light source was used.

Each of the arenas are also uniquely disturbing and memorable, which is perfect when you need to remember where a particular item or clue is for progression. Monster design is also gruesomely well done with a combination of blending of environmental and organic material. Some are twisted skeleton creatures, whilst others resemble humanoid blobs or cactus inspired horrors.

Sound

The game has no voice work, with the story and interactions preferred to told by subtitles, which suits the games retro inspired feel. Because of this the environmental and weapon sounds take precedent and are much more compelling when traveling the theme park. Like the visual influences, sound has also been elevated to be more than just background noise, with each step or shot from a weapon a visual tell depending on location.

Monsters for example making very different unnerving sounds and you often hear the monsters well before seeing them, ramping that tension up before you interact with the creature in question. This also plays into puzzles, as you will hear the sound of a completed puzzle even when its not on screen, thus confirming your reward. It all feeds into this dark and unnerving experience that echoes the style to that off Silent Hill with equally dramatic effect.

The music ranges from piano based melodies, wind chimes and synthwave to ensure that 90’s oozes from the games very fibre ensuring that what ever the location, danger, tension and horror is only a corner turn away.

In terms of recommendation, a good quality headset will really give you the best experience for those jump scares and the brutal creature sounds coming from the distance.

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Crow Country is a "Must Own’’.

The developers here knew what they were creating, knew what influences to take, but also how to implement then in a way the players would find engaging and enjoy. It just hits almost all aspects perfectly on the head, which is a rare find in today’s modern day gaming.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £16.74 or approx. $20 and depending on skill and patience would give you well over 6+ hours worth of gameplay. Combine this with a plethora of hidden collectibles, weapon upgrades, end game ranking collectibles, plus a hard mode to experience, you can easily add another 10hrs into the mix.

The real beauty of this game is that is resurrects feelings of nostalgia whilst at the same time bringing something fresh to the scene. I look forward to what the developers create next and hope this gives other indie developers the push to create their own works of art for us to enjoy.