Crow Country Is Retro Survival Horror Goodness
Dylan Atkinson, Contributor
Crow Country (SFB Games, 2024) is nothing short of survival horror goodness. It’s a tightly packed game that doesn’t waste a moment of your time. As I said in my impressions piece, Crow Country’s presentation is consistently stellar; the lighting especially makes each room of the theme park very distinct. Crow Country captures the feeling of a cheap small town amusement park in a specifically eerie way, and it’s a really compelling setting for a survival horror game. The spectacle isn’t too grand, the attractions feel a bit lame, and the safety regulations are non-existent. The staff memos scattered throughout the game further realise the setting, describing a park that always felt on the verge of collapse, and the employees' consistent frustrations with each other and management. The writing has a fun tongue in cheek tone appropriate for the amusement park setting but also remains serious enough to not drown the story in levity. The cast of characters found throughout Crow Country don’t have too much to say, but Mara herself is a very fun protagonist who carries a similar energy to Heather Mason from Silent Hill 3 (Konami, 2003). She’s somewhat snarky but also genuinely caring; she doesn't want anyone else to get hurt at Crow Country.
It’s not just a regular dunk; it’s Super Dunk! Screenshot by the author.
I wrote in my first impressions that Crow Country didn’t appear to be reinventing survival horror, instead choosing to replicate what’s successful about the genre. The full release only reaffirms how successful Crow Country is at executing on the formula, it’s an incredibly satisfying game to progress through in the exact same way classic Resident Evil is. The classic loop of finding locked doors while exploring, solving puzzles to acquire key items, and then using said items to progress is perfectly recreated. However, there is one aspect that fans of survival horror might find disappointing. Crow Country—when not being played in the newly released hard mode—is a very easy game. The lack of challenge mostly stems from the combat as enemies are extremely slow which makes them very easy to avoid, and they aren’t very durable either. It’s unfortunate that enemies pose such little threat because their designs are fantastic. I find it surprising how, in spite of Crow Country’s art style, the enemy designs are really unsettling, appearing like grotesque clay models that vaguely resemble humans.
Unsettling indeed. Screenshot by the author.
Resource and inventory management are also not as involved as other survival horror games. The game doesn’t have a limited inventory and resources are quite plentiful. Handgun ammo is also technically infinite since Mara can return to the trunk of her car to acquire more. This is a necessary concession, however, because if it was entirely possible to run out of ammo you could potentially soft lock yourself, as several puzzles require shooting. Concepts like resource and inventory management are synonymous with the genre but it’s probably more accurate to say they are staples for most survival horror titles. They aren’t necessary to creating a great survival horror experience; for example, Silent Hill (Konami, 1999) was able to find success despite not focusing on either of these elements and creating horror elsewhere. Silent Hill’s atmosphere and sound design were significantly more tense than its contemporaries despite being significantly easier. In comparison, Crow Country’s presentation allows the game to create a very different experience despite also being easier.
I’d also argue that the size of the game world and frequency of save rooms creates a situation where meaningful inventory management can’t really exist in Crow Country. It could get very tedious running back and forth between save rooms to collect key items; because the distance between save rooms isn’t too large, any tension would be lost. Compare that to the Spencer Mansion of Resident Evil (Capcom, 1996) where there are two save rooms on each wing of the mansion. This forces the player to make decisions about which items to take across each wing because the distance between them is very significant.
If you go into Crow Country expecting a hardcore and punishing survival horror experience akin to Darkwood (Acid Wizard Studio, 2017) you’ll be sorely disappointed. However, the lack of challenge in Crow Country doesn’t diminish the other aspects of gameplay. Increasing the difficulty of Crow Country would make the combat more engaging and fortunately a hard mode is promised for a future update (this review was written before hard mode’s release). This could potentially alleviate the difficulty issues if aspects like enemy aggression, speed, and health are toned up.
Puzzles are the significantly more compelling half of gameplay, striking a good middle ground between fairness and difficulty. Much like the best survival horror puzzles, they challenge you greatly on observational skills and reward those who pay attention to the environment and the staff memos scattered throughout the game. For example, in the Haunted Hilltop there’s a puzzle that locks you in a room until you solve it. It requires you to orientate four gravestones in the correct directions according to the compass on the ground using the names on the gravestones as hints. It’s an especially effective puzzle because it acknowledges that the camera in Crow Country is rotatable, unlike most survival horror games.
You know it’s puzzle time when there’s a compass on the ground. Screenshot by the author.
Where Crow Country really surprised me was the story, which was significantly more compelling than I could have anticipated. The story is played fairly straight up until its final sequence, which is short but absolutely packed with reveals.
One of those revelations is well foreshadowed on multiple occasions, however, and if you have acute observation you might be able to realise this well before the end of the game. The game alludes to mysterious concepts like the ‘Pool’ and ‘Roots’, but the main character doesn’t get to ask what they are until the end of the game. When Crow explains what that they really are, the player understands the most insidious thing that is going on in the park. The evil scientist or business tycoon indifferent to the disasters they create is an extremely common character archetype, especially for survival horror, and I fully expected Crow to be much the same. This is why I was surprised he turned out to be the polar opposite: Crow is fully conscious that he is partially responsible for what’s happened at Crow Country, and even though the game doesn't attempt to portray him in a sympathetic light, he is attempting to fix what little he can.
A note that the main character receives from Crow at the end takes the story in yet another bold direction, making the consequences of Crow’s actions much greater, even potentially world-ending. Although the theme park setting remains small in scale, the narrative has planet-sized consequences. It also makes it deeply ironic that Crow Country’s undeveloped future themed zone will never exist.
Even though none of the characters will likely be around to experience whatever happens in the future, existential dread looms heavy over the ending. It’s like the main character says when staring into the fire while saving: “Maybe everything will be okay, or maybe it won’t.”
SFB Games provided a review code for this game. As usual for GwG, PR played no part in the resulting writing or publication of these impressions.
