Crow Country

"Here go two more for y'all"

Crow country is a survival horror game made for classic survival horror fans. The execution, the story, the puzzles, the character interactions, the secrets, the clunky combat all hearken back to the classics of the genre. Overall, it's a really well executed survival horror game that is also very tongue and cheek. Any fan of the genre will chuckle quite frequently at the humorous one-liners, the nods to classic survival horror games, and the fourth-wall breaking winks to the player that Crow Country indulges in. The game is so damn charming and stylish that it really transcends the comparisons that it's obvious tropes and genre mechanics are rooted in. Crow Country at its heart has a playful yet spooky tone. Its cutesy atmosphere, blocky Lego-like tactility, and classic survival horror gameplay mechanics create quite the unique experience. Crow Country marks another excellent entry in the growing indie survival horror scene.

I think the standout qualities of Crow Country are its style/aesthetic/vibe, whatever you want to call it, along with the story and characters. I'll dive into the presentation of the game in the next section, but I'm not going to get into the story much. Just know, it's quite good. It's a mystery plot that weaves together a couple reoccurring characters in fun ways. It's campy, mysterious, twisty-turny towards the end, and exudes charm through the writing. One other area I'll touch on is the survival horror gameplay mechanics but just briefly. That aspect too is top notch, just with some interesting choices here and there.

Style...Aesthetics...Vibe, Crow Country's GOT IT

The most eye-catching aspect of Crow Country to me is its presentation. I mean come on just look at it!

Okay, I'm already getting ahead of myself... what is this game about? Well, because I'm feeling lazy, here's the description from the developers:

The year is 1990. Edward Crow has disappeared. The owner of ‘Crow Country’ (a small theme park in the rural outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia), he has not been seen since he unexpectedly shut down his park two years ago. The silence is broken when a mysterious young woman named Mara Forest ventures into the heart of the abandoned theme park in order to find him.
Are the disturbing rumours about Crow Country true?
Who, exactly, is Mara Forest?
Why did Crow really shut down his park?

So that's right, you play a young girl investigating disappearance of the owner of an abandoned theme park in Georgia. Oh, and the owner is this guy:

The mood is also set by this dreamy and warm yet subtly haunting main menu theme. The silky piano with the forlorn humming really hit the spot. It's a muggy summer night in Georgia and you're at a deserted theme park, fun!

A good save room vibe is also very critical to a solid survival horror game. In that aspect, Crow Country does not miss.

The visual presentation is striking. The retro aesthetic is clear as it seems like you're playing this on a CRT television with a PS1. What comes across while playing is the dollhouse or toy-like effect that the animations and sound effects bring about. Stuff pops and clinks like Legos would. There's lots of little interactables here and there, giving you the sense that you're tinkering with a toy. Even the isometric perspective adds to this as you feel like a third-party looking in.

To wrap up, here's some of my favorite tracks off the soundtrack. I don't think they could've done a better job of capturing the feeling of a horror game set in a theme park. The tracks are sorrowful and spooky while still coming off light and carnival-like at times.

Small Changes to the Formula

Camera

The camera perspective is fairly unique for survival horror in my experience. It's an isometric camera angle set in a fully 3D environment. This setup works well with a controller as the character can be moved with one joystick and the camera adjusted with the other. This ends up feeling like a clunky version of a 3rd person, over-the-shoulder camera. And the cool part is that clunkiness works for the survival horror genre. In my one playthrough I never got fully comfortable aiming my weapons. As you can imagine aiming in a 3D space, from an isometric perspective, with a joystick is a challenge. Enemies are fairly slow, and spaces are usually wide open with a variety of traps to target which I feel all compensate well for the clunky aiming.

Inventory

Crow country opts out of the typical limited inventory space and save room item box, instead giving the player an inventory that can hold all the items in the game, just at limited quantities. I'm not sure I prefer this option. In my Conscript review I talked about how much I enjoyed the route planning thanks to the inventory constraints and strong map design. Crow Country has strong map design but due to the more lenient inventory system, the route planning takes on less of an emphasis. This is not totally a bad thing. I did enjoy the sense of wandering around an abandoned theme park. The vibe is less purposeful and more meandering, and I think that fits the game well. I still don't love the feeling of finding a med pack and not being able to pick it up and stash it away. My survival horror brain wants to stockpile resources and end the game with a massive pile of ammo and meds that I'll never use... But truth being told, this system works well for the game, and I appreciate when things get switched up a little.

Puzzles

Lastly about the gameplay, Crow Country is puzzles puzzles puzzles. I'm not sure there's ever a key item just sitting in a room. It's often a puzzle to open the door to the room and then it's another puzzle to access said key item. It may sound overwhelming, but if you're familiar with puzzle or survival horror games, I think you'll find these puzzles to provide just the right amount of resistance. That resistance is important because it's a balance. The developers don't want to knock the player completely out of the flow of the game, but they also want you to have to think. It's not the easiest thing to accomplish, but I think they hit it out of the park with the many puzzles Crow Country features.

Verdict

★★★★

A quick review for a concise game. Crow Country is an excellent survival horror title that pushes the genre's envelopes in a couple ways. The standout aspects for me were the visual presentation, the character interactions, along with the sheer number of good puzzles. The retro style and isometric perspective are quickly evident by seeing a simple screenshot, but the details put into animation and sound effect work bring it all together. It's a game set in a theme park that feels like it was built from toys out of someone's old attic. I really loved the pacing of the story and how it was delivered through character interactions. The characters come and go, showing up in new spots from time to time. The combat is sure as hell clunky, but that's par for the course in this genre. The star of the show with regards to gameplay is the puzzle and map design. The theme park is one tight intertwining puzzle box for the player to solve that hits a lot of familiar notes and some new ones too. Like I said, Crow Country's a concise experience but more importantly, it's a dense and satisfying one. My first playthrough on the standard difficulty took about 6-7 hours and that was finding and figuring out all the secrets. I don't see too much replayability here, but one more playthrough on the hardest difficulty, trying to get that S+ rating could be in my future.