Do you ever hear a pitch for a sport that instantly perks your ears? A mixture of phrases or concepts that makes you assume “properly I’ve to expertise this as quickly as doable”? That occurred to me with Crow Nation, the most recent title from SFB Video games, a developer you will most likely greatest know because the crew behind the puzzle sport Snipperclips. The place Snipperclips is kind of cute trying, Crow Nation nonetheless is, considerably, however is as a substitute a survival horror sport set in an deserted crow-themed theme park that is impressed by Ultimate Fantasy 7 and Resident Evil. Yeah, now that is what I name a superb pitch. And the very best half is, you may even strive it out for your self because of a Steam Subsequent Fest demo. However first, let me promote you on it much more.
Crow Nation places you within the footwear of Particular Agent Mara Forest, a mysterious character who’s design fairly shortly matches into the historical past of all time feminine horror sport protagonists. Booting up the demo brings you to the beginning of the sport, and tells you extremely little – actually simply Mara’s title. Every little thing else is as much as you to determine, and boy do I really like a thriller, particularly one set in a fictional theme park that shut down because of the unusual disappearance of its proprietor.
Crow Nation | Steam Subsequent Fest Trailer | Demo Replace
Proper off the bat, aesthetically, you may see the place the Ultimate Fantasy 7 inspirations are available. Whereas perhaps ever-so-slightly extra outlined than the polygonal Cloud, Mara has the same, toy-like design to her, which I personally assume quite a lot of the OG FF7 character fashions have. Not like Ultimate Fantasy 7, and the PS1 period Resident Evils, all the backgrounds are rendered in actual time, as you’ll be able to manoeuvre the digital camera, nevertheless it all retains that pre-rendered really feel these basic video games excelled at.
It actually captures that model, clearly tapping into the continuing resurgence of PS1-era aesthetics, and nonetheless manages to retain a considerable amount of particulars these unique backgrounds typically had too. There’s consistently a lot to take a look at, each self-contained space looks like a diorama, which works properly with the theme park setting.
Outdoors of Aesthetics although, the sport principally borrows from Resident Evil, with just a few tweaks right here and there. For one, capturing works equally to Resident Evil, although you may just about goal anyplace on the display screen. In a single half this implies you’ve gotten extra versatility, nevertheless it additionally provides a bit extra problem, as you do often should be extra exact. After all, it would not be a Resi-inspired sport with out puzzles, with the demo having loads of to determine too – do not anticipate too onerous a problem proper out the gate, although, as once more, the demo does look like the beginning of the sport. An additional bonus that this demo options is that there are 15 hidden crystal crows to search out and shoot, although I have not managed to get all of them but.
One in all my favorite issues concerning the demo, that I hope makes it into the ultimate sport, is that there are two modes you may play the sport in – survival, which does characteristic enemies which means the hazard might be round any nook, or exploration, the place nothing will assault you, and also you’re capable of discover freely. The vibes are so sturdy and unnerving simply from being in an deserted theme park all about crows (who would open one thing like that?), so I really like that those who simply need to discover a bizarre and odd world can accomplish that with out the stress of capturing issues. Plus, once more it provides to that diorama/ toy type of feeling, you may actually play nevertheless you want.
There are quite a lot of actually good Steam Subsequent Fest demos so that you can try (we’ve got some suggestions right here for you too), however out of what I’ve performed thus far, Crow Nation is well my favorite – I will wrestle to discover a sport that blends concepts from two radically totally different video games like Ultimate Fantasy 7 and Resident Evil in addition to it does. Now I simply want to search out these crows…
Crown Nation does not have a launch date simply but, however is deliberate to launch on PC and PlayStation. Steam Subsequent Fest is working from till February 12.