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I enjoy when video games don\u2019t behave the way you expect. It doesn\u2019t happen often in this algorithm-driven world of entertainment, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s refreshing to occasionally play a unique game like World of Horror, even if it\u2019s not successful at everything it attempts.<\/p>\n

One glance at the screenshots and you\u2019ll know this horror game from Ysbryd Games is forgoing trends for atmosphere. Unlike most retro titles, World of Horror doesn\u2019t take its visual queues from the NES or SNES eras, but the 1-bit Mac SE era. You can play around with the visual presentation\u2014such as going with green and black, adding a couple additional colors, etc.<\/p>\n

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I preferred the black and white. It works surprisingly well, creating the kind of spooky atmosphere you might find when stumbling upon a \u201950s horror flick on Movies!<\/p>\n

That said, the scares in World of Horror are certainly not the ones you get from Vincent Price. The visuals are directly inspired by modern Japanese horror movies and the mangas of Junji Ito. The stories are Lovecraftian. The M rating for blood and gore, violence, suggestive themes, and language is very much earned. Although the bulk of the game involves static images and uses sudden audio queues for its jump scares, the visuals can be disturbing\u2014especially during some of the animated cutscenes.<\/p>\n

In World of Horror\u2019s main gameplay mode\u2014Extracurricular Activities\u2014the action and story are tied tog\u200b\u200bether mostly by the city in which it takes place: Shiokawa, Japan. A lot of weird and terrifying events have been happening there, and the player will take control of numerous young residents to figure out what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

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Each rogue-like run gives the player five randomly selected mysteries to solve. There are multiple endings for each, and the ending you reach dictates how the others will come together. Some elements of each mystery cannot be opened without having completed others, so replaying them in a different order creates unique experiences as you push towards the conclusion at the lighthouse. That said, a full run-through can generally be completed in an hour or two, so the overall life of World of Horror is still somewhat short.<\/p>\n

Once you have a mystery, the game provides basic hints of where to investigate. For the most part, each location will present you with a decision to make. Investigate the creepy doll? Talk to the creepy dude? Enter the room with the creepy woman? Your answer will affect various things, such as hurting your stats or rewarding you with an item. There were numerous times, however, when the story told me to investigate a specific area, then didn\u2019t update after I\u2019d done so. Like old adventure games of the past, it\u2019s often unclear what you need to do or what you may have missed to move things along.<\/p>\n

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Combat plays a relatively large role in what\u2019s going on in town. You\u2019ll encounter numerous monstrosities, mostly from Japanese lore and urban legends. When this happens, you\u2019ll be tasked with lining up a string of actions. Attack, buff your attacks, heal, use magic, defend, etc. More powerful attacks take up more action points, but you still may want to buff your accuracy, for example, before unleashing them.<\/p>\n

The battles require you to have a decent knowledge of turn-based combat, as the game doesn\u2019t clearly define useful strategies. They also require you to have the right weapons, and that won\u2019t always be the case. If you don\u2019t equip what you have or don\u2019t discover what you need, you may find yourself simply punching and kicking an evil specter, and that\u2019s just not the way to go. You\u2019ll sometimes need to rely on rituals to win, and, too often, learning the sequence to properly perform them is just trial and error. As such, combat can become aggravating.<\/p>\n

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Throughout it all, you have to manage your doom meter. This is affected by your choices in combat, the story decisions you make, how the town itself is doing, etc. Casting spells during battles may help you win, but because they raise your doom level, you can\u2019t rely on them. If the doom meter reaches 100%, it\u2019s game over. Yet another way to die.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this is where the 1-bit graphics show their limitations. The interface for all of this is somewhat brutal; a mess of ugly text and cryptic icons. The game doesn\u2019t even explain what some of it is for, and I\u2019m not sure I ever figured out everything I was looking at. The combat and inventory icons do become second nature after a while, but expect a lot of arbitrary clicking early on.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s clear (speaking of clicking), that the game was designed with a mouse in mind. It\u2019s easy to move the cursor with the L-stick to select what you want, and the developers do provide some interface enhancements, but playing this on a Mac or Windows PC would be preferable to a console controller.<\/p>\n

Another issue is that if you\u2019re not into the story or horror elements, you\u2019ll likely be put off by the repetition. The gameplay loop starts to feel redundant fairly quickly, and the various story elements really don\u2019t differ much despite the unique enemies you\u2019ll face. Catching all the references adds a bit of fun, and digging into a new story can be thrilling, but the actual gameplay elements that comprise World of Horror are too basic for prolonged sessions.<\/p>\n

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Of course, that\u2019s why those sessions are so short, and why World of Horror is a logical choice for your Halloween (or just fright night) activities. You can quickly play a round, get scared, then put it away until you\u2019re ready to go again. Does that make it worth the $20 asking price? I\u2019m not sure. But the unique look and feel make it a decent break from the norm, and the Nintendo Switch could use more games like that.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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I enjoy when video games don\u2019t behave the way you expect. It doesn\u2019t happen often in this algorithm-driven world of entertainment, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s refreshing to occasionally play a unique game like World of Horror, even if it\u2019s not successful at everything it attempts. One glance at the screenshots and you\u2019ll know this horror […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":82523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/purenintendo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/worldofhorror-splash.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[576],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nintendo"],"yoast_head":"\n