Crow Country Review – Old-School Scares

Ah, the 90s; a simpler time for games and horror storytelling. Crow Country, a short 2024 horror game paying homage to 90s titles like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, aims to recreate the vibes of that era of survival horror. And with its polygonal figures, lo-fi soundtrack, and old-school puzzles, it takes some steps forward, with only a few shambles back.

Game Name: Crow Country
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, PC
Developer: SFB Games
Publisher: SFB Games
Release Date: May 9th (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC), October 16th, 2024 (PS4, Nintendo Switch)
Price: $19.99

Even in its story, Crow Country is delightfully retro. Agent Mara Forest heads out to the eponymous Crow Country theme park in search for its elusive owner. Closed down two years prior after an accident, the Georgia theme park is supposedly abandoned by 1990. And it is mostly bereft of normal visitors, but Mara finds that attendance is booming for the ghoulish kind.

Puzzling Out Crow Country

The 90s-style puzzle solving, or rather its implementation, gets some much needed new life. I tend to shy away from replaying older horror games since they often prove frustratingly obtuse in tracking objectives. I don’t mind a tough puzzle, mind you. But if I step away from a game for a week and come back, I don’t want to have to start over if I forgot what I had begun doing.

I’ll step off my retro soapbox now and say that thankfully, Crow Country has found the solution to this dilemma. All clues and tips that you find immediately get moved to the save room. So coming back from a break, I could easily track what I had to do next.

As for the puzzles themselves, they’re the best part of Crow Country. Generally, they don’t involve much backtracking and unfold in whatever area you find them. If you get stuck, you can ask for a hint from a nearby fortune-telling machine. This does lower your rank at the end of the game. It’s also not really needed if you examine your notes and surroundings well. Still, it’s nice to have as a fallback.

Like Trying to Hit a Crow

But if the puzzles of Crow Country feel revolutionary, the combat somehow feels even more dated than that of the games that inspired it. Mara starts off with a handgun, her main weapon. But rather than shooting from wherever she’s facing, players have to both orient her towards an enemy and align a reticule to make a shot. Sure, this is how shooting works in contemporary titles. But in a game that places the camera well above your character, shooting becomes quite cumbersome. I occasionally had to move the reticule off camera and pray that I hit my mark.

That said, Crow Country does grant the small mercy of having combat be mostly optional. Once I realize I could generally get where I wanted by running past enemies, the game became a whole lot more manageable. Even the bosses are optional. Though ironically, their large sizes make them much easier to fight than the regular-sized humanoid enemies. A bigger size is a bigger target after all, and I could actually pull off headshots with ease.

A Leisurely Day at Crow Country

There’s also an option to remove enemies entirely. That will likely feel like a cop out for most players, but is nice for those who want spooky ambience without the creepy critters. They don’t jump scare you either way, so I personally found them more spooky than scary. But fear is relative.

So instead of using my bullets to take down enemies, I used them to bust up crates to get more ammo and health. I can’t say that this is how Crow Country was intended to be played. Especially since some enemies are frustratingly difficult to avoid or simply easy to get caught on as you try to maneuver around them. But tanking hits and waging battle against crates for more health did create a workable survival horror gameplay loop, if not always the most exciting.

If Looks Could Kill

As for the retro design of Crow Country, it values form over function. And that’s mostly fine. I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for PS1-polygonal graphics. There’s something satisfying about moving people and items around that look like they come from a toy set. Maybe it’s my love of LEGOs or Final Fantasy VII. Either way, sprites just don’t scratch that nostalgic itch the same way.

That said, it can sometimes make it hard to know what you’re looking at in the game’s world. In some ways this is a plus, as it makes the eldritch creatures even more bizarre looking. Naturally, the design makes it hard to spy traps, which generally feels fair. For the most part, interactive objects glow with bright reds and greens. But those that don’t can take a moment to spot, which is fine unless what appears to be zombified oatmeal is bearing down on you.

You Were Almost a Crow Sandwich

But for all its tinkering on the 90s survival horror formula, Crow Country has style all its own. There’s a lot of quirkiness in the game, from dialogue to mini games. A few moments made me smile, such as when Mara kicks a door open and the game remarks how she solved this problem with violence. The arcade section of Crow Country has a number of playable games. Naturally, for the trivia game you can win, so long as you know the contemporaneous 90s answer. It’s these kinds of touches that build out the world of Crow Country while adding a bit of flair.The wit and charm help sell the story of Crow Country, which is fairly bare bones. This is par for the course for a retro horror game, as those it pays homage to often boil down to escape from a creepy mansion/town/space station. The setting of Crow Country is certainly unique in that regard, and each area of the theme park has a distinct flavor. On top of all that, the ending is genuinely engrossing, with twists, turns, suspense, and schlocky humor.

And of course, this wouldn’t be a retro-style game without some PS1-sounding music. Again, it really makes the game feel of a certain era. Take your first step into a save room, and the music feels familiar despite being new. And you can bask in that classic feeling of catching your breath before heading back out into the spookiness.

Review Disclosure Statement: Crow Country was provided to us by SFB Games for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.