Incredibly disappointing. I've been looking for a cool DS horror game for a long time now, but this fails in almost every regard. The story is incredibly simplistic, like something you'd find in a boring horror film or creepypasta, almost nothing cool is ever done with the TS system. The scares are lackluster, the enemies are incredibly easy to avoid and stop being scary due to the lack of variety. The exploration is terrible, you hold the system sideways in a way that favors right handed people only, but still offers little visual info and is cumbersome to control regardless of your dominant hand. There aren't any puzzles, you just walk around and hope to find out the right path to go.

I could've lived with all of those problems if the story was any good or if something neat was done with the TS gimmick, but even after you get past all of that you're still left with nothing special. It tries to have a message about how games are art forms that can be used to spread love in the most cookie cutter way possible in a total snooze fest of a video game, so the message has no weight to it. I'm sorry, but if the scariest thing about your horror game is the way it controls, then you've missed your mark. I know it's cruel to say this about a game with such a cool idea, but there's really nothing on offer here that you couldn't get from a better horror game. The last thing I thought I'd say about this game was "skip it" but here we are.

Reviewed on Feb 07, 2024


1 Comment


2 months ago

the ds had a lot of potential for unique expressions of horror games but to my knowledge no one ever really took advantage of it, which is a shame. like you said, even though it's clearly inspired by the ring, it never does anything more with its concept and just falls so so flat. i watched someone play through the sequel out of curiosity and while it does try and expand on the concept a little more, it was just as unmemorable to me.

off the top of my head, the only ds horror game that made an impression on me was theresia because of its atmosphere. it's an unforgiving game that mashes point and click adventure and dungeon crawler elements with a lot of reading, but its atmosphere was what kept me from dropping it. i've also wanted to check out the twilight syndrome game for the ds, but as far as i'm aware there isn't an english translation for it.

as for ones to stay away from, dementium is always the one i tell people to avoid. if you're curious about it you can check it out, but it left an awful impression on me.