This review contains spoilers

I will say, out of all the "spooky PS1 looking nostalgia indie horror" that's so popular these days, this one utilizes it quite well. It's far beyond just aesthetics, things are abstract and pixelated and the atmosphere is full of spooky sounds, it very much is trying to fuck with you and it works.

Sadly, this is in many ways ruined by the fact that not only the sequences are very heavily scripted, making them incredibly predictable on replay, but there's only very few cases where you're in any real danger. What's more, the few chases you do get on the island are done from the monsters' perspective. It's fucking weird, you will definitely die to it the first time, thinking it's just a cutscene. I get that they didn't want to show how it looks until later on, but it didn't feel scary and killed all tension from the atmosphere when I knew that I would immediately find out if I'm in danger. Not to mention that if you die, it just instantly resets the chase, and if you fail enough times, the game offers you to skip it. Which is a shame, because the sections under the lighthouse are way better.

I think it's worth a playthrough, there's good stuff to be found here, but not much to sink your teeth in.

Reviewed on Jul 21, 2023


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