Like most RPGs, –or at least this is my experience– if you look for a guide or walkthrough when you get stuck you suddenly discover there is a lot (and I mean A LOT) hidden: secret items, weapons, scenarios, techniques... and people know how to use those hundred items that you tend to ignore.

Anyways, Koudelka is not a hard game and it's pretty unique. The enemy and character design is quite cool and only gets repetitive once you're almost at the ending, the story is compelling, the voice acting is totally out of the league of any other Playstation game and even if the gameplay os quite slow (while fighting, characters take a few seconds to react) I found it fun. I loved the cutscenes and it can get pretty parasitevesque.

On the bad side, the music, although it drags you in, can get monotonous, there are basically two themes: regular fight and boss fight. Controls are crazily clumsy, but you get used to them after a couple... hours. And you can get lost and miss that f*cking door because of absurd camera angles.

Even being 4 CDs it's not that long. It's a unique thing and even if it doesn't excel at being a horror game nor a RPG, it's fun to play and it looks beautiful. And yeah, I agree, they should call her Kooldelka.

If you liked 1 and 2, for sure you're going to like 3.

Funny similarities with Silent 4: The room (which I happened to beat just before this one):

–There is a "weird world" (The Dream Palace here) and the "normal world": your apartment.

–You switch between one and other by waking up.

–Candles to keep ghosts away.

This already makes it quite different to 1 and 2 and I love the apartment interchapters where you investigate with the help of Miku.

The game has a lot to tell and it's really cool the way that you keep notes that summarize what you have discovered, I've spent a lot of time reading with delight. I feel that's not necessary to beat the game if thats what you want to do, but the third installment has imo the most comprehensible story and the one where you can empathise the most with the main character, Rei. It's a game about loss and you can feel Rei's gloom.

Also tries to mix it with both 1 and 2 and it's really cool when you visit locations that look familiar.

I didn't like combat very much, too based on fatal frame and pressing the button at the right moment for my likings, but it's not really relevant.

Very beautiful and haunting game. For sure you have to play this one if you enjoy horror. I don't think it's the scariest of the 3 (I'll give that achievement to the second) but it's really scary anyways. Great ending for the PS2 saga.

Besides its undeniable historic importance, this game is quite cool. But to see that, you should be able to forget painful graphics (polygon pointy tiddies lol) and very clumsy controls.

You know, I'm quite tired of lovecraftian stuff in horror, but this game unashamedly did the HP thing and it's 1992, so I forbid it.

What I love about this game as a game are the puzzles, the cheap instadeaths and that it can be quite eerie with three or four polygons here and there. And what I love as a piece of Horror Gaming History is to see what stuck around in future games and what not. Most of things did.

It's fun to see where all it started. And it's a very short game, so if you want to pass Horror Game History 101, I recommend that you play it (it's on GOG, come on) or at least watch a gameplay.

Clock Tower 4? Clock Tower 3's young cousin? Lots of shared SFX. This one is less cartoony, feels more adult and grim.

Great game! Amazing graphics, absolutely unnecessary but absolutely enjoyable jiggle action by the main character, Fiona.

The feeling of defenselesness is a shadow that falls along the whole gameplay. You don't have the magical girl moments of Clock Tower 3 when you finally beat your abusers in a combat, instead you have to find the way to survive them.

Fiona can only hit with weak kicks and gets easily tired of running. Luckily, you've got the awesome dog Hewie! It's lovely to win Hewie's trust and to become worried about him, love the simple relationship Fiona develops with him.

Gameplay is OK. You feel your movements as free, but sometimes to activate something or to open a door becomes a calvary and usually you have someone chasing you for killing, raping you or worse, the game gives a vague idea of the outcome with disturbing sound effects when you reach the game over screen.

It's like the story doesn't feel complete. Would love to have a sequel, it seems like in Clock Tower 3, the game doesn't develop all the lore that it hints.

Music is pretty good. It knows how to become a chasing music in a moment, that gets you on your nerves in a cool way.

Puzzles aren't really hard, it's more an exploration-survival-horror as Clock Tower 3 was, usually it's easy to know what you have to do next, but you end up losing lots of time getting anywhere because this castle is huuuuge. I loved that feeling, visiting lots of huge rooms made me overwhelmed by the scenarios size and design. The map is better than the one in Clock Tower 3, but not as good or useful as the one given in any Silent Hill, I ended up almost not using it.

A survival horror fan absolute must!

Does Kuon deserve its cult status?

I've payed for it, I'm dumb enough, but I'm a sucker for horror from the PS era, so here are my two cents:

The Oh Yes:
–The AESTHETICS: They can remind you of Fatal Frame and they're really cool. Beautiful cut-scenes and scenarios. Good loking game.
–It can be GUROTESUKU (grotesque): Specially some bosses, they can surprise you in that aspect.
–The PLOT: It's really original and you can follow it without a problem (and we know that Japanese narrators can have some problems telling understandable stories).
–JUMP SCARES: It has some of that and I think they're nice.

The Meh:
–MUSIC: Sometimes cool and tense, but not a lot of variation or different themes.
–PUZZLES: You can't call them that. Take this here, take that there. Disappointing.
–The DUBBING: I actually liked it, but I would have chosen to listen to the Japanese actors if I could.

The Oh No:
–COMBAT: Not as bad as Rule of Rose, but pretty clumsy and predictable. Smashing buttons most of the times.
–The MAIN ENEMIES: The Gakis are the main enemies and they're not scary at all. They're pretty stupid and predictable. They can kill you easily, but I actually liked that.
–To BEAT THE GAME: You practically have to do the same three times. But I've got to say that the part with Sakuya in the mountains is the best part of the game, pretty tense and scary. Surprising and gory instadeath there, be careful.
–EVERYTHING IS AN OBSTACLE: You play as some cool exorcist powerful girls in the three scenarios. They're tough and pretty, but they can't avoid ANYTHING in the ground. If you'd like to stop them, you'll only need to place a broom on the floor. To put a real example, a corpse in a hallway: you can't pass through it. It's stupid. They also are like gigantic and can't pass between obstacles unless the space between is two times their size at least.
–The character FONT: I know, I know, but it's awful. It's cheesy, like trying to be traditionally Japanese looking.

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Overall, I don't regret playing it, but I did it mainly for the story. Silkworms, man. Lots of clues and texts as usual in survival horror, and they're delightful. But it's not really fun to play. Would watch the movie, though.

It reminds me to Rule of Rose in that aspect: cool story (bro) but not a great videogame. But in this case, the story is not as good but also it's not remotely as painful to play as Rule of Rose is.

I'm developing Stockholm's Syndrome with (Forbidden) Siren.

As Paul from 'Petscop' said; "This f*cking game"

==

Now that I've completed it, I can say this game is... addicting and unfair.

Some of the puzzles are almost impossible to solve. And believe me; I'm not speaking about the classic "try every item you have with every interactive object you find", that can work SOMETIMES.

It's one of the hardest games I've ever played, it took me like 2 hours to pass through the third mission, just getting used to its mechanics.

It has something that makes you wanna play it, I felt really dared by it. Maybe it's the story, maybe it's the cool graphics, loved that weird aesthetic decision. I also love Japanese horror games that are not at all ashamed to be Japanese and this is one of the japanesiest, very J-Horror in the sense that the characters feel very contemporary. It's creepy and tense, but not the creepiest. As you'll probably have to replay the same stage dozens of times (not exaggerating at all) you end up not feeling fear at all until the next scenario.

It's a very cool gimmick to play with so many different characters that, surprise, HAVE A PERSONALITY AND CHARISMA, they're not the usual blank slate of Generic Main Character thats usual in survival horror. I really loved playing as the little gir, Harumi Yomoda, she has one of the most terrifying scenarios.

Unfortunately, I had to look for a guide more than 5 and less than 10 times. I can say that maybe a third of this times, I couldn't have solved it by myself even with all the time of the world. Well, maybe adding 10 more hours of game, and this game is LONG, it took me 40 hours to beat it.

But I don't know, I've played lots of survival horrors and Siren is a very special one.

It's so hard and unfair that is almost broken, but you learn to love it despite its flaws and despite that this game most of the times hates you, the player. As a toxic person, it will reward you sometimes for instance not making you start the stage from the beginning, but that's it.

Oh! They told me that when they ported the game to modern PS you could see other people's achievements. Most of people didn't get to the point where you can select mission, maybe thats the first fourth or fifth of the game (the easy part), so if you got to the ending, feel proud like me.

I'll write a more detailed review once I beat it, but I'd like to say:

If I didn't know about this PS1 game, and somebody described it to me, I would call bullshit. It looks like a creepypasta.

...

I don't know. I had to watch a walkthrough maybe twice before beating it because you can easily get stuck, this also probably happened because I couldn't play it straight and had to shelve it for a week or so between sessions.

I don't understand why it happened to feel REALLY SCARY to me. Cammon, it's just a massive (well, not that massive) amount of polygons chasing you and the AI is not that intelligent.

I didn't understand some stuff about the mechanics and I teamed with Naomi the whole game and I didn't know that that helped me with showing the monster ("the hybrid") on the map when it was close. Even with that, I was some times scared shitless. I play lots of survival horrors and this simple (but strange) game scared me a lot.

Very original but it ain't that fun to play, didn't like the puzzle mechanics very much, mixture of use this with that like in a graphical adventure.

But man, it's fascinating how weird this game is and gets. I'm proud of having it finished!

I don't think videogames or survival horrors if you wish can get a lot better than this. This is an obvious milestone.

Haven't played anything like this.

I love the first Silent Hill, but I think that the story is shown in a very difficult way to follow. Not the case of Silent Hill 2, where you can get attached emotionally to the characters very easily.

Awesome music work by Yamaoka, again. Really cool graphics and cinematics. Combat its not its strong point but that ends up adding to the absolute terror you feel.

Beautiful cutscenes, too ambitious (extremely Japanese) story that doesn't get developed in 3CDs, but an overall interesting thing to play.

The start is kind of slow, but the music and the general atmosphere keep you playing, you can feel that there's a big plot to develop underlying somewhere, but it comes abruptly at the end of one of the stages.

The scenarios are quite different but not as cool as the character design. The game gets pretty grim as you play, with sudden bursts of PS1 gore. This explosions are surprising because you don't feel that you're playing "that" kind of survival horror, at first this looks like teen oriented, but Galerians is quite graphic and even gets some beautiful and eerie ideas from HR Giger.

I like how expendable items are not shining or marked in any way over the background, makes fun to look for stuff.

Tank controls are awful, making things unnecessarily difficult. Combat gets interesting at, maybe, half of the game, bosses are tricky, one of the first ones is absurdly difficult to beat. Puzzles are easy, is mostly a finding keys mechanic. If the map will mark you and in which direction are you pointing... that will be really helpful. Saying this because I would love a remake.

If you can forgive the playability, you'll find a more than decent and interesting survival horror who tries hard to find its own personality.

Loved the story, love the music, love the a e s t h e t i c s, great ideas at play...

But I got lost billions of times and when I found ANOTHER room full of puzzles that consist in pushing and shoving giant cubes, I abandoned it.

Really annoying, can't believe it's so loved.

Not a great game but a more than decent survival horror.

It has become a cliché to define it as "RE but with dinosaurs!", but it's because that's absolutely true.

Same clumsy tank controls, but yeah, in RE1 there were some moments where you were allowed to chill: zombies are slow, don't open doors, don't have more than one type of attack... Dino Crisis has focused on destroying that quietness that comes when you understand what enemies can and can't do.

Decent voice acting, but music is not great and the plot is too complex and doesn't get scary. Some puzzles are fun, but are logical games that hardly are integrated into the narrative, more than riddles. It makes sense in a way: it's a more sci-fi survival horror than RE.

It's quite hard and the ending part assembling the generator was tedious to me. Avoiding dinosaurs –some with an unpredictable respawn–, saving bullets, feeling totally overwhelmed by the situation... that was the cool part.

It has its moments.

It's my first contact with PE and yes, the year is 2021. Would love to get my hands on the first one.

I really liked this one. Despite the constant "inventory" full, despite that there are lots of objects that –having completed the game– I don't know how to use, despite that I learned to use Parasite Energy at half of my second mission, despite that I didn't understand the story very well... damn, those combats are clumsy and fun.

I've been playing survival horrors for the last year and adding RPG elements to this one was a great idea. Survival horrors mostly base on saving bullets and avoiding combat when unnecessary: not this one. And it has its horror moments and it's puzzles can't consider it another thing.

Also, it has its secrets, I didn't check a guide to complete it, but I checked a video on youtube on how to defeat the final boss (love boss battles in this one) and the youtuber had extremely powerful weapons and ammo that I haven't even seen.

Obviously far from perfect (music for instance can be disappointing) but a surprisingly addicting game, I think I've never had that much fun killing monsters with the infamous tank controls.

I got the bad ending. With this in mind and the hidden weapons thing, I think I'll give it another ride someday.

Extremely similar to the first one, but even scarier. Weird enough, I beated it without using the power spheres, just upgrading the camera.

The final boss's design is one of the most frightening things I've seen in a horror game.

Another must for the survival horror fans.

Really weird game, I haven't finished it.

It takes the absurd amount of NINE BLOCKS of your memory card per saved game and it takes its time to save and load, but I've seen them worse.

I don't find the charm of this game's mechanics, but I love the dark story, the music is quite cool (the one on the loading screen specially) and the concepts are attractive: setting traps, making monsters out of your prisoners...

But at the end of the day, talking about what you have to do, it feels very clumsy and unsatisfactory, so I haven't finished this one, despite that his malignant aura attracts me... I think I'll give it another chance someday.

Tim Burton has tried to do this thing for ages and he hasn't been able.

Very sinister and unnerving game. Veeery unbalanced game: The playability is AWFUL. The combat mechanics are the worst thing I've seen in my gaming life. Bosses can get very frustrating because of this.

But I rated it 4 stars, why is it? Mainly, because of the story. Because of the cut scenes. Because of the characters. Because of the soundtrack. And because it's genuinely creepy and knows how cruel child can be in a somewhat realistic way. It's not kids being plainly disturbing (a horrible cliché that we tend to see a lot in horror movies) but instead kids being disturbing in a childish playful way.

Even if the mechanics can be boring (and sorry but I don't love Brown as much as I loved Hewie) I played it with delight because I really wanted to know what happened next. Yeah, some people here are right: It's like a movie, so make a movie instead of a videogame. But playing it made me feel this awesomely creepy movie crawl under my skin.

The fact that it's almost a broken videogame can make it even more sinister. Like you're playing a prototype or a cursed banned game that you found in a yard sale.

Fails in very basic videogame items, but excels in the others. Superb game and very well deserved cult status.