With Halloween fast approaching, there’s no better time to seek out a good horror game to keep you lying awake at night after putting it down. There’s been no shortage of excellent horror games that fit the bill lately, and one of this year’s best just hit Nintendo Switch earlier in October. If you’re in the mood for a retro-style survival horror game to finish out spooky season, Crow Country’s recent Switch port is one you don’t want to miss.
Originally released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in May, Crow Country landed on PS4 and Switch on October 16. Developed by SFB Games, the survival horror title is heavily inspired by classic games like Resident Evil, balancing puzzle solving with combat against all manner of creepy monsters. Crow Country is set in an abandoned amusement park. Playing as an investigator named Mara, you’re sent to the park to track down its former owner, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As the game goes on, you’ll make contact with an assortment of other visitors all conducting their own investigations into the strange incidents at the park.
Crow Country sticks to its survival horror roots in terms of both gameplay and visuals. Right from the start, the recent game makes it clear that it’s an homage to the classics of the genre, with camera angles reminiscent of the early Resident Evil series, chunky polygonal models that would look at home on the original PlayStation, and a satisfyingly fuzzy CRT filter over everything.
Once you actually start moving around, the similarities to old-school horror games become even more clear. Mara carries her gear around in an inventory that looks a lot like Resident Evil’s, complete with a health bar modeled after a heartbeat monitor. Gameplay is a mix of combat and puzzles, weighted toward the puzzle side, that also call to mind Leon Kennedy’s penchant for picking up every collectible item he can find to slot into obtuse locks later on. Individual puzzles may not be particularly difficult, but the process of walking through their solutions step by step to make your way deeper into the world’s creepiest amusement park is satisfying nonetheless.
Combat is likewise simplistic, with enemies shambling their way toward you to be dispatched with a few shots from the weapons you’ll gather along the way. The monsters infesting the park tend to take quite a few hits to bring down, so choosing when to engage and when to run away is a decision you’ll need to weigh carefully throughout the game. Despite that, combat is rarely difficult, which makes Crow Country feel like a particularly approachable entry in the survival horror genre, even for players who normally shy away from its more hardcore cousins. And if you want to play without the threat of danger at all, there’s an exploration mode that cuts out combat entirely, turning the whole experience into a straightforward, atmospheric puzzle game.
Either way you play, Crow Country thrives on its vibes. While neither its combat nor puzzles are the best the genre has to offer, the game bears an impeccably creepy atmosphere. Even when you know you can defeat whatever jumps around the next corner toward you, the sense of tension permeating its dilapidated amusement park is palpable the whole way through. There’s something unsettling about a park built for cheap thrills turning into a genuine nightmare, especially as you delve further into its depths to uncover the source of all the bizarre happenings in its recent history.
All of that makes Crow Country great not just as a rehash of Resident Evil for fans of that game, but also as an introduction to survival horror for players who are normally too timid for the genre (like yours truly). If you want to get in on the fun of spooky season without scarring yourself for life – and while exploring a fascinating mystery story along the way — Crow Country is the perfect pixelated pick.
