by Geir Gunnarsson.
Song of Horror is an ode to classic horror games like Resident Evil and Dino Crisis. With the fixed camera angles and obtuse puzzles, I for one, welcome that with open arms. I loved the Resident Evil remakes a lot but there is just something about the fixed angles and not knowing what is just off screen. It definitely builds up the suspense.
On the other hand, I could just be nostalgic about those games from my younger years. Song of Horror is a mix of the original Resident Evil games and the more recent horror game Aliens: Isolation.
Song of Horror was originally released on Steam in 2020 and then on consoles on the 28th of May 2021. This review is for the Xbox version and was played on Xbox one X and so far, I have not stumbled on any bugs or glitches. The game has a very long loading time, abnormally long loading time for a game that looks like it was made 10 years ago. I do not know if this is a problem on the PC version or if it is maybe a problem with my console, I doubt it is as no other game I tried has this issue. The animations are very stiff and robotic, the voice acting is very bad and the cutscenes are just drawings and sketches. Yet with all that, there is something appealing about the game and once you get past the animations and the voice acting it keeps you engaged. I had a very hard time putting the controller down and just wanted to continue and find out what happens.
Even though the game borrows heavily from classic horror games it does have some unique things going for it. The game is split into 5 episodes with numerous characters and each episode introduces new characters and locations, for example a mansion and a hospital. The game also has a permadeath mode which is the default mode and when a character dies that is it for that character, but that does not mean the game is over, instead you take control of another character and continue the story. There is no real combat in the game, instead it plays a bit more like Aliens: Isolation. The enemy, a malevolent presence that will hunt you by sound mainly. The presence will be hunting you throughout the game and you need to hide and try to keep yourself calm while hiding. You will get some button prompts to force your character to keep calm and with each wrong button press you make a sound and the presence will sense you more and more, until it finds you and kills the character or if it succeeds and the presence leaves. With these mechanics, especially the permadeath one, it makes the game quite replayable.
The puzzles are sometimes quite obtuse but once you’ve gotten used to the peculiar logic in the game, they start making sense, sort of. You need to collect items from all over, combine some items to make new items and then find the place where you need said items to solve a puzzle. Sometimes the puzzles involve the presence in some form, either as your hunter while trying to solve a puzzle or as a hinderance of some sort.
The graphics are a bit outdated, especially the character models look like something from 2010. The environments are decent looking. The best-looking bits of the game is the Item inspection mode, where you can rotate and look at the items from all angles, which is needed to solve some puzzles and just knowing more about the item you are inspecting.
All in all, I enjoyed my time with Song of Horror and would recommend it to anyone that likes the old school Resident Evil games and is itching for more of that.
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