Crow Country [Xbox]

SFB Games’ Crow Country is a loving throwback to the horror games of years gone by. The nostalgia of sitting in the dark, bundled up in front of a chunky CRT screen, scared to the bone by every single noise you hear; that’s what Crow Country feels like. You play as Mara Forest, a ‘Special Agent’ investigating the disappearance of local amusement park owner Edward Crow. The park has been shut down for a couple of years now, decaying and becoming infinitely creepier as time passed - but a recent missing person’s report, called in by Crow’s daughter, has eyes on the disturbing history of the park, once again.

As you begin your exploration, you’ll find remnants of newspaper clippings detailing the shutdown of the park, old scribblings from employees reminding themselves about things or complaining about various issues, and of course, a selection of NPCs who have found themselves embroiled in this saga. The park is split into a few main areas: the main ‘Crow Country’ promenade that links all of the other areas together, housing an animatronic crow, and a few rooms such as a Gift Shop. Straight ahead we have Fairytale Town; to the left, Ocean Kingdom; and to the right, Haunted Hilltop. Each of the areas host their own themes, with different activities that (presumably) once brought joy to the park’s visitors. Linking areas, you’ll find Staff Hallways and Utility Corridors, as well as service elevators that will eventually lead you into the not-publicly-accessible Underground areas. It takes a bit of going back and forth to fully unlock all areas, as you’ll need to track down keys for certain doors, as well as other items to help you interact with various rides and mechanisms.

When you first walk into Crow Country, it definitely feels spooky - but the more you explore, the more creatures you’ll come across and the gnarlier they’ll get. You have a limited amount of ammo (though more can be found around the park), so running past enemies was frequently the option I’d take unless absolutely necessary in my first playthrough, however this leads to the park quickly overflowing with these grotesque monstrosities, so culling the numbers at times is a smart choice. It’s not overly difficult, but if you’re of a rather nervous disposition - like me - and get easily spooked and overwhelmed, it can be easy to make really silly mistakes like running straight into enemies, or running straight into bear traps… or running straight into poisonous gas. Okay, maybe I’m a bit too much of a panicker. There are loads of health packs (big and small) as well as antidotes lying around, so you shouldn’t have too much of a problem making it through the game, but if you’re trying to get an S-Rank at the end, you’ll need to make it through with the equivalent of no more than 10 heals. The puzzles are fun to figure out too, with lots of information being gained through your environments: a painting referencing something happening between ‘1020 and 1115’, a riddle involving creatures’ ID numbers and more.

Whilst the enemies aren’t overly difficult, the combat itself can prove to be a little bit fiddly. With the game being played in an isometric view, much like the games that inspired it, Crow Country sets itself apart by giving you free rein of the camera, allowing you to twist and turn to get an easier viewing angle where needed. The game has a mix of modern controls (using the sticks) and tank controls (using the D-pad), so you can see which one feels better for you - or even use a mix of both. Thankfully, you can get the tanky back-step through pressing Y when using the more modern control layout, which admittedly took me way too long to realise. I found that the general controls/camera controls, combined with the aiming of your gun (regardless of which one you’re using), became a tad awkward, especially since you can’t move whilst doing so, leading to you becoming particularly vulnerable at certain points. You do eventually unlock other weapons, and whilst the aiming doesn’t improve at all, the amount of damage you deal does - so you’ll be able to dispatch enemies with a bit more ease when you’re in a tight spot. Grenades and such do damage you, so just bear that in mind when you’re stuck in a small corridor and think you’re being smart by trying to wipe out a few enemies at once… Similarly, there’s a lot of environmental traps that can easily catch you out, as entering areas may change the camera angle, leaving a trap - be it a poison gas trap on the floor, a gas-spraying crow head, or the spike traps that are introduced in the hard mode - conveniently out of view, where you’ll wander straight into it if you’re not careful.

You’ll come across four mini-bosses, each of which have a slightly different appearance to the usual enemies found around Crow Country. Each of these are apparently optional, though I swiftly dealt with them all in every run I’ve done; it just wouldn’t feel right leaving them there to suffer… right? They sadly didn’t seem to put up too much of a fight, being more of a challenge in that they were frequently in quite tight spaces making them hard to navigate, rather than being actually hard to defeat. I wish they’d have offered more complex or challenging battles, just to change up the pace of things a little bit.

The visuals and the soundtrack of Crow Country are both fantastic, and very reminiscent of the early PlayStation games that inspired it. The haunting atmosphere throughout kept me on edge, and the soundtrack - composed by Ockeroid - is wonderfully fitting. Without going into too much spoilery detail, there was even a bit right at the end of the game where the music combined with certain visuals just totally took me straight back to the PS2 towers loading screen, with the sort of foggy mist that the ‘towers’ were rising up out of and the vibes of that nostalgic theme - I don’t know if that’s what they were going for, but that’s precisely where my mind went. Walking through each of the themed areas of Crow Country was interesting, with plenty of cool sights and a whole lot of creepy energy - and even speaking with NPCs was enjoyable, getting to see a little bit of their very-different personalities along the way, and there’s a tonne of humour both in these interactions and through the various posters and notes left around the park.

A Bonus game mode is unlocked upon completion, CrowQuest, which can be toggled off/on in the Settings Menu - this places a total of 42 Crystal Crows around the world for you to find and shoot. If you successfully pull this off, you’ll be able to go retrieve an alternate costume and weapon skin from a special door within the Crow Lounge. In addition to this, a new difficulty has been added in a recent update: ‘Murder of Crows’, giving everyone a much-requested Hard mode. This alters the end Rank criteria, now counting things such as your number of Kills, Bonus Items used (if this is a subsequent playthrough after unlocking these!), Saves, etc. which came as a little bit of a shock at the end of a MoC run, only to receive a B+ rank - whoops. Murder of Crows also includes other unlockables for achieving particular ranks; which gives you a good incentive to really try and make it through on the harder difficulty, too.

Completing the game on its ‘normal’ difficulty will allow you to unlock helpful items depending on your rank; all three of which can be used on further playthroughs to help make things a little less stress-inducing (though as mentioned above, you’ll need to bear this in mind if doing a Murder of Crows run). One of these being a melee weapon, which I had wondered why there was no form of melee weapon to begin with, as whilst ammo can be found dotted around the place, having an essentially unlimited-use weapon would have made certain situations easier from the start.

There are optional adjustments available too, such as the ability to go through the game in a combat-free Exploration mode to just experience the creepy atmosphere, as well as an option to gain extra lives if you feel you need this (though reloading a previous save is possible upon death, if you choose not to have this activated). A few achievements were bugged at my time of playing - with three not popping when they should have. Thankfully, as of a recent update, that has now been rectified and they all popped as soon as I loaded into my save. I’m now four playthroughs in, and still loving it all the same. Learning the layout of this almost labyrinthine house of horrors, and the plethora of enemies lurking within, ranging from somewhat humanoid creatures, wailing and clumsily twisting their way around, to quite literal puddles of fleshy meat that glide towards you; it all feels fun and rewarding, especially as you uncover more and more of this world and the history of the park itself - and of course, the unlockable items that give you plenty of reason to go back in for a second (or third, or fourth…) run. Given that Crow Country is available for just £16.74 on Xbox, it’s well worth the money and I’d highly recommend everyone - particularly fans of old-school horror games - to give it a go.

In the end, we decided to give Crow Country the Collecting Asylum rating of 9.5/10.

Are you interested in Crow Country? What do you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!

- V x

Thank you to Neon Hive for the Crow Country Xbox review code!