Song of Horror: Complete Edition [Xbox]
Developed by Protocol Games, Song of Horror is a third-person Lovecraftian horror game, taking place over five interconnected chapters. It features a wide cast of playable characters, with a constant threat of death looming over them in the various forms of ‘the Presence’ as you guide them through the game. A strange, cursed music box lies at the centre of the mystery, with the members of the Husher family mysteriously going missing soon after receiving this gift. We start off the story as Daniel Noyer, who quickly falls prey to the same entity before more and more characters are introduced, welcomed into the fray to find their missing colleagues and companions. Lead a character to their untimely demise? Then you’ll just have to continue on as someone else - and hope you don’t kill them too.
With fixed camera angles reminiscent of classic survival horror titles such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill, it builds up tension with booming heartbeats and all of the creaking and running footsteps heard throughout the locations. Each location is well designed, with layouts that increase your anxiety as you loop round from room to room, building to building, in order to find more information as well as crucial hiding spots to protect yourself from the presence. The advanced enemy AI reacts and responds to how you play, with unique interactions across playthroughs - so you’ll never really know when to expect an encounter. On my first run, leaving the basement of the Husher mansion caused a ghostly figure to appear at the top of the stairs, removing (and exploding) the lightbulb, plunging the stairwell into darkness; and whilst this didn’t occur on Allan’s run, he witnessed a different creepy moment in the basement, where a shadowy hand reached out from within a wardrobe, pulling the door shut. These moments are some of the best aspects to the gameplay, as they provide a much more natural, and therefore frightening, experience.
Visually, Song of Horror is a tad hit or miss at times, with some wonderfully detailed locations, but awkward, clunky character design. The ‘Presence’ definitely has a fantastically horrifying look, with different enemy types as you progress through the game, ranging from the sinewy, grabby hands and smoky tendrils trying to burst through doors in Husher’s Mansion, to the horrifying appearance of the Silence, that requires you to hold your breath and remain as quiet and still as possible so as not to alert it.
These are mini-game styled encounters that you must complete in order to stay hidden from enemies, and they are by far the most frustrating aspect of the game. They give the illusion of horror, due to you furiously trying to achieve whatever is required, but instead they suck out a lot of the fun. You can quickly fall victim to some rather frustrating deaths due to these, as they quickly feel more irritating, the more frequently you come across them, and whilst they aren’t overly difficult - they can sometimes feel quite punishing due to how long they sometimes last - especially as they lose their scariness quite quickly.
The sound design was oddly varied, with the creepy noises throughout each location feeling very authentic and flowing naturally as you explore, but the voice acting is a bit… off. The character’s voices are each very distinct, but there’s something about them that feels very bizarre - and they have a tendency to not only say things in a very cheesy way, but it often feels like the voices are totally disconnected. Similarly, their accents are all wildly different, which makes things feel quite disjointed at times.
Overall, we felt that Song of Horror was a mixed bag; it offers a decent, creepy vibe but had a few flaws that left us more frustrated than scared. At £34.99 on the Xbox Store, it includes all five chapters that were previously released on PC, at a price comparable to the combined cost of the individual installments - however the bundle is cheaper on Steam at £24.99 (currently 40% off at £14.99 until December 1st) so if you play on PC, it might be an idea to nab it there instead for a saving.
In the end, we decided to give Song of Horror the Collecting Asylum rating of 7.5/10.
Have you played Song of Horror yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to RenaissancePR for the Song of Horror: Complete Edition Xbox review code!
