Chimera's Mansion is a first-person escape horror game. At night, you're driving on the road to go look for a missing cat. However, a creature walks out of the forest causing you to crash your car. Now, it's raining. With nowhere to go, you enter the mansion in front of you and get locked in. Now, you have to figure out how to escape the mansion, avoid the hostile chimeras, and search for the missing cat while reading memos scattered throughout the mansion for hints to the puzzles and to learn about the lore of the mansion.
The game is made in Unity and runs at [b]60fps.[/b] It’s a Japanese game, but you can toggle it to English. The translation isn’t the best, but you’ll be able to finish the game with no issues. The game only has basic settings: [i]screen brightness, mouse sensitivity, inverted mouse, and sound master volume.[/i] [b]No custom keybindings.[/b] It’s the usual [b]WASD[/b] for movement, [b]Shift[/b] for run, and [b]E/Left Click[/b] for interaction. The game features [b]autosaving[/b] and [b]manual saving.[/b] There’s also [b]no combat[/b] in this game. The game takes [b]about 2 hours to complete[/b] depending on how fast you can solve the puzzles. The game is [b]linear.[/b] The item placements and puzzle solutions are always the same. There appears to be [b]only one ending.[/b] So, there’s no replay value.
What intrigued me about Chimera's Mansion is its simplistic graphic style similar to other PSX/retro-styled horror games. The game isn’t that scary. The chimeras aren’t terrifying. To be honest, they looked like cute Pokémons. During chase sequences, they moved slowly. So, you have time to enjoy the scenery as you make your escape. There were two places I stumbled in. When trying to figure out the code for the safe box in the butcher’s room, I wasn’t sure if the computer terminals nearby were the hints for each digit or something. However, the code was found in another room with the memo hint. Also, when trying to escape a chimera in a timed chase sequence, I couldn’t find the lever in a room. It turns out it was just well hidden. Other than those two issues, I had no problem with the other puzzles since the memo hints aren’t too hard to comprehend despite the translations.
There’s a [b]softlock bug[/b] I encountered near the end of the game though. After you finish the pipe puzzle, you’ll read a memo hint that helps you open a safe in a nearby room. Opening the safe will give you a key to open a locked room with a fish in a fish tank and a red keycard in a locker. If you unlock the big room with the red keycard without taking the fish, you’ll die and have to reload. If you didn’t manually save after opening the safe containing the key, the game reloads you back to the room with the opened safe. However, the key isn’t there and it isn’t in your inventory. So, you can’t open the locked room containing the fish and red keycard to progress the game. 😞 I had to start a new game and speedrun (~30 minutes) it back. Not sure if this can happen with the other safe boxes. So, make sure to [b]save often or save after picking up safe items and/or taking the fish.[/b]
If you’re looking for a short escape horror game that isn’t too scary and you don’t mind solving puzzles and getting through chase sequences, then you can give Chimera's Mansion a try. For animal lovers, this game does have a cute cat. 🐈😻 Overall, it was a short, fun experience.
