Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a stylistic and atmospheric masterpiece. The artwork, music, sound effects, UI, even down to the grain texture - all of it comes together to make a very distinct experience. There is so much attention put into every corner of this game.
Things I really loved:
- Art style - and the sheer amount of sprites and micro animations
- Accessibility - the text was very easy to read even with the grain filter, and every menu was simple (in an era of overcomplex or ugly UI, it was so refreshing)
- Replayability / Navigation - HEAVY emphasis on this. The way it is so easy to skip around on chapters and replay sections without loading saves, even giving check points to resume from? There is no need for a fast forward button because it is all just so easy to navigate. It is a visual novel player's DREAM.
- Sound - Definitely adding some songs from this OST to my rotation. They're wonderful. They knew the exact vibe they wanted and didn't stray.
- The japanese folklore element. I really enjoy cryptids, fairytales, legends, myths. So reading the different mysteries was so fun to me.
- The collectables were really fun and encouraged me to look around the scene. Sometimes these types of things can be annoying to try and find in games, but here they were never outrageously difficult.
Things I didn't like as much:
- The volume puzzle - iykyk. A cool idea, but so not what I expected lol
- The story takes a little while to reel you in. In my opinion, it frontloads a lot of baseline information, with a lot of questions left unanswered. This makes the latter half of the game just way more interesting imo.
- The true end ... kind of. It's not that I hated it or anything, it just felt sort of odd. Personal preference!
- Not a dislike really, but the 'think' function was underutilized.
- It is, in fact, a MYSTERY game. It is about threads of storylines weaving together to solve questions. I went into it kind of thinking it would be a horror game, but that is not the case.
Realistically I have a hard time coming up with things I truly don't like about this game. It did what it promised to do. It's one that I could recommend to anyone who likes visual novels or mysteries. Definitely check it out if it looks like something you would enjoy!
