This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
For a 17USD game, it's not bad but it's not great either. I was told that this is an horror game and I am a bit disappointed tbh. I don't want to sound too discouraging for the devs (if they read reviews here), but I will explain why I felt disappointed.
TL;DR Conclusion:
Softcore horror game with fan service? No blood and gore, horrid images. No unsettling stories. Minimal threat. Barely making players nervous/tense. Mediocre to easy puzzles.
Storyline:
General, nothing mind bending nor big twist in the end. Protagonists needed an excuse to do stupid things which led to a horror situation which is totally fine. Lack of spine chilling feelings. Mostly due to 99% of us won't be paranormal investigators and can't really fully immerse in the situation.
Visuals:
It's pretty. Quite a bit of panty shots or jiggly boobs in the events, not necessary but I don't mind.
Sounds:
I really appreciated the voice acting for most dialogues. They did a good job. The ambiance was a bit lacking. A bit more random noises here and there maybe? Just to get the players in a constant tense state. Roaming the halls were a bit of a pain after few hours of gameplay because the girls were constantly panting/moaning with the same sound tracks.
Mechanics:
The investigation controls, wasd to move, arrow keys to control the pitch of flashlight/eyesight, I personally liked it. This resembles the real life of looking around or missing clues if you only watch you steps. However, the diamonds (interactable locations) sometimes are hard to aim, especially when there are 2 close to each other.
The exploration bored me, which is also related to the enemy mechanics. The girls walked dead slow (and constantly panting). "They might fall over and hurt themselves if they run around in the dark with debris all over the place." OK, I get it. Fine.
The mascot wasn't really a threat, like, at all. At first, I didn't know I could run pass him, I kept running back and forth to the toilets in some rooms which was super annoying as I will be forced to WALK back to where I was instead of running. Later I learnt that I can run pass him because I was forced into a dead end. By that time, there were no real threats in game.
The mascot was slow and couldn't catch up to the girls. All he could do was a slow melee swing. He lost the girls even when they went into a hiding spot in front of him. The girls can run pass him after he swings the hatchet. (Devs might need to work on the swing hitbox timing because I died once running pass him but I was pretty sure he finished the swing animation.) The mascot would teleport here and there. He sometimes suddenly appeared right in front of me in the far end of a room. That would surprise me a bit but that's about it. Threat level was not even close to put players on edge. The encounters later on were like, "oh, there he is, again, better hide behind nearest pillar and let him magically fk off."
After the mascot was dead, the children ghost did nothing during my exploration. Free roam, yeah ! So the 2nd part of the game just became a boring fetch quest solving puzzles.
The item placement timing is not what I like. So I did a thorough search of an area, but as story progressed, new items can be found in the same area. This surely lengthens the playtime but it's very annoying in my opinion because you can never be so sure that one area is clear. I had to constantly revisit areas (which mostly nothing new happened) hopping to find new items. The hotel wasn't a big map, constant revisiting was just boring, not to mention the girls were slow as fk.
Endings:
5 endings, nothing to complain. One happy true end is what I need. The doll at credit tried, creepiest in the game I think, but still couldn't give me nightmares.… Expand
