Follow several characters in their quest for the legendary Rite of Resurrection in a new visual novel adventure game that combines horror and mystery in a branching story of curses, spirits, and the lengths people will go to in order to bring back the dead.
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
Developer: Square Enix
Price: $20
Platform: Nintendo Switch (reviewed), PC, iOS, Android
MonsterVine was provided with a Switch code for review.
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a new game from Square Enix, a horror visual novel with adventure game elements and branching paths. I had an opportunity to play it ahead of writing this review, and it’s the sort of game I love. Set in Honjo, Tokyo, during the Showa Period, it introduces the player to the ghost stories known as the Seven Mysteries of Honjo. While these are real-world urban legends, in the story of Paranormasight, they are connected to a more sinister legend. A character investigating these mysteries finds himself granted the power of a curse. Kill enough people with his curse, and he will gain the power of the Rite of Resurrection and be able to bring someone back from the dead…
All around Honjo, people have been cursed with powers related to the ghost stories due to their interest in the Rite of Resurrection. Killing a curse bearer is an easier path to performing the Rite, and obtaining another curse stone lets you use that curse’s power as well. This incident pits these characters against one another, as some are determined to gain the power of resurrection by any means necessary, while others are simply searching for the truth.
It is largely a visual novel, with most of your time spent reading and engaging in simple character interactions to get more information or make choices. The art style and presentation of Paranormasight are excellent, and the music is especially good. It’s perfect for building up the atmosphere and presenting dramatic moments. The only thing that puzzled me was the lack of voice acting, since there’s an option to change the voice volume in the settings. Early on in my playthrough, I realized this might actually be intentional, due to the way the game incorporates some clever ideas into telling its story, but it threw me when I first encountered it. Likewise, there are some gameplay quirks that I first thought were a mistake before realizing they were an intentional part of the experience.
Alongside the visual novel presentation are light point-and-click adventure game elements. Many scenes allow you to take a 360 degree view of your surroundings and click important elements in the background, either for simple flavor text or to interact with them. You often need to interact with something multiple times to learn everything you need to, which again puts a bigger emphasis on the narrative. There are also collectible stickers hidden in certain scenes for you to find. These adventure elements work well for the sort of story Paranormsight is telling, and together with occasional choices, they let you open up other paths to take.
There are multiple playable characters in Paranormasight, each with branching paths, and you switch between different parts of the story using a flowchart called the Story Chart. This isn’t the sort of game where you’ll follow one path to an ending and call it quits, but the type where you need to explore every path and jump between them to see the full story. The Story Chart is quite easy to navigate, but you’d be forgiven for not realizing that from the way it’s described. Whenever you finish a chapter, you’ll be returned to the Story Chart. Sometimes the next chapter on that path is available, but other times it will only unlock once you’ve made progress in another. You can also return to the Story Chart at any point, but if you haven’t finished a chapter, you’ll have to start it over from the beginning next time. The exception to that rule is if you reach a dead end and can’t continue a chapter without doing something in another path, in which case a Suspend option will allow you to leave the chapter and resume from that spot. Later on, a chapter has a Finish Investigation option, which also lets you resume from that spot once you’re able to proceed. Some of these distinctions feel unnecessary and make progression sound more confusing than it is.
The Story Chart generally makes it clear if a chapter still has unexplored actions or dialogue, so if you’re stuck, it’s usually a simple matter of revisiting open chapters until you figure out what you missed. Sometimes this means learning a key piece of information that will help in another story. Other times it means ending a chapter with the characters in a location where someone else is waiting in their own path. Figuring out how to survive a section or unlock new story paths adds some puzzle elements to the gameplay, although the game provides hints. The difficulty varies wildly, with some parts all but giving you the answer while a couple had me scouring scene after scene in confusion. Through it all, you’re given detailed information about characters, locations, and story events that you can read through at any time.
Now, I haven’t said too much about the story beyond the initial premise, and there isn’t much I can say without spoilers. While the occult horror elements take center stage early on, Paranormasight is as much a crime story as it is a supernatural one. Investigations into mysteries both old and new intertwine with the search for the Rite of Resurrection as the stories all come together in interesting ways. The story enters some fairly dark territory at times, and it often had me hooked so that I had to see what would happen next. Add in some particularly clever twists and ways of tying things together, and Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a creepy adventure I won’t forget anytime soon.
The Final Word
Square Enix seems to have taken to releasing smaller-scale games in between their big-name releases, and I couldn’t be happier. If you enjoy horror visual novels and games with branching viewpoints that come together to tell a single narrative, Paranormasight is one you shouldn’t miss. It’s short, but it’s a creepy delight from start to finish with a lot of little details that make it a unique experience.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
