great indie survival horror game with unique theme, identity and entertaining puzzles.

As a long-time fan of survival horror games, I had high hopes for this one. The premise – an abandoned theme park overrun by bloodthirsty, grotesque creatures, not unlike the one in Silent Hill 3 – was undeniably intriguing. All in all, I wasn’t disappointed, so this deserves a thumbs up from me, but I wasn’t completely satisfied, either.

First of all, the difficulty: if you enjoy a good challenge with some cryptic puzzles, you’ll definitely love Crow Country as sometimes it’s downright punishing. OK, to be fair, this is a PS1-style horror and back in the day these games were hard as hell, so the developers managed to replicate this aspect quite well. Also, you can choose to play as a pure exploration game, with no combat and no enemies, which is nice to have, I think. But be warned if you go for the normal or hard mode: resources are absurdly scarce, and the enemies are relentless, with traps waiting for you everywhere. A survival horror game should make you feel vulnerable, and boy, you certainly get this here!

Then there’s the aiming. Sure, oldschool action-adventures often used clunky mechanics, but here the controls for aiming are so terrible that even after hours of play, I struggled to consistently land shots. Why don’t we have mouse support, I wonder? And why can’t we have a melee weapon by default? In the second half of the story I saved every five minutes, trying to avoid having to use my guns as much as possible…

As for the atmosphere, it’s genuinely impressive. Slowly but surely everything gets darker, more sinister around you, and all the chaos creates a palpable sense of dread. The fact that I could only see a bit of the environment around the protagonist always kept me on edge, fearing what might be lurking after the next corner. I also liked the plot, although it felt a bit messy at times, but still, it was OK with a few interesting characters.

Ultimately, I can only recommend this to oldschool, retro survival horror fans, the really hardcore ones, mainly due to the clunky mechanics. If you liked the classic Resident Evil and Silent Hill titles, you’ll probably find something to appreciate here.

This game cured me

It's really great resident-evil-like: atmosphere, story and visual style all great BUT... I found the survival horror part of it more annoying than scary or challenging. I think it didn't take enough from Resident Evil series. What makes Resident Evil great is the predictabiliy and consistency. In Crow Country you get none of that. Enemies and traps seem to be random and appear in previously empty areas. When you have to traverse it a lot you want to clear some areas and expect it to stay cleared. Now you would find random enemies AND traps again. The trap "looks like a regular bandage but actually is a bomb" was especially annoying.. Just why...
So in the middle of the "survival" experience I decided to switch to "adventure" because I was more interested in the story and puzzles and didn't want to deal with the unfair enemies and traps for the entire game.
So not perfect, but still worthy to check out.

the biggest worry I had going into this was that the puzzles would be too easy or too incomprehensible. Safe to say that most can be figured out after a solid 2-5 minutes of pondering, which is good!

A solid love letter to old survival horror games, while still being a quality game in 2024. The world is wonderfully designed, with intricate details and clever secrets hidden throughout. The game makes wonderful use of it's 360 degree camera, with the standout moment being when I found a solution to a difficult puzzle by simply rotating the camera until I saw the writing on the wall.

This is well worth your time, even if you aren't huge on survival horror.

The game is good. It's not super long but everything is well done. Plus there's a NG+ mode with fun unlockable things that make it worth playing through a second time. You'll probably finish both runs in about 10-12 hours depending on the player as well. If it looks interesting to you at all you should pick this up!

Cronenberg levels of horror with a hint of Carpenter's Apocalypse trilogy. A modern-day horror masterpiece.

A fun and endearing little horror game that wears its inspirations on its sleeves. You roam around in an abandoned theme park, fighting monsters and solving puzzles.

The main attraction here is the park itself: a series of interconnected rooms with secret hallways and locked doors. It’s pretty well done, and pretty easy to navigate thanks to the hilarious amounts of written letters, diaries, and tips littering every floor and wall. There’s this density to it too -- there’s just a lot of detail and stuff all around, which often requires you to do double takes as you enter a new room or revisit an old one.

Anyway, the challenge here is definitely mentally mapping the park; knowing where to go next and where the puzzle piece you’re carrying fits. The rest of the game is a little underwhelming in my opinion. Once you sort of figure out how it’s all put together it loses a bit of steam.

Still, Crow Country is fun for what it is, even though it won’t exactly turn your world upside down. And that’s totally okay.

Thumbs up.

Really fun experience! Great mix of humor and horror.