PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

What begins as a string of creepy neighborhood ghost stories turns into a ruthless battle of wits. In the end, people are far scarier than ghosts.

[b]Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo[/b] is an interesting work because it seemingly promises us with a death-game like scenario during its prologue, only to abruptly makes a 180 into a [i]whodunit[/i] for the rest of its runtime. Consequently, calling it a horror game feels like a misnomer too. Yes, there is a supernatural element, and yes, there are a couple of jump scares, but it's more of a detective game than anything else. As an ADV game it isn't particularly hard, even though a couple of puzzles require some out-of-the-box thinking. The ensemble cast is quite unique, too. The lack of voice talent can be off-putting for some people, but their personalities still come alive through their character sprites, which are many and some are exceptionally expressive (especially their pursed lips expressions). The game is rather short, but the narrative framework is still tightly designed, and the core mystery is interesting too. If I had to nitpick though, for the first hour or two I had to constantly check the characters' dossiers because some of their names are hard to pronounce (and remember!), but that's more of a [i]'me'[/i] problem than anything else.

I keep reading the title as Panoramasight and Honjo and Hojo. Despite these glaring problems that are clearly the games fault and not mine, I think its very very well done.