World of Horror

Very good "vibe like," the roguelike genre actually lends itself well to Junji Ito's serialized horror. The soundtrack is spectacular, and makes chiptune shockingly listenable, and I personally enjoy the artstyle and aesthetic a lot. So why the negative? There just really aren't that many mysteries to play through (which act as the core "stories"/horror of the game), and they serve as my major draw to the game. There are currently ~20. This seems like a robust number, and a few of them are complex enough to justify the total, but many of them are fairly short and simple. This is compounded by the fact that you have to play through 5 each run, so you quickly begin to repeat the same ones over and over again. I feel especially negative about this total due to its meagre inflation from the 2020 early access release. The roguelike underneath the viscerally interesting storytelling, music, and artstyle is simply not that fun, so the moment all novelty is exhausted it feels pointless to continue. One might get the impression the 20$ is a good value, given my 55 hours, but that total comes from two 100% save files and a few replays since its early access launch around 6 years ago. It's absolutely worth it if you have a passing interest and it happens to be on sale, or if the artstyle and music are alluring to you, just don't go in expecting much longevity unless if the gameplay really clicks with you.

While a stunning game to look at, this game hasn't actually been updated in nearly three years and has had so much merchandise and ports of the game pushed in that time that it has completely soured this incomplete and unpolished buggy experience. It's truly a shame that what seemed so promising and unique in terms of Junji Ito inspired arts turned out to be nothing but an abandoned merchandise machine. Edit: Suddenly the game is out of early access???