Paracusia is a tense PSX-era Resident Evil inspired survival horror adventure that sees you attempting to escape from a creepy movie theater that’s inhabited by weird wicker monsters.
Playing Paracusia really is like stepping back in time to the 90’s for lots of good (and a few bad) reasons. It feels very much like the original Resident Evil, with tank controls, static camera angles, puzzles, limited resources, save rooms and slow, shuffling monsters. The monsters in question are made out of straw/wicker and have creepy white masks similar to No Face in Spirited Away. It’s only when the larger ones start to attack you that they instil much fear, but they’re unique and make a nice change from zombies.
As it draws heavily from PSX-ers survival horror, Paracusia does unfortunately inherit some of its irritations – some static camera angles can confuse, aiming weapons is hit and miss and the combat in generalaly is very clunky. This is compounded by the fact that ammo is very scarce throughout the game so the majority of the time you’ll only have a knife to defend yourself with (which is pretty useless).
It’s worth noting that the current build of Paracusia is still early in development, so hopefully the grievances with the combat/ammo will be rectified in future builds. Aside from the combat the game is shaping up very nicely though – it’s a wonderfully nostalgic slice of survival horror with an interesting narrative, original monsters and a great sense of atmosphere. A freaky blast from the past well worth checking out.
Note: There’s one tricky puzzle in the game that requires knowledge of inrush and holding voltages (Google will tell you the difference between them). We highly recommend conserving ALL of your ammo for later on in the game and running past any monsters you meet in corridors.
Check Out a Gameplay Video Here
Download Paracusia Here (Windows)