Have you noticed how a lot of horror games coming out today are first-person stealth games? Well, here’s another one for you by Thai developer Yggdrasil Group called Home Sweet Home.
Tim awakens in a weird, dilapidated apartment building and needs to find a way out and find his wife Jane. What awaits him is a ghost girl armed with a box cutter and other monsters straight from Thai mythology.
So it’s like Silent Hill 2 that takes place in Thailand and without the town and the wife is still alive.
The setup is great seeing as how East Asian horror does tend to bend on the paranormal side that often turns deadly and will find fuck you. Hell, the locations are creepy in and of themselves which is heightened by the fact that you have no weapon.
Of course, since this is stealth, the scares do start to wane thin come the end of the end since you’re expecting the ghost girl to pop up at any time. The areas that the game does shine in terms of horror are when you’re completely in the dark and you need the flashlight to see anything.
That doesn’t mean the story isn’t scary. If you bother to collect all the notes, pictures and newspapers the story will slowly open up to reveal a rather depressing story of young love and what caused Jane to go missing.
Gameplay-wise, it’s the typical move the character and press this button to interact with items. Not to mention lots of running away, hiding in lockers and behind anything and some simple puzzles. The puzzles themselves aren’t complicated and the answer is usually obvious or there are clues strewn around the levels.
Graphically, the game does look nice coming from aa small studio. The girl looks scary enough and the one big monster in the game is creepy as all hell. The locations do have a lot of hidden details that if you don’t pay attention you’ll miss it. The one major thing wrong with the graphics is the design of Jane. In the picture she looks Thai but her gameplay sprite looks Western.
The sound is a mixed bag. The music that plays whenever an enemy is nearby does sound scary with a nice hint of Thai music thrown into it. The voice acting is OK though not horrible enough to complain. The thing that will grate your ears is the constant sound of the box cutter going up and down whenever the ghost girl is nearby. You will hate hearing that sound not because it’s creepy but because it will get annoying.
Home Sweet Home is a decent enough horror game with plenty to like but it does wane in quality once you get closer to the end. With a sequel planned and a trailer already out it is worth playing this game if you like Thai horror and because the sequel looks to be even creepier than this one.
Categories: Video Games
Tags: Home Sweet Home (PS4) Review, PS4, survival horror, video games
Sanrock Reviews 