The original PlayStation gave us some of the most genre defining survival horror games. Games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dino Crisis, and many more introduced us to the idea of puzzle solving and inventory management while overwhelming monstrosities tried to kill us. This approach would later shift to being more about action after the success of Resident Evil 4, but many people missed the slower, scarier style of the older games.

Over the years, there would be some attempts to bring back classic survival horror. Even the Resident Evil series, the one that first shifted away, started bringing elements of those games back with 7 and the remakes of 2 and 3. But of these attempts, I don’t think any nailed it quite like Crow Country.

You play the role of Mara Forest, a special agent investigating the disappearance of Edward Crow, owner of a shut down amusement park called Crow Country. Apparently the park had to close when a young girl was seriously injured and Edward hasn’t been since. It’s not long after you arrive that you meet other characters, like a paranormal photographer, a police officer, and of course, strange creatures that are trying to kill you.

Crow Country itself features multiple areas, many of which are locked and require complicated puzzles to access. It makes you question why an amusement park would need such a strange set up, but it’s just how those games were. It brings to mind the mansion from the first Resident Evil and especially the police station from Resident Evil 2. I’ve always enjoyed this style of game, even though I doubt many police stations have puzzles to solve to get into an office.

The puzzles themselves are pretty typical affair for the genre. You find items, like for example, a crank, and you might not know what to do with it. But after finding notes from Crow Country employees, you figure out that pushing buttons by a door in a specific order raises a control panel that just so happens to have a slot for a crank. It’s stuff like that. One thing that’s pretty cool, is there are fortune teller robots you can get help from if you find yourself not knowing what to do next.

Combat also brings to mind those older games. You slowly find new weapons, and you never seem to have too much ammo. Knowing when to fight and when to run past enemies is key to ensuring you have bullets when you really need them. If you do happen to run out, Mara has plenty of handgun ammo in the trunk of the car, but if you’re not completely empty, she won’t take any. I like this because it means you’re never completely stuck in a situation where you can’t possibly get more ammo. I was reminded of Resident Evil: Code Veronica’s Tyrant fight aboard an airplane, a fight that ended my first play through because I just wasn’t equipped for the fight and there was no way to get more ammo. This trunk solution allows ammo scarcity to still affect gameplay while never putting you in an unsolvable situation. I like it a lot.

Interestingly, despite the heavy Resident Evil influence, the look of the game does not seem to be trying to replicate that series’s appearance. It definitely looks like a PS1 game though, but something closer to a Final Fantasy VII. The characters are detailed, but squat and blocky with pretty simple faces. There’s enough to easily identify who is who, even when everything is so simply rendered.

The story is very good too. What exactly went down at this amusement park and why is very interesting to uncover. There’s also a twist that I figured out before the reveal, but it’s hinted at in brilliant ways that I didn’t even realize they were hints at the time. If you just want to experience the story, there’s actually an option to play with no enemy encounters. While I personally don’t want to play that way, I think it’s a nice inclusion.

I absolutely loved Crow Country. It brought me back to an older era of survival horror games, while still having some unique twists to make it stand on its own. If that sounds even remotely appealing to you, I strongly recommend checking it out. It’s available on basically every current platform, I played on Steam Deck, and it’s not a full priced game. Go get it.