Every now and then, between the Outlasts and the Resident Evils, there are horror games that ask you to use your imagination a bit. They may not have the best visuals or give off the spookiest of vibes, but much like a good book you’ve really got to put yourself into the shoes of the characters and fill in the gaps with whatever comes into your noodle. If you’re up to this task, then World of Horror may just be for you.

This is by far one of the weirdest games I have ever played. It’s mostly a roguelike combined with an old-school RPG that tasks you with solving four or five mysteries in an attempt to save your town from the Eldritch Gods as they seek to cause the end of the world. You know, typical H.P. Lovecraft. This is accomplished in a point-and-click fashion that is easily also one of the most convoluted and busy screens to grace a console. There are random cityscapes, kanji, tons of action buttons, and then a window where the art and story segments play out. It’s quite overwhelming to start and that’s even after taking a stab at the tutorial multiple times.

The gameplay is mostly limited to searching out areas and completing randomized events in a choose-your-own-adventure style setting with occasional turn-based combat to keep you on your toes. Since you’re typically playing as a college student, you’re not going to be Jet Li or anything when it comes to fighting the Elder Gods, demons, and monsters, no, you’re going to die a lot. At times, I felt like I was doomed before the fight even started, as the game places a lot of rules in place for combat, such as if you’re facing off with a ghost, not much can hurt them and I have yet to figure out the correct way to deal with them. I will admit that turn-based combat is not my forte, nor even something I remotely enjoy, but I did step outside of my comfort zone here and it was downright horrifying. Almost as horrifying as the ghastly creatures that are depicted within the game.

Now, if you couldn’t tell, this is a throwback game where all of the visuals were generated within MSPaint, which sounds terrible when you say it out loud, but even the worst-looking areas look decent enough where I could mix and match what I saw on screen with my own encyclopedia of horror knowledge to fill in the gaps to make for some real nightmare fuel. Even if I wasn’t the greatest at the game, I couldn’t stop from jumping back in upon each failure just hoping for a little more of a taste of what else the game offered, because the exploration and non-combat elements are really where this game shines.

Again, I found myself mostly overwhelmed with the entire package and stuck mostly with either the static beginner stories that act as tutorials or just the generic random option, but if you feel adventurous, you can mix and match investigations, encounters, characters, and difficulty settings to make your own story if you choose.

You can also customize the visual filters of the game allowing you to represent your favorite old-school era in a tribute of sorts. Want to make it look like a GameBoy game with its ugly green and black color scheme? You got it. There are also options that gave me NES and SNES vibes with my personal favorite being the darker green and black that made it feel like I was playing some haunted version of Oregon Trail. 

While there is an easy mode per se, I really feel like a non-combat option would’ve made this a more enjoyable experience overall, at least for me. My go-to strategy, which is likely where I am failing, is that I just run in and attack as quickly as much and as often as I can hoping for the best, and usually ending up with the worst. Before you argue that this would remove the challenge from the game, that isn’t the case since a lot of the other optional choices will result in a loss of health, failure, etc., so it could be done and maybe it is possible, I just haven’t figured out a way to do so yet.

World of Horror is an easy recommendation if you’re looking for something new and very different than the normal run-and-gun or hide-and-seek horror game. Just be mindful of the fact that the visuals will vary in their delivery and may require you to put a little more thought into what is haunting you.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Weirdest Horror Game I Have Ever Played
• Unique Animation
• A Wealth of Customization Options
• Fun Choose Your Own Adventure Style Gameplay

Cons

• The Visuals Are Consistently Busy
• Lack of Player Direction

World of Horror was developed by Panstasz and published by Ysbryd Ganes. It launched on PC and PS5. The game was provided to us for review on PS5. If you’d like to see more of World of Horror check out the developer’s itch.io page.

 

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