PARANORMASIGHT
ăăŠăăăľă¤ă FILE23 ćŹćä¸ä¸ćč°(PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo)A) is a mystery Visual Novel with horror elements developed by SQUARE ENIX. The story revolves around an occult ritual that releases a set of cursed objects and each person with a curse is then forced to kill the rest for the purposes of another occult ritual.
Review
PARANORMASIGHT is a bit deceptive in how it presents itself versus how it really is.
It presents itself as a horror game butâŚwell, itâs a mystery Visual Novel with horror elements. This might sound like a âwho caresâ difference, but it is key.
If youâre expecting to be spooked for big chunks of the VN then yeah, no, that ainât happening. Even on the VN/Game spectrum, it leans very much into the VN part of it. It has gameplay inside, but itâs pretty linear all things considered. I might use the term âgameâ later on but this is an accident on my part.
Let me give you an idea of the structure. The first half of the VN takes place at night. Itâs also far more exciting and tense than the second half of the VN. The second half takes place during the day and is much calmer and investigation-focused.
One reason for the difference in tone has to do with those âcursed objectsâ I mentioned in the opening text. Those can only be used at night and they accounted for about 70% of the tension in any given scene.
Yes, this is another situation like Cross Ange or Koutetsujou no Kabaneri where the story is split into two distinct halves. However, the transition here works quite well. It helps that itâs split along the time of day (or night), which helps with the tone.
The first half of the VN is basically filled with you, as the player, having to figure out what peopleâs curses are, while not getting hit with them yourself. Itâs pretty thrilling solving this âpuzzleâ.
I feel this is a decent place to pivot into the gameplay. Primarily, this is a point-and-click style puzzle game, where youâre presented with a puzzle and, wellâŚyou solve it. The solutions to the puzzles are not difficult to land at, but they are creative and not immediately apparent in many cases.
However, this is also where PARANORMASIGHT falters: it doesnât make full use of the mechanics it establishes. Among these mechanics are: recalling information; using items; using curses during parts of the VN. Basically, itâs very railroaded and thatâs a bit frustrating.
Now a hard pivot: Mayuâs escape. I mentioned that the second half is more relaxing and, well, this is true, though thereâs one exception. At one point in the VN, you gain access to a character trapped in a room and escaping that room requires creative problem-solving. This is also one of the more frustrating parts of the VN, since if they extended the ideas from this segment to the rest of it, it would lean more âgameââŚbut it would also be soooo gooood. Actually, more interactions between the player character and Mayu would have been great.
That said, I can understand that making it less linear would make PARANORMASIGHT longer which, yeah, that might be a problem. Especially on the development end. Though that wonât prevent me from pointing out the missed opportunity.
Going back to the tone and the first half/second half stuff. The second half is the majority of the VN, so for most of it youâre calmly investigating and solving puzzles. The first half, the tense bit, is much shorter. Would PARANORMASIGHT benefit from having more tension besides the night segment? Iâm leaning on âprobablyâ.
I think it would have made sense to include a third part, which takes place during a second night, where the climax would occur. ButâŚletâs keep a few things in mind: by that point, you (the player) already know what all the curses do, what their limitations are and so on. The tension in the first half primarily derived from the fact you didnât know what those curses did. It wasnât just the fact you were in danger. As a resultâŚIâm not really sure if more tension could be injected into PARANORMASIGHT. Itâs kindaâŚyeah. Although, while playing, I did feel anxious during the second half, because there was a deadline (the night) that I was getting worried about. Thatâs partially why I think a second night might have been a good ideaâŚitâs what I was expecting to happen anyway.
Another thing to consider is that those tense standoffs primarily take place during the Prologue which, yâknow, is even shorter. There is tension in the other parts of the night, but itâs primarily concentrated in the Prologue. PARANORMASIGHT kinda unintentionally screws itself, because the Steam discussions Iâve read indicate a decent number of players found the lack of âthriller thrillsâ in the rest of the VN disappointing. Though, again, considering the circumstances, it would have been difficult to inject more tension into it.
Now for the ending: PARANORMASIGHTâs real ending is a bit anticlimactic. This isnât too surprising considering how they went about it, but still. Notably, though, it renders basically the entire VN pointless, since it is based on changing the past. But this is a bit of a quirky situation, since many of the payoffs we see throughout PARANORMASIGHT do still happen despite the time travel. So, yeah, itâs strange.B)
To finish this offâŚa few disconnected thoughts based on my notes.
I must admit that I looked at a walkthrough to reach the ending, but the reason was because it was midnight and I was too tired to think properly.
I really enjoyed PARANORMASIGHT and played it from beginning to end pretty fast.
As far as I can tell, there arenât any serious storytelling issues with PARANORMASIGHT besides the issue with how it presents itself and maybe the ending, but even that seems kinda minor.
The way the player character is integrated into the story was unexpected and handled with grace. It was a pleasant surprise is what Iâm saying.
I really liked the presentation of the VN, which was fancier than most and it really immersed me into it. Same with the worldbuilding and folklore. Very immersive and itâs âcause it was well-integrated.
Trivilinks
- Reviews of the game on VNDB â Useful if you want alternate perspectives, although I canât vouch for their quality, since I havenât read themâŚand I donât know if I will.
- I gave it an 8/10 on VNDB. Itâs got a few flaws, but is still mostly good.