Developed: Pawel Kozminski
Released: February 20, 2020 (Early Access)
Platform: Nintendo Switch (Late 2020), PlayStation 4 (Late 2020), PC (Free on PC GamePass), Linux, Mac (Coming soon, dev says it'll be next patch)
Genre: RPG
Players: Singleplayer
Price: $14.99 or free on Game Pass
Music: ArcOfDream (https://twitter.com/ArcOfDream) Qwesta (https://twitter.com/Qwesta6)
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks0L07tl3oQ&list=PLNMczqrPPwyCKjNLgcUJJ1CsV7TpqxZYi&index=9
Trailer:
"City of Shiokawa, Japan. 198X. Something strange is happening in our town...
Robed figures can be seen gathering in the woods at night. People are going missing. Disgusting creatures are terrorizing the seaside... The rapid technological progress of the modern era brings comfort, but also new unknown threats. Old Gods, malicious eldritch beings who ruled the Earth eons ago, are awakening as reality starts to crumble... Armed with clues, spells and your dwindling sanity, you'll investigate mysteries across the city... And in realms beyond.
An old train slows down and stops at it's last station.
The end of the world is at hand, and you've finally arrived in the doomed town..."
About: World of Horror is a rogue like RPG mixed with point and click adventure games, mostly like the old MacVenture games, Shadowgate, The Uninvited and Deja Vu. Also don't let the Early Access put you off this game. It's playable from beginning to end with an extreme amount of content.
The game outside of the music was made entirely by one Polish developer Pawel Kozminski using MS Paint to make the art assets, and boy does this game have art assets. Hundreds of events, animated enemies, locations, characters, items and spells all done in horror manga artist Junji Ito art style. I'm over 30 hours in and I still haven't seen everything yet. There's just so much to discover and unlock it's crazy. Currently there are 7 characters to choose from (2 unlocked through achievements), 5 Backstories (4 unlocked through achievements), 4 Old Gods to choose from, 12 cases, 120 events, 60 enemies, and 60 achievements to go after (Getting achievements gives you unlocks in the game. Things like characters, in game shops, weapons, spells and secret endings.)
Lets get started. First thing you'll want to do is choose the mode you want to play.
Spine-Chilling Story of School Scissors: This option is just the School Scissors case. They set you up to play as Kouji (I think he's one of the worst). You don't really have to start with this. The other modes give you tutorials before they begin.
Extracurricular Activity: This option opens up the world, but will always make School Scissors 1 of the 5 cases you'll have to do. It also makes you play as Aiko (she's pretty good if you want to do a dex build), and puts you against Ithotu one of the hardest Old Gods (His debuff makes enemies do extra damage to you).
Quick Play: Everything is random. I wouldn't suggest this mode unless you've already unlocked everything, and know the game inside and out.
Customize the playthrough: This is the game imo. It lets you select the character you play as, their backstory and the Old God that you are going against. This mode is more new player friendly as well seeing how you can choose a broken character like Mizuki or Mimi. Along with choosing an Old God that is easier like Ath-Yolazsth or Goizo. This is the mode you'll want to hunt achievements with as well. Seeing how you can control more things.
Characters:
Transfer student
Kirie Minami: Could the ghosts folling her, be in any way connected with all the weird events happening in this town?
Stats: +Knowledge -Strength and Starts with one random spell.
Swimming team captain
Aiko Takahashi: Barely surviving after a ghost of a drowned man kept her underwater, she is determined to solve this mystery.
Stats: +Dexterity -Knowledge and starts with combat speed bonus
Yakuza Driver
Haru: Robbing that old abandoned manor was a mistake. With his friends dead and mutilated, and a vengeful horror chasing him, no speed is too high.
Stats: +Strength -Knowledge and starts with cigarettes.
Teen idol
Mizuki Hamasaki: What a strange world we live in, where stopping an ancient evil is the easiest way of boosting your career.
Stats: +Charisma -Strength and starts with a random ally.
Photographer
Kouji Tagawa: They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The government won't sweep this under the rug.
Stats: +Perception -Dexterity and starts with a camera.
(Unlocked through achievement)
Med student
Mimi: Finally a way to put to practice everything she's learned so far.
Stats: +Knowledge -Dexterity and starts with a scalpel.
7th character is a secret hidden character.
Miku is unlocked once you get a Prescription Drug from the Female Rioter (random drop) in Downtown. Return this drug to the Illegal Den. to unlock Miku
Old Gods:
Cthac-Atorasu, The Spider God: The terrible spider god, Cthac-Atorasu is once again awakening from its slumber... Blinded by its impossible to satisfy hunger, it has started to tear down the walls of its cocoon prison.
Eternal Web: You can't run from combat (This can be bad if you happen across a dangerous enemy that you don't want to fight)
Ithotu, The Devouring Fire: This supposed cause of the destruction of the library of Alexandria, a perfect black marble statue has been recently discovered and is currently waiting in the museum of OOO for its long-awaited premiere.
Entrophy: Combat stamina penalties are doubled. (Attacks hit you for double damage)
Ath-Yolazsth, The Towering Eye: The Mad God favors astronomers and magicians, granting them its gift of power that unknowingly brings Ath-Yolazsth's bloated body closer and closer to Earth.
Cosmic Gift: Casting spells costing REASON, increases DOOM instead. ( I find this God to be the easiest to fight. I never use spells when I play :P)
Goizo, The Thing Forsaken By God: Banished to the other dimension a long time ago. Goizo has found a way to use mirrors to ensnare and teleport its prey straight through the glass. And the glimpses behind your reflection are just the beginning of the real nightmare.
Mirror Horror: Resting increases DOOM penalty. (This god I find just as easy as Ath. The DOOM penalty isn't that big.)
This game looks complicated from the outside, but I assure you it's really easy once you get over all the options on the screen. I'll try my best to break it down for you to understand. Just let me try and pass this check real quick.
[rolled: 10(+0)4]
(knowledge check: failure)
You try and break down game mechanics so people can understand,
but as you type only gibberish comes out. You even try to speak out loud
only to be met with more gibberish. In the back of your mind you think you
can hear some dark thing is laughing.
(+2% DOOM -1 Reason)
Well I'm going to try anyway. Lets take this from the top. When you start your adventure you'll be put into your apartment.
Let's just ignore the stuff on the right for a moment and focus on the stuff on the bottom left.
TV icon: Takes you to your tv where it will show a random news story (it doesn't effect anything just gives you fun in world lore stuff. There is also a phone next to the tv that you can use to dial a specific number to unlock an achievement.
Bathtub icon: Before you take a case you can use the bathtub, and choose between 3 options left option will give you a little bit of STAMINA (Health) back, middle option will give you a small exp boost for the next case you take and the last option will give you back a little bit of REASON (Sanity).
Cloths hanger icon: Allows you to change your characters cloths. Just a cosmetic change, but Haru has an outfit that makes him look like Kiryu from Yakuza so that's pretty rad.
Peep hole icon: Lets you look out into the hall of your apartment complex sometimes there's some creepy animated things happening out there, but it doesn't effect you in anyway. Just a fun creepy thing to do. Unless they are adding more to it when the game is finnished.
Town screen icon: Just takes you back to the town overview screen in the beginning and lets you choose between going home or going to the Lighthouse.
Arrow icon: Lets you go choose a mystery to start. These are the cases you must solve to beat the game.
Storage icon: You can only access this storage box between cases, and not during. So if you move something out of your inventory and into your storage box while you are doing a case you won't be able to get to that item again until the case is over and you can use the storage box again. So be careful what items you send to storage.
ONWARD TO THE CASE CAVE!
The core of this game is taking on and solving cases. There are 12 total cases currently, and will be 20 when the game is complete. But how the game works is it will give you 5 of these 12 cases randomly each playthrough that you can complete in any order you like. Each case will have multiple endings and give you items that might benefit you in other cases. And don't fear there is no game over for getting a bad ending on a case. You can only lose if you die, go insane or let the Old Gods loose by raising your DOOM level to 100%.
The things the cases want you to do can vary greatly from one another. One might take place in a camp far away from the rest of the game where it has it's own map. Or one might have you do a very elaborate ceremony in a mansion. After you choose your case we're off!
This is the overview screen for the Rotten Report of a Rancid Ramen screen. Looks like a lot, but it's simple. Again ignore the right side of the screen for now.
Top middle: The top middle of the screen just displays story text of whatever you found while investigating. You can ignore it if you want, but it gives you context to what you're doing on the case.
Dumpster Dive: These note pads are on a lot of cases. They are just giving you side objectives you must do to gain the best ending for a case.
Icons in a grid: These are the places you can interact with, and the means you do your investigations for a case. The one I have currently selected is the school. I could click to investigate it, and that would have me do a random check if I hit an event or enemy encounter. You'll also notice to the left of investigate the school I have 2 other options. Most places I click on the grid will have extra options such as Schoolyard where I can recruit high school kids as members of my party (they give me stat boosts). Or the Library where I can try and learn spells. Or I could click the Downtown icon and visit the Dog Shop to buy items.
(If click his nose he'll bark :D)
The game will also always circle the icon you're supposed to go to investigate. So you're never at a point of not knowing where to go. You can see the icon on the top right of the icons is circled.
Now we can focus on the right side of the screen.
On the bottom right of the screen we'll start with the portrait, and the numbers around it and what they mean.
These are the 3 main things you have to juggle in the game:
Sta is STAMINA (Health) if this drops to 0 you die and it's game over.
REA is REASON (Sanity) if this drops to 0 you go insane and it's game over.
DOOM is well DOOM! If this fills to 100% the Old Gods win and it's game over.
after those 3 we have your base stats and money. The base stats each have a weapon that they excel in using, and skill checks they need to be high enough to pass.
STR STRENGTH
DEX DEXTERITY
PER PERCEPTION
KNW KNOWLEDGE
CHR CHARISMA
FND FUNDS (how much money you have)
There's a hidden stat as well. Luck, I know it effects some skill checks, but I'm not 100% what else.
Below the portrait are icons you can click.
First icon on the left is Inventory. It will open your inventory above your character portrait. From there you can equip items or sell them. In the picture you can see they have Fatal Flora, Crowbar and a Wine Bottle in their bag, and Police Revolver and Camera equipped on their character. Your bag only has a few spots available so make sure to put whatever you don't need into your storage to free up space.
2nd icon is your list of spells you know. Just like inventory it will open the list of spell above your character portrait. You can cast them from there or discard them and gain back REASON.
3rd icon is your status. It'll open a list above your character showing any injuries or curses you have. Some of them can be quite bad so always make sure if you have an injury to go to the doctor to try and clear it up if you got the funds.
4th icon is your Allies and Perks tab. It will show any person you've recruited into your party, and skills you've learned from leveling up.
the other icons aren't really important 5th icon shows current world status (I'll get into these in a little bit). Next icon shows how long you've been playing your current session, and level up screen. The next icon shows what Old God you have selected if you forgot, and the last icon is just game options.
Top right of the screen shows your current level, and under that how much experience you have. You only need 100 exp in order to level up. Once you do you can go and learn perks and level up stats or get health or sanity back instead.
Here's the level up screen on the left you have the Available Perks, and on the right you have the option of taking +1 to a stat or +4 to Stamina or Reason. I took the Folklore Studies Perk, and the +4 Reason. If you don't like the 3 Perks it gave you to choose from you could add DOOM to yourself to reroll and see if you get 3 different Perks to chose from. There is a pool of generic Perks that all characters can get and a few special ones that only certain characters can get.
Now we can get into how you get most of your experience to level up, combat!
We'll start with the top left. first we have the type icon. There isn't much to do with this yet, but future patches will add things like physical attacks will not hurt ghosts and things like that. Anyway The Class of 1971 is an Eldritch type noted by the tentacle face Cthulhu icon.
After it's name we have how much health it has 22 HP.
Next is the damage he does every turn. For him he hits your Stamina, Reason and DOOM for 2 every turn. Some enemies will only hit 1 stat for a little while others can hit all 3 of your damage types all at once.
And last we have his Power. Power decides how hard it is to hit him. The higher it is the bigger the penalty to your hit chance you'll have.
Next we have our combat options right under the enemy. The white bar is how many actions we can queue before we launch our attack. You have 200 points of options you can queue up with different things costing different amounts that also change cost if you are using a weapon you are speced for and have high stats for it.
Like Cursed Scissors (Most broken weapon in the game if you have high Knowledge) the cost per attack goes way down with having a Knowledge stat of 10 or higher making it so you can attack 4 times in a single turn and do 28 damage. Helps if you get any Perks that give you faster combat actions as well. You can do crazy damage with these things.
But if broken weapons aren't your thing we'll go back to explaining the actions you can take. Under the white queue bar on the left hand side are 4 icons. Those are your combat categories, top left is offensive abilities, top right are your support actions, bottom left are your defense actions and bottom right are your spiritual actions.
Combat Actions:
Kick: attack wihtout a weapon for 2 damage. Base chance to hit: 80%
Attack with your Weapon: Dose your weapon damage in the scissors case 7 damage. Base chance to hit 70%
Strong Attack: Scissors do 10 damage. Base chance to hit 70%
Prepare your Attack: Takes 40 points to guarantee your next attack to hit.
Attack Boost: Takes 10 points, your next attack has additional 10% chance to hit, this effect stacks. (This is great. I always stack 3 of these, and then 4 Scissor attacks. Pretty much never miss and I kill everything in 1 or 2 turns.)
Support Actions:
Look for Improvised Weapon:: Takes 120 points to look for an improvised weapon (They'll give you a decent stick or something to use during the fight if you had nothing)
Combat Skill: 60 points, Lowers your Experience by 5 and raises your chance to hit by 10% for the rest of this encounter.
Ask your Ally to Distract the Enemy: 80 points, If succeeded: Faster combat action for the duration of this encounter. If failed: Lose a random Ally. Base chance 70%.
Defensive Actions:
Run Away: 160 points, Ends the encounter for a DOOM penalty [+5% DOOM].
Meditate: 20 points, Regain 1 Reason. Costs 2 Stamina.
Dodge: 110 points (Less with Dexterity) Drastically lowers the hit chance for the enemy.
Brace for Impact: 130 points (Less with Strength) Lowers the incoming damage by half and ignores any special attack.
Spiritual Actions:
Clap: 35 points, Part of a ritual (most combat rituals are a combination of five Bows and Claps. Even if you don't get it right, you'll be provided with a hint).
Bow: 35 points, Part of a ritual (most combat rituals are a combination of five Bows and Claps. Even if you don't get it right, you'll be provided with a hint).
Pray: 20 points, Regain 1 Stamina. Costs 2 Reason.
After you've filled up your bar with actions you'll launch your attack!
Other than combat you'll also have random events that you'll have to deal with.
Some are brutal and give you no options or chance. They just laugh as they hurt you.
Some give you give you choice with the chance of getting something good... Or at least less bad.
Either way for my own Reason I think it's time I took a break. Writing this took a while, and I hope you give this awesome game a shot. It's already stuffed with content with much more and mod support coming in the near future so people can make their own cases, art and music.
I'm going to head out and get some sleep.
Ok, I'll just use the other door.
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