PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo Reviews
Navigate a world of information and folklore in this memorably moody visual novel.
Impressive efforts with a few noticeable problems holding them back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth your time and cash.
Paranormasight tells a gripping story full of murder and mystery, with some moments you simply have to experience yourself.
A gripping tale of rites, rituals, and revenge, Paranormasight has turned out to be one of this year's biggest surprises. Its subversive approach to both horror and visual novels is as refreshing as it is chilling. A must-play for Zero-Escape and Danganronpa fans.
Disturbing, thrilling, and absorbing at the same time, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is much more than your average horror game. Square Enix has delivered a fantastic tale that deserves to be getting more attention than it currently has.
The Switch version of Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is awful. It’s not ready to be played right now, because the menu navigation is straight-up broken. The game needs a patch with cursor sensitivity options at the very minimum, but even that fix would still make for a lazy port, that isn’t console ready. The story of Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is captivating, and the throwback point-and-click adventure gameplay will be a treat for some. But the game needs more time and effort to be an enjoyable experience.
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is one of the most surprising games we've experienced in a good while. Its overarching narrative, while initially quite heavy on exposition, is wonderfully told, interweaving the lives of multiple protagonists and tasking the player with progressing their stories in meaningful ways. The puzzles are fantastic, the characters well realised, and the visuals top-notch, making those brief moments of horror and terror exceedingly effective. It's an experience we fully recommend going into with as little information as possible, as this will prove to be an incredibly memorable experience; one that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Switch's best visual novels.
Paranormasight uses its occult theme and unique cast of characters to add something new to the world of visual novels, and feels like a path few have walked.
With an engaging story about urban legends bolstered by a branching storyline, Paranormasight hovers over other visual novels with its many interactive elements. It suffers from the curses of certain puzzles that prove arbitrary and a story that gets spread too thin. But the captivating characters and central mystery keep the tale of this mystery-adventure title as one legend worth spreading.
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a more complicated version of Phoenix Wright. It contains some tricky puzzles to overcome while being driven by a thick amount of Japanese folklore, as well as a touch of horror. It can be frustrating, if not overwhelming at times, but its take on the Phoenix Wright gameplay logic puzzle structure makes for a fun and unique experience.
Paranormasight wants to put on a horror show but is too goofy to realize how scary it could be.
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a surprisingly excellent horror mystery-adventure game that's tricky to talk about, and is an easy recommendation to anyone that's the slightest bit interested in it.
PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo had an immersive mystery story, along with utilizing 2D visual novel features that amplified its overall quality.
A unique and engaging experience for fans of the genre, slightly marred by occasional excessive exposition and some trial and error towards the end.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Complex at the beginning and with an uncertain start, it doesn't take long for PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo to cloak you in its darkness, suspense and terror to provide you with hours of high-quality interactive entertainment.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
For such a spectacular, story rich experience for both the horror fan and detective pundit, the very cheap asking price for this experience makes this an easy one to recommend.
With stunning and highly stylised character art, some exceptional and efficient writing, and some excellent “death game” scenarios, Paranormasight is one of the better visual novels that I’ve played in some time. Square Enix might not be known for this genre, but perhaps the company should look for more opportunities to participate in it, because while this won’t outsell Final Fantasy XVI (to put that mildly), it does remind us of how, among the bigger publishers, it is probably the most creative and willing to take risks on smaller scale projects like this… and just how good it is when big publishers support creative projects that aren’t expected to sell millions of copies.
Overall, Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a fun little visual novel that doesn't quite hit all the marks but is still a breezy and enjoyable romp with some creative use of gameplay mechanics. I had a difficult time getting past the fact that it wasn't the game I was had expected based on the first couple of hours, but once I did, I was able to enjoy it for what it was. The setting is clearly built up to potentially allow for more games in the same universe in the future, and I hope the next game in the series is willing to be a bit more daring.
If playing in handheld mode you can get around this by using touch controls, which I found worked just fine for the game's purposes. The "horror mystery" also seems to steer away from the horror part at certain points, which might disappoint those hoping to see a lot of curse action, but the plot during these moments is just as interesting as when those curses are involved. I am happy my eye was pointed in Paranormasight's direction, as I think it may already be one of my favorite experiences of the year, and if this kind of game sounds like it appeals to you, it just might be one of yours, too.
"Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo" has a story that leaps off the page, letting players be God while challenging the morality of right and wrong.