Crow Country Reviews
More than just its nostalgic visuals, Crow Country is funny, self-aware, and extremely hard to put down.
A no-fat riff on the early days of survival horror that knows just what to streamline and what to keep pleasingly obtuse.
A charmingly old-fashioned survival horror that manages to make all the limitations of 90s gaming work in its favour, especially in terms of its enjoyably obscure puzzles.
Filled with great puzzles and an engaging world, Crow Country is a well made recreation of how you remember classic 90s horror games. It's familiar enough to feel authentic but different enough to keep things mysterious.
As reductive as it sounds, when it comes to delivering a classic survival horror experience, Crow Country is a good “one of those.” Familiar elements and tropes are well executed, and the succinct runtime of five to six hours is perfect for its smaller scope. I had fun reliving the genre’s golden years through Crow Country’s eyes; playing it feels like relaxing under a warm, blood-stained blanket.
Crow Country pays loving homage to a golden age of survival horror while distinguishing itself with an enthralling story, excellent world design, and creative puzzles.
Crow Country doesn’t exactly rewrite the playbook for survival horror. It leans pretty heavily on those that came before it. However, what it builds on top of the foundation is extraordinarily impressive. This is easily one of the best horror games I’ve played, and it doesn’t even seem like it’s trying that hard. It maybe lacks some of the more psychological themes that have made others stick firmly in my memory, but the playfulness and confidence of Crow Country more than make up for that. It’s definitely worth a visit.
A great love letter to the origins of 32-bit survival horror. Well-thought-out puzzles and nostalgia with some humor and horror make this a short experience, but very satisfying, especially for veterans of the genre.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Crow Country is a wonderful throwback to those early survival horror games that scared us years ago, with a couple of great mod cons.
If you’ve been frustrated by the state of some retro horrors, or even if you haven’t, this is a fine addition to the genre that deserves to be ranked highly among the modern examples. Aside from those bastard traps, it’s a damn good bit of body horror.
Crow Country puts more emphasis on puzzles than the survival part of survival horror, but it's a well-observed love letter to the genre with great attention to detail all over the place. It's somehow equal parts charming and creepy.
Fans of classic survival horror games don't need to think twice about picking up Crow Country. The game is a love letter to old-school horror titles from the 90s, and is one of the better attempts at recreating the feel of PS1 horror on modern platforms. It's a short, but sweet adventure with solid replay value and fun puzzles that perfectly captures the feeling of playing an old horror game on a PS1. The optional Exploration mode, which does away with combat to let players focus entirely on puzzle-solving, means that even horror fans who don't like 90s-era survival horror combat and ammo management can safely pick up Crow Country and have a great time.
This lushly detailed game with a chunkily retro polygonal protagonist is a gorgeous homage to landmark titles of the past
An action-adventure that repeatedly quotes the old Resident Evil games and uses their mechanics to offer the more nostalgic audience an experience very close to the survival horror of the PS1-N64 era. A hint of modernity in the controls makes it palatable even to less veteran gamers, but a few balancing problems and a fairly short longevity take it away from the pinnacle of the genre.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Crow Country is one of the best experiences of the year so far, and we think it will be talked about in the same tones as last year's Signalis for its sheer creativity and efforts to reignite passion for the survival-horror genre.
Though appearing a touch derivative at first glance, Crow Country breaks from tradition in a number of smart ways, delivering a well-rounded, memorable experience that cements it as one of the better survival horror throwbacks of recent memory.
It’s truly impressive what SFB Games has accomplished with such a small team. If you like 90s horror games — Resident Evil especially — then you owe it to yourself to try out Crow Country.
Given the sheer amount of hints and instructional text plastered all over its environments, Crow Country is tuned to be approachable and readily digestible. You’ll never find yourself desperate for resources or racking your brain over a fiendish puzzle. Even the old-school tank controls are optional, mapped to the D-pad just in case any players feel compelled to experiment before going back to the analog stick. These decisions are hardly out of step with the pleasantly nostalgic presentation, but they also ensure that the game succeeds far more as a puzzle object than as a horror freak-out. For better and for worse, Crow Country goes down smoothly.
Crow Country is the perfect kind of nostalgic trip, one that doesn’t bait players along in hopes of being more of the same thing they remembered. The best games of its type work to wedge themselves into the library of classics they were inspired by. Crow Country looks, sounds, and plays similar to old 32- and 64-bit games because it is, not because it wants to be.