CARRION Reviews
Carrion is one of the best indie games released in 2020 so far. The premise – playing as a monster trying to escape a lab instead of as a human trying to contain an outbreak – is unique. I highly recommend checking it out.
Playing CARRION on the Nintendo switch reminded me so much of one of my favourite science fiction horror films from the ’80s by John carpenter: The Thing. Crawling about and feeding on the human population in a military facility, all while searching for bio-capsules to gain new abilities which allow you to gain access to new areas and lay siege to them is engaging and fun, albeit with a frustrating omission of the map screen which makes navigation difficult at times. Let’ take a trip into the twisted world of CARRION to see if this is a title worth owning.
I never imagined how fun it would be to play the role of a scary monster that needs to fight to escape a secret facility full of humans. In addition to his very exclusive proposal, Carrion also does well in almost all other aspects. The visuals are great, the gameplay works well and the game mechanics are fun. Even leaving the player wanting more, this is a mandatory adventure for those who enjoy a good horror game.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Accompanying the game is an absolutely stellar soundtrack that captures the atmosphere of a giant research facility perfectly, reminiscing of similar tensions in movies such as Alien. The cries and whimpering of terrified scientists cowering in a corner before making a satisfying leap from the shadows and throwing them around like an absolute ragdoll.
By turning the roles of heroes and villains upside down, Carrion delivers a unique and fun experience. Literally incarnating a monster and causing chaos and destruction is cathartic, and adding a surprisingly appealing narrative to it all makes for a pretty complete experience. It falls a little short in one aspect or another, namely when it comes to incentives and rewards for the careful exploration of the world, but Carrion never ceases to be an extremely recommendable game.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Carrion is not a particularly long game, but it does a lot with the time you'll spend with it. It's more involved than it initially appears, and its blank slate approach coupled with the confidence to begin and end as abruptly as it does is something others can learn from. A succinct and sometimes challenging diversion from the norm, it's worth the experience to live it up as an amorphous, crafty monster.
Carrion did what very few horror games have done for me this year: it exceeded my expectations. It ends up being far more than the sum of its fleshy parts thanks to a solid commitment to its sadistic vision of slimy violence.
In Carrion we will revive with a retro pixel aesthetic the fear of a horror movie from the 80's, only in this case we will be in the place of the monster. A very fun game to enjoy from start to finish.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
An anomalous metroidvania in the intent as traditional in the realization. The creature's alien and brutal beauty is only partially supported by an equally good world to explore. It remains a fascinating title, made with care, that really lacks that extra flicker to excel.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Carrion is a fun but flawed 2D horror game with a fun hook. It doesn't play perfectly, and the controls are particularly hit-or-miss, but overall, there's a lot of fun to be had when you get to be the monster and leave a path of destruction in your wake.
Carrion presents you with an opportunity to take the reigns of an invading monster, and it delivers on all fronts with visceral gore and effects that translate vividly even through its pixelated style. The lack of a map combined with navigational and interaction clumsiness make for a more cumbersome Metroidvania formula, but the payoffs of gameplay and exploration outweigh the issues that Carrion presents.
Carrion is brilliant take on the metroidvania genre, a game where you control a creature that feasts on human bodies and grows as it develops new and deadly skills. It is another incredibile and crazy Devolver Digital game.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Carrion is a fun one-and-done game and not much more than that. The concept of playing as the monster in the vents is a cool one, and Carrion executes the fantasy fairly masterfully. Unfortunately, it runs out of tricks before too long and is only saved from tedium by the short game length. It's worth a playthrough if you like the concept, but don't expect anything genre-defining. There's a lot of potential in the concept, and perhaps a Carrion 2 will give us something with more meat on its … amorphous horrifying frame.
Carrion is an unusual experience that seeks to do the most with just the essentials, which makes it somewhat repetitive after a while, when almost all the cards are already on the table. Even though it looks like a labyrinthine metroidvania, the design tends to guide the player linearly so as not to get lost, keeping the gameplay flowing between puzzles and massacres, without much reason to explore on your own. The game's greatest success is in fulfilling its promise of horror by putting the player under the skin of a tentacular monster to devour, grow and evolve into the perfect predator.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Carrion’s concept of playing the evil, inhuman creature that’s out to eat everyone is definitely interesting and, at times undoubtedly visceral despite its distant 2D perspective, letting you bloody up rooms and leave halves of corpses lying around for later consumption. Its movement enforces the foreign nature of its protagonist but frequent frustrations like repeated difficulty spikes during combat and getting lost in its unremarkable facility do chip away at its awesome parts. Nevertheless, if you can weather some frustration, you’re in for a lot of delicious dismemberment and many horrified screams as you take Carrion’s flesh beast on its bloody journey.
GOOD - Carrion is a fun reverse-horror game that could have been much better than it is with a few simple fixes, but what we got is still pretty good. Stalking humans and slithering around feels as great as it sounds.
A proposal of puzzles and action wrapped in pixel-art, with an Oddworld flavor and capable of engaging until the end. Luckily, its duration is just enough to make its progression system not boring. Being the bad guy is fun again.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
A decent reverse horror title with fluid gameplay and immersive atmosphere.
Carrion is ultimately fascinating, engaging, and short and sweet. By putting you in the role of the alien threat it imbues you with a strange supervillain-like sense of playing in an insect farm.
With the gameplay flow struggling to find a pulse, the novelty of controlling a monster doesn't fully take shape