Paranormasight: the Sequel's Curse
Just a few months back, I was talking with one of my friends about Paranormasight:The Seven Mysteries of Honjo - ecstatic again about how brilliant it was. I was wondering what the developers would be working on afterwards. In the course of our conversation, I however shared one of my deepest concerns: “I sure hope they don’t make a sequel”.
In case you are not familiar with Paranormasight (what? living under a rock?), the game is basically a visual novel with branching story elements, where you play different characters across different story paths. It stood out from the rest by a super solid story without hours of fluff, excellent characters and writing, and an execution that has no match (graphics and music). The perfect storm, if you wish.
Where was I? Ah yes. back to the story about my friend. A few weeks later after our initial conversation, I get an email from him. With a link? What’s in there? The upcoming release of Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse… I have to admit, it made me feel uneasy about the existence of a sequel.
In the end, the TLDR is: it’s not as bad as I feared.
But it’s almost beside the point. The devs fell into the trap I had feared.
Still good
This was a day-1 purchase for me. I almost never do that.
This is the level of trust I placed in the devs, despite my concerns.
As a game taken out of context, it’s still quite strong. This time we are not in Tokyo, but in the Mie region in the middle part of Japan, known for its ancient sanctuaries and forest paths.
We get introduced to a bunch of characters who find themselves converging to a (fictitious) island called Kameshima (turtle island in English), following legends telling of the existence of mermaids.
That sounds like an innocent search for the extraordinary, the unique. Yet, the same theme as the prequel is at the core of this story: a bunch of people looking for immortality. And the legends say that eating the flesh of a mermaid would grant it.
Is there any truth to it?
How does it work? The gameplay revolves mainly around:
- Talking to people (mostly clicking dialogs)
- Moving between locations on the map
- Making a few decisions that unlock different storylines now and then.
- Switching between protagonists in the story map
- and there’s some new stuff as well, like swimming in the sea and picking up shells and urchin (traditional Ama diving) when playing one specific character
Ultimately, the story leads you to several ends, starting by the bad ones where everything goes wrong, until you unlock more satisfactory endings.
As I was reading a few early reviews before starting the game, most of them mentioned a fairly slow start. No kidding, if you compare with the explosive beginning of its prequel (where you had something like 5 murders in the first 30 minutes), the Mermaid’s curse feels like a stroll in the park. Like going on vacation.
A long introduction tells you more about the characters, the island, what happened in the past few years, and it takes a while to bring things together. After a couple of hours, a lot of events unfold all of a sudden - so there’s no lack of action and suspense when you reach that part. It feels a little late, but I’m not sure if anything else was possible. The location, the theme, the characters involved meant that you would not be able to approach the story with great speed. At least, it was not boring, and it felt like a regular, slow visual novel at the beginning.
The art, music and overall presentation are still top-notch, with the panoramic camera effect making a come back - you can look around in every scene will full 360 degrees freedom. The locations are very representative of the landscapes and feel of the Japan countryside in that area. It’s very well done and true to life if you have been there yourself.
The story, however, is just not as great. I felt the game deserved to be a bit longer, and needed a few more points of view. There’s some missing exposure to explain why some characters are somewhat evil, while the original Paranormasight did a much better job to put you in the shoes of every character that was looking to collect curses. There’s a few things that do not make much sense, but I won’t give you any spoiler in this review.
Sadly, none of the protagonists manage to capture the just-righted-ness that the characters of the previous opus had. No one has the stature of Richter Kai, Harue Shigima, or Sakazaki here. Most characters are a bit bland and a tad generic. So you fail to connect. They even introduced some foreigners in the mix, who are just not really special in any way. They look like foreigners written from a Japanese viewpoint, which is basically off.
So this feels like Paranormasight, smells like Paranormasight, sounds like Paranormasight, but ultimately it’s like some kind of carbon copy: a pale, faded impression of the original.
A sequel was just not a good idea
The whole reason why Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo felt great, is that it was surprising from start to finish: multiple storylines, well-written characters, a deep lore behind the game mixing fiction and actual facts, and a well-paced story that did not languish for hours without end. It was powerful, beautifully crafted, memorable - and more importantly, it felt fresh.
When you enter the sequel territory, the freshness is what you end up throwing out of the window.
Somewhat ironical for a story about mermaids.
Even though you can change the setting, the characters, and have a great new story to tell, ultimately this episode feels like you are now following a formula: bring together the ingredients of Paranormasight: The Sevent Mysteries of Honjo, follow the recipe step by step with the exact same game system, mix well, let it cook for a while, and there you go, you’re supposed to have another hit under your belt, right?
If only!
And this is precisely why I feared the sequel trap. The resounding (and unexpected) success of the first episode CALLED for a sequel. Surely Square Enix, run by uninventive executives, smelled easy money and asked the developers of the first game to work on a follow-up as soon as the scent of green notes came to their noses.
I wish the devs would have rejected the idea from the get go.
No matter how much effort went into The Mermaid’s Curse, along the way, I played the game with a strong sense of déjà vu. Characters that turn out to be different than you (initially) expected. Long lost legends that turn into curses. A long corpus of text where you have to dig for clues. I’m not saying it does not have a few surprises of its own…
But it’s an inferior game in almost every way.
Even a good chunk of the music composed for the first episode makes it again in the sequel. I don’t want to complain, the music of the first Paranormasight was excellent. But now it feels like we have a core soundtrack that’s going to be around for the next 10 sequels that Square Enix will be asking for, as a new theme for this IP.
Again, where did the freshness go?
The dog that is not barking
While most reviewers are going to rave about how good of a sequel it is (in good faith), I can’t help but seeing this as a huge missed opportunity and a general problem of low expectations.
Why low expectations? Well, most sequels are terrible. For once, we get a decent one, so you can predict neverending praise and celebration. But come on, people! It’s clear this is not even remotely on the same level as the first one.
I am here to bring you down to Earth a little.
We have got this reasonable sequel, and you can see it for what it is: a honest follow-up on the extraordinary Paranormasight. For most people this is where the review ends.
But we should be talking about something that’s missing. The proverbial dog that is not barking.
There’s a ghost, a phantom game that the very same developers COULD have worked on instead of spending two years or more on this one. The game that did not ship. Let’s call it Game X.
Maybe game X would have been something more ambitious. Certainly not a sequel. Something unseen before. Something excitingly fresh, once again, a new venture into storytelling. And I believe the guys behind the first opus were perfectly capable of executing it. They still have magic in their hands.
Instead, they were pushed back to the kitchen where they came from, and asked to cook a second plate of more of the same. Because easy money. Because MBAs.
It’s sad, but it is what it is.
The commercial interests have won.
I’m confident the creative team did their best in such circumstances.
This is even probably going to be another commercial success. Which may be a curse in itself. At this rate, get ready for another bunch of Paranormasight branded games, until the newly found IP gets milked to oblivion like Danganronpa or others. The MBAs have short term vision: they milk, milk, until the cow dies, a final sign to move on to exploit something else.
And this may be a great parallel with the game.
In kameshima island, bad omens loom on the horizon. There are prophecies about an upcoming catastrophy. A cataclysm for the ages. All characters struggle to find a way to escape the upcoming curse and their destiny. Successful game developers face a similar fate, cursed to make just another sequel until things fall apart.
Taking the easy and most obvious path in the game eventually leads to one’s demise. You are encouraged to keep trying new approaches to unlock better outcomes. Better fates.
I hope that the talented devs of Paranormasight eventually get to experiment and escape the sequel hell cycle. At some point. And go on to make something new and fresh again.
That is what I will be waiting for.
Until then
You can find the game on Steam. It works perfectly on the Steam Deck too. But I recommend the first one instead, and you don’t gain much by playing the second one anyway.