Paranormasight from developer Square Enix kicks off at a breakneck pace with the introduction of the central mystery and protagonist Shogo (although the opening of the game already questions this). A murder mystery stands at the center of a larger story surrounding the Seven Mysteries of Honjo. What these are and what the connection is, the makers manage to keep hidden from the player for a long time. Still, the game never gets boring. Shogo is a “curse bearer”. This means that he can rob people of life with his powers. He seeks out the other “curse bearers” to kill them and use their powers to bring his girlfriend Yoko back to life.
Especially in the beginning, the game fires a lot of information at the player, because no voice actors are used, it is mainly a lot of reading for the player. It is nice that all important information can be read back in one of the many, and sometimes confusing, menus. There is also often the possibility in a scene to get a concise “recap” of all the information. This is also useful because it allows you to see whether or not you have missed something.
You play the game with a cursor. By digging through different menus you can merge clues and leads to choose the best dialogue options. You also use the cursor to look around and to solve the many puzzles. What is very unfortunate is that there was one puzzle in the beginning that was so cool that the rest of the game actually couldn’t match this anymore. This isn’t to say the other puzzles aren’t cool, but still.
You also use the point-and-click mechanism to look around the different locations and collect clues. This works very well one time and the other time you have to click a little too precisely on a person or location. It led to us occasionally missing an important clue or dialogue. Fortunately, the game is forgiving and there is the possibility of getting hints. What makes the point-and-click system especially clear is that this is not a console game. After fiddling with the cursor for several hours, we decided to use our Switch in handheld mode and control the mouse with the touchscreen. It is clear that the game would not work so well without a cursor, but it does take the speed out of the game enormously. Apart from that, the game plays smoothly on the Switch. Still, the game has some flaws: in the beginning it is said that you can mute people’s voices if, for example, you do not want to hear someone, but because all dialogues are done via text, this option is quite unnecessary.
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries Of Honjo is an exciting mystery game from the same makers as The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, but with a tighter focus and a better script. The strong puzzles, plot twists and multiple endings make this a great game that we can definitely recommend.
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries Of Honjo is now available for PC, mobile and Switch
