It doesn't matter if you're up against the aforementioned flesh worms, zombies that litter the landscape, or spider-like humanoids, you can easily slip past pretty much anything except for creatures that cheaply appear before you have a chance to respond to their presence. Plus, enemies never move so quickly or appear in such numbers that you can't evade them if you're careful.Īnd therein lies part of Kio's problem. Aiming your gun is no issue because both collision and response are on point. Thankfully, Kio sports tight mechanics that make either choice viable.
That might seem problematic, as this title is a 2D job akin to RPG Maker fare (it was made with Unity, if I'm not mistaken). Still, it's awkward reading a line like "We've got here long before you" and trying to "retranslate" it in your head as "We've been here a long time."Īs this is a survival-horror affair, you often receive the option to gun things down or run past them. For the most part, you can tell what the characters are saying, and that's good enough. At first, the clumsy chatter easy to ignore, but then you start having Breath of Fire II flashbacks. And all you can ask is Why? There's no rhyme or reason it's all just random scary and nasty things happening one after another, from torture porn to haunted hallways.Īlthough these opening segments present some truly unnerving material, they lose their bite with each line of poorly translated dialogue. After that, you view a few more horrific scenes before coming across an immense mound of writhing flesh, not to mention slithering, worm-like creatures apparently made out of human body parts. They only have enough time to give you quick instruction before the blade falls, severing their head and leaving a geyser-like stump that sprays blood everywhere. However, the early phases only conjure another question: WHY? This arrives after an ordeal that sees you escaping a spiked wall that attempts to crush you, only to end up in a torture chamber where you find one of the game's minor characters buck naked, strapped into a guillotine. Straight off, the campaign raises questions and captures your interest, beckoning you to continue so you can get some answers. One of them, Kio, awakens in a musty old dungeon, with neither of her friends in sight.
There, they chat about high school and boys, only to be rudely interrupted by an earthquake. It kicks off with three teenage Japanese girls visiting a fast food joint. However, as a piece of horror entertainment, it peters out after you crawl past the midpoint. Kio's Adventure snugly falls into the latter category, as it's an original game with some memorable moments. On the flip side, unique pieces can still be questionable, even if they bravely explore unfamiliar themes or conventions.
You can churn out the most unoriginal dreck and still garner either a small fanbase or fierce defenders. This might seem hypocritical, but the truth is there is no magic bullet when it comes to creating quality horror. Meanwhile, we eventually tuck into derivative products that delivered the goods despite their lack of innovation. Sometimes such revisits of aged ideas earn the scorn of fans like myself, and we chide content creators for not feeding us original material. The horror genre is old and often retreads concepts as a result. "Random Insanity reimagined as an ero guro adventure"