Games Toaster: REVIEW: Kuon

Developer: FromSoftwares | Published: Agetec | Foramt: PS2

Reviewer: Craig Gallagher It's been a while since we've had a proper supernatural exploration game taking place in a spooky mansion. Out of nowhere comes Kuon, a proper old-fashioned spook fest, in the vein of Alone in the Dark and Project Zero.

You begin as one of two characters - there's Utsuki, the coy daughter of the temple's mystic priest, or Sakuya, a disciple of the temple who's a bit more gung ho. Both young women go to the manor seeking to discover why its inhabitants are disappearing without a trace.

Utsuki takes with her, her sick sister, Kureha, to try to find their father, while Sakuya arrives with a group of disciples dispatched by the priest to purify the mansion and its people of all ill. As in this type of narrative, things soon take a turn for the worse and our protagonists are plunged into a nightmarish world of evil, with twists around every corner.

From her the game turns into a Resident Evil clone with you traversing the mansion, fighting off the evil zombie like creatures, the "Gaki". You have a t your disposal a range of different spells which are activated by special cards located around the mansion and it's grounds. This is where the games major fault lies. Combat is sluggish and unresponsive; attacks are slow to be carried out. This instantly raises annoyance rather than tension.

Kuon is perfectly adequate in all areas, but when there are a hundred other perfectly adequate puzzlers on the market, it's hard to recommend a one which offers nothing new. While it's no classic, Kuon is still worth playing if you can get your hands on a copy.