Review Kuon Developer: FromSoftware Publisher: Agetec Genre: Action/Adventure Release Date: December 2004 Platform: Review by April 25, 2005		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:

I have a confession to make. I love survival horror games almost as much as I love (*gasp*) adventures! Yes, it’s true, and I try not to miss any chance to play any game from this sub-genre that I can lay my hands on. There are several different aspects that survival horror games focus on. Some focus on the story (Silent Hill 2), some on the action (Resident Evil 4), some bring in RPG elements (Parasite Eve) but all have a thing in common: horror. But although most of those games do pretty good on the horror part for the average crowd, very few are those who can really creep out a hardcore horror fan. Fatal Frame 2 was one of the few and is now joined by Kuon!

Kuon takes place in Lord Fujiwara’s mansion, an old Japanese mansion during the Heian period (794-1192) of ancient Japan – a period of mysticism and magic. Strange things have been happening at the mansion: mutated creatures, ghosts and other unimaginable horrors roam its grounds. And when a children’s song is heard in the night, their “hunger” grows bigger. The Lord believes that the mansion is cursed and summons Doman, an ex imperial exorcist who was banished due to his questionable methods, to investigate.

The game is split in three phases: the Yin phase (the phase of shadow), the Yang phase (the phase of light) and the Kuon phase. Only the Yin and the Yang phases are available in the beginning, while the Kuon phase becomes available after those two are finished. The Yin and Yang phases both happen at the same time and interconnect with each other, while the Kuon phase happens afterwards.

The Yin phase is about Utsuki and Kureha, two sisters that live in complete isolation at the top of a nearby mountain, from where they were forbidden to leave. Doman, their father, has not returned from the mansion and now they set off to find him. But as they enter the mansion grounds, Kureha disappears and Utsuki is left alone to find both her and their father. The Yang phase is about Sakuya, a young exorcist trainee under the teaching of Doman. She followed Doman at the mansion along with three other disciples – Dokai, Dochin and Doryo, Sakuya’s older brother. In the process, the disciples will split up, and Sakuya will eventually be left alone to find out what is happening in the Fujiwara mansion. I will not reveal anything about the Kuon phase!

After putting the disk in your PS2 you will be confronted with what could qualify as one of the creepiest intro sequences ever, laying the ground perfectly for what is about to follow! For Kuon is one of the darkest, more eerie and most unsettling games around! The stories of the two sisters, Kureha’s accident, the mulberry tree, the silkworms and the wicker chests and the merging process are enough to make even the most hardened horror junkies’ skin crawl! And the amount of blood can make any gore fan feel as if they are in dreamland!

Before starting the game, you can change the settings, which include an option for 2D or 3D controls – an option that is always very welcome. 2D controls mean that the character will walk/run towards the direction you move the analog stick, while 3D controls mean that the character will walk straight by moving the analog stick forward and rotate by moving the stick left or right. The 3D controls in this case are a bit peculiar though, since by moving the analog stick left or right the character will walk while rotating, performing a circular pattern! To rotate without walking the analog stick has to be moved backwards slightly. If it’s moved backwards all the way the rotation will be 180 degrees. This is a bit harder to get used to than regular 3D controls.

By selecting “Begin” you will be asked to choose between the Yin or the Yang phase (or the Kuon phase if you have finished the other two) and the level of difficulty – Daydream, Insomnia, Nightmare or Insanity (which is available only after finishing the whole game once). The level of difficulty applies only to the action parts of the game, and varies from dead easy (daydream) to slightly tough (insanity). The Yang phase is harder than the Yin phase, with some stronger monsters and more bosses. Of course, since the Yin and Yang phases interconnect, most monsters make their appearance in both. In all cases though, Kuon cannot be considered a hard game.

Fighting is done in two ways, either with weapons or with spells. The weapons are very limited – well, actually there’s only one weapon in each phase! Utsuki uses a blade (which upgrades to winter blade and summer blade), Sakuya uses a fan (which upgrades to sapphire fan and ruby fan) and in the Kuon phase the weapon used is a spear, which is not upgradeable. The spells are one of the game’s strongest points! They come in the form of cards, that can be found lying around in the mansion, and they come in a pretty impressive variety. There are spells that throw fire arrows, fire balls, ice spikes, spells that summon creatures like spiders, puppet helpers or fierce wolves, spells that make hands come out of the ground and pull the enemies under and lots more! The only drawback is that each spell card can only be used once, as it gets destroyed afterwards. And although some cards come in abundance, some are pretty rare so careful planning is a necessity.

The monsters come in various forms and all have one thing in common: they’re all abominations of nature! From the Gakis, who are drawn to the smell of blood, to the Adamushis, half silkworms-half men, they all look horrifying and menacing. But they’re too easy to defeat. Even on the hardest levels, where they do provide a slightly bigger challenge, a good combination of weapons and spells can bring them down really fast. There are also a few bosses, who are of course stronger and some of them can also use spells. A couple of them are rather tough (especially in the higher difficulty levels) and they are the only place where the game doesn’t feel like a stroll in the park – difficulty-wise. Along with the monsters, ghosts also reside in the mansion. Ghosts very rarely appear, unless there’s some noise. And you can make a lot of noise if you decide to run instead of walk, by knocking down various items that lie around. At that point a Tempest will occur and one or more ghosts will attack.

Tempests are a very unique element of Kuon. They can occur either when making noise and attracting ghosts, or in areas where there’s a lot of negative energy gathered. When a tempest occurs the screen flashes white and there’s a sudden high-pitched noise. Unfortunately, this turns out to be very annoying in the process, and it’s like the equivalent of the cat jumping out of something in several horror movies – the cheap jump off your seat scare. The difference here is that tempests happen a lot! Sometimes, when a tempest occurs while running, Vertigo will be experienced.

Vertigo is a state of disorientation. When it happens, the screen becomes swirly and blurry – a really neat effect. Furthermore, spell cards cannot be used at that point. Vertigo is also experienced when health drops to its lowest level. Health is displayed as a colored bar on top of the screen, but it only appears in sub-screens like the inventory or the map – it does not appear in the main game screen. The health bar will change colors from blue (full health) to yellow (medium health) to red (low health), with no in between stages. As health drops, the character will start walking slower, her heartbeat will become faster and the joypad will start vibrating.

There are two ways to regenerate health (and recover from vertigo). One way is by using dust herbs or elixirs that can be found in the mansion or are left back by dead monsters. The other way is to Meditate. Meditation gradually recovers health, which means the lower the health levels are, the longer meditation will be needed. For that reason meditation can rarely be used during a fight, since it will get interrupted when a monster attacks. But its existence surely makes the game a lot easier, since health items can be saved for fights only, and that combined with the fact that there are plenty of them scattered around ensures that you’ll rarely reach emergency situations where your health is low during a fight and you don’t have some dust herbs or elixirs. Regardless of that fact, I liked the meditation feature and I found it very original!

Other things that can be found around the mansion or left behind by dead monsters are mainly spell cards, notes and journals that will help the plot unfold, and vessels. A vessel is like a paper boat with a wick, and it serves only one purpose: saving the game! Unfortunately, it cannot be used anywhere you want. The only places where a vessel can be used are wherever there is a triangle formation of fire near a body of water. There, the vessel needs to be lit and put on the water. This is the cleansing ritual, and when you are cleansed, your game is saved! Of course I am strongly against the consolish save-point methods (especially when your saves are limited to certain items you find). But at least Kuon brought some originality to that process, other than writing down/reporting your progress in a diary, a telephone, a typewriter etc that we see in the vast majority of these kind of games!

The adventuring parts of Kuon mainly consist of exploring the mansion grounds. Several doors have different seals on them. The seals are named after planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth etc), and they can be broken with the use of certain types of blood stained cloths called Sacred Cloths – different for each type of seal. This is the biggest focus in the puzzle area: find a sealed door and then find the sacred cloth to open it. What I found a bit amusing is that sometimes there will be some other way around the sealed door, which will be “blocked” by something like a chair or a dead body! For some reason, it is impossible to push the chair aside or just step over the body! Blocking paths could have been done a lot better than that!

Apart from that, there are a couple of “find the right item and use it at the right place” type of puzzles, as well as a couple of logical puzzles – very few in total. The problem with the logical puzzles is that they are extremely easy to solve by trial and error. So, even though the clues are lying around somewhere further in the game, a few seconds of trial and error can override seeking for them. This of course simplifies things a lot, which is a pity since, were the adventure side more challenging (and just more), Kuon could have been ideal for adventure gamers, being so easy on the action side. As a bonus puzzle, there are two pieces of a backgammon-like board game, called “Sugoroku”, hidden in the game – one in the Yin and one in the Yang phase. If both those pieces are found, then after both phases are finished, Sugoroku unlocks and can be played by selecting it from the main menu.

The graphics are dark and beautiful, with deep red and yellow being the prevailing colors. All the characters and monsters are very well designed, and the areas perfectly reconstruct Japan of that era. Some minor clipping exists, but it does not ruin the overall presentation. The sounds are very limited. There is no music playing during the game. The only thing that can be heard is some ambient sounds, the footsteps of the main character and, at certain times, “Hasizoroe”, the children’s song. Few sound effects, like monsters screaming or doors creaking, can be heard occasionally. All this does a great job building up a creepy atmosphere! The speech is pretty good too, although there is a detail that ruins the effect: during cut-scenes, the characters do not open their mouths when talking! It is like the whole cast of the game is made up by a group of ventriloquists! More attention should have been paid in this aspect and I’m not talking about flawless lip-synching (although that would be welcome), but at least some lip motion to show who is talking! In the beginning of the game, when you are not yet accustomed to the voices, it will be hard to distinguish the person that is talking, especially if everyone in the scene is of the same sex!

Giving a final grade to Kuon is a hard task. It all depends on how one sees the game. It is definitely one of the best horror games I have ever played. It’s creepy, scary, dark, disturbing, gory and it oozes of atmosphere! Grading that part alone, Kuon would get a big A+! Unfortunately it lacks in gameplay. Everything is too simple, too easy. There is hardly any challenge, both in the action and the adventure parts of the game. There’s also the pretty annoying implementation of the tempests. Of course its unsettling story and amazingly dark atmosphere make up for all that, but generally it is a game that will mainly appeal to hardcore horror and gore fans, for whom I consider it a must play. For the average gamer, there are certainly better overall survival horror games out there, but Kuon is still worth a try.

Final Grade: B
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