PixlBit

Survival horror is one of my favorite genres. The genre itself has matured to the point where a lot of innovation is going on. You certainly do have some great movies, but there are still bad examples of horror out there. American remakes of more popular japanese horror movies, sequels, reboots, and remakes are usually among the culprits. The same goes for videogames. For every good Resident Evil there is a Resident Evil: Gaiden. And for the Nintendo Wii the genre was also hit and miss. Sure you had some good titles like Fatal Frame 4, but it never made it stateside. Instead of a full fledged Resident Evil, we got "Wii-makes" of Resident Evil 0, 1, and 4 along with some lightgun inspired affair in The Umbrella/Darkside Chronicles. So needless to say, when I first l heard about Cursed Mountain I was pretty excited. From the premise behind it, to moving survival horror controls to the Wii, I figured Cursed Mountain would make for a more engaging experience, and it sounded good. So, today I present to you on this weeks Wii Review- Cursed Mountain. A Game I bought for only $10!

 Cursed Mountain is a unique game. In fact, you probably don't even know about it. It's kind of like Deadly Creatures in a way...A good game that no one really knows about, but probably makes for one of the better 3rd party titles on the Wii. Developer Deep Silver really made quite a game here and I still can't believe at how good it is. You play as Eric Simmons, an experienced climber who goes searching for his brother Frank who disappeared climbing Mount Chomolonzo up in the Himalayas, and it's up to you to rescue him. I'm leaving it a bit vague, but to go into the story would be spoiling a very intriguing tale. Much like the mountain, you work from the bottom and work your way up top. As you would expect from most any survival horror title, the village in which you first arrive is deserted.  As you climb further and further the story gets deeper and darker as Frank climbs, fights ghost spirits, and begins to question his own sanity.

As you ascend the mountain and fight your way through wave after wave of spirits, the main story is spent figuring out just what happened to bring about all these ghosts,  and also unraveling the mysteries of the Buddhist and Tibetian lore that surrounds the culture that you're in. The game has a very strong story, and that seems to be the focus around which the rest of the game was built.

The game starts off spooky enough, to the point that it reminded me of Silent Hill.  I started running through the village, walking down tight alleyways, and venturing into houses that were dark and filled with dead bodies, it actually built up a nice little bit of tension. After running into a monk who explains the basics of "seeing into the Bardo" using your third eye (AKA Combat), it's time to climb the mountain and rescue Frank. The ghosts are then kind enough to announce themselves with a grey filtered and grainy puff of smoke as they rush towards you. 

There are essentially two ways of attacking the ghosts: either by hitting them with your pickaxe, or by attaching a talisman to the pickaxe and firing spiritual energy at these things. Once you've nearly finished them off, you can banish their souls to the next world by performing a randomized set of movements with the wii remote and nunchuk that are supposed to mimic Buddhist rites. The whole idea behind the combat, is why this game should be perfect for the Wii, So, in the first level, my reactions of enthusiasm quickly turned into hoping to God that these things would just die already. When I managed to banish one, it was a great sigh of relief. This could have all been avoided however if only the game didn't do a poor job at explaining the basic controls to you.

Most people who have played this game have had problems with the controls, but really you just have to figure them out. One thing I would strongly suggest is reading the manual. Yeah remember those? And while the game never explaining as to how in the world you are supposed to meditate or do your buddhist send offs is the most likely reason why you won't like the controls, really all it takes is reading the manual. For instance, you may be having a hard time trying to exorcise a ghost frantically waving the Wii remote up and down when really you just have to swing it forward. Are the controls perfect by any means? No... they aren't, but these tips can help you figure out just as to why you'd have so much trouble in the first place. Once you get acquainted to things...Cursed Mountain is a relative breeze to play through. Very seldom could I not defeat a tougher spirit or boss. But for first timers...You'll be burning up your precious healing items.(Literally they are Incense sticks so you burn through them)

The entirety of the middle part of the game was just a mix of combat, darkness, and climbing. It became a pretty engaging adventure. Once you collect more talismans you can do different spirit attacks. Up to about the 3rd-5th chapter, I had been using either the standard bullet shot power up or some crazy lance attack, but then I picked up a talisman that allowed me to latch onto ghosts and one hit kill them if I performed the Buddhist rites correctly. In a way it reminded me of another Wii game I also bought at that time, looking back on it now... I was playing what was essentially the controls for Ghostbusters Wii.

The adventure itself is sadly quite short. It took me about 10 hours to beat this game...tack on another couple if you want to get 100% by collecting all the hidden items such as journals and memos. Of which if you look into the game...You can't actually do so. In localizing the game certain memos and journals got locked behind cutscenes or are unobtainable. There really isn't any replay factor unless you really enjoyed the game and want to do it all over from the beginning.

The graphics aren't necessarily  bad for a Wii game, but they are hardly PS3/360 worthy either. It's generally a decent graphical Wii game. The draw distance is pretty good. They are various points in the game where you find yourself looking up or down the mountain and see the village you passed through a chapter ago...or perhaps the peak of the mountain is now seeming to be closer and closer. A fact that you come to realize with each new climbers log (Climbers Log: Now ascending 25,000 feet!) While I praise certain things about the game it is overly dark. I had to crank the brightness and contrast up way too high in order to see things hidden in the shadows or just about any of the textures in the game. I'm all for dark and spooky, what I'm not up for is "I can't see shit gameplay"

Another important aspect about the game play is that you really have to be an old school horror fan to like this. The game is slow. Like a snails pace slow. The 10-15 hour adventure could be cut in half if Eric's walking speed wasn't so stiff. Basically you'll be holding the run button your entire playthough. Also there will be times  in which you'll be backtracking to solve puzzles or go on a fetch quest. Now it never borders on Resident Evil or Silent Hill tedium where you have to go all the way around the mansion or town to get an item and then go back and use the item, but still backtracking is never fun. It's basically not so noticeable you'd care, but at times with the games vague clues and hints it can be a little irratating.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the game. It was satisfying, and I could tell that developer Deep Silver really tried something new. But on the other hand, they weren't able to follow through on various aspects of the game to keep me from enjoying it more. I have to give credit to Deep Silver though, they managed to get a shiver sent down my spine. I don't normally get that feeling when I'm playing a horror game...I've played far too many to be shocked by jump scares or the generic variety scare tactics that are the norm. So congrats! You managed to spine tingle my cold, dark, unfeeling, senses!

Cursed Mountain certainly has it's head and it's heart in the right place, and the game itself is something that could have be really, really good, but overall Cursed Mountain still has a long way to go in terms of pacing, controls, and visuals before it gets up brought up into conversations of must-play horror games. Much like the mountain in the game, if you give it a chance you'll find it's not that bad of a climb. However, it unfortunately never quite reaches to the top.

Personal Opinion: Unique, intriguing, and engaging... this survival horror game was an enjoyable game. 7.5/10

Critical Opinion: Despite a unique setting, engaging combat mechanics, cool boss fights, and a compelling story,  the game is slow, and the controls are not easily explained. It's far too short, with very dark, eye squinting locations, and a lot of dull fetch questing/backtrack oriented puzzles. 6.7/10

Overall Determination: 7.1/10- What a Bargain!