Cursed Mountain slipped under my radar for a variety of reasons, so I was surprised when it arrived for review. Essentially an old-style survival horror game (think of something along the lines of Resident Evil 1 in controls, pace, and general presentation), it’s something of a case study in how far a game can get with a strong premise when it has several minor design problems. The end result is a decent game, however.
The game puts you mostly in control of Eric Simmons, a mountain climber who has lost contact with his brother Frank; an arrogant fellow who has gone missing during an attempt to climb a very high, dangerous mountain. It’s your job to follow his trail and try to see if he’s still alive, though this mundane setting is quickly joined by the supernatural. This game’s title is very apt, as the mountain and surrounding villages are overrun by ghosts, and Eric gains special powers to fight them.
Cursed Mountain is a very slow-paced game, and there will be significant stretches of time where all you do is explore and find clues and items with little or no fighting involved. It’s also slow for the reason that Eric’s run is more of a slow jog, and the environments are quite large. Some stages make this even worse by giving no hint as to where you need to go, and leave you to try several identical doors before finding one that opens, though other stages are more clear about this. This often leaves the non-combat parts of the game revolving around a lot of backtracking to find some random item that acts like a key to the next area, something I’m not fond of.
On the other hand, fighting is pretty simple when it comes up. Most enemies are ghosts, which essentially act like zombies with a few extra tricks. You can defeat them with your ice axe in close combat, though the axe quickly gains the ability to fire energy blasts that are a safer way to deal with the problem. These ghosts (and even some bosses) can then be completely eliminated by a quick arm-motion ritual; it looks like they’re trying to get you to duplicate Buddhist ritual motions using the Wiimote and Nunchuk, which works to varying degrees. Even this is a little slow however, as Eric has no ability to spin around like in more recent games of this type; he has to sluggishly turn about and then move in the direction he wants to go.
As the majority of the area’s inhabitants have already left or are dead, the plot is mostly progressed in a mix of odd cutscenes clearly meant to mess with your head, and diary notes left lying around each stage. I found myself mostly ignoring the plot as a result, though the core gameplay was decent enough and kept me going. It doesn’t just revolve around defeating ghosts and finding items, as later stages add some extra challenges here and there, and even a few basic climbing segments.
This one should last you several hours, though I grant part of that time will be spent tediously jogging along through long, open areas or exploring houses with no meaningful reward or purpose to them. Cursed Mountain makes a lot of minor to moderate game design mistakes, but the heart of the game is decent despite that. I’ve never been a fan of this genre and Cursed Mountain isn’t quite to my tastes, but I can’t deny that it’s a competent survival horror game, and those who still enjoy romps like the original Resident Evil should check it out.
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