Parents' Guide to Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

While an engaging plot might be important to some styles of game, it's vital when it comes to the visual novel genre. These interactive stories have to keep players' interest from start to finish. Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo, is cursed with a story and gameplay that's meant to move it forward, but winds up holding it back at the same time. In most visual novels, branching plotlines give the player a feeling of real choice and consequence. Something you do or say at one point often takes the story into new an intriguing directions. But Paranormasight usually only gives the illusion of a choice, before shoving you in the direction it wants you to go regardless of your actions. For example, the game often flashes an ominous prompt to use your curse powers to kill another character. You might ignore the prompt to let the story continue with a clear conscience, only for the character to wind up dead from the curse anyway before moving the plot along. Why bother to offer a choice when game is just going to do what it wants anyway?

The lack of player choice could almost be forgiven if it wasn't for the fact that Paranormasight seems to go out of its way to not make any sense. The story unfolds over time and from different characters' perspectives. This means watching the same beats over and over again, trying to fill in gaping plot holes as you go. There are times when certain actions you've taken don't match up to what the story says. And then there are puzzles that don't just require the player to think outside the proverbial box, but to think outside the game itself. Here, failure isn't an option. Every time you die, you're immediately prompted to replay the scene, and frequently there's no "right" choice to be made until after you restart. At one point, it's not until you've changed the options in the game's Settings menu that the story will continue. Sure, it might seem like a clever solution after the fact, but in turning you into an active participant of the game's events as a player, it only serves to highlight just how little your actions actually mean in the end.