Making modern games in a retro style has become rather common practice lately.  A major trend I’ve noticed lately are PS1-style horror games.  Perhaps those grainy graphics just lend well to a spooky atmosphere in the same fashion as creepy VHS-style videos.  Wanting to try one of these games for myself, I was pleased to find the demo for Alisa, which stars a special agent who finds herself in a mansion inhabited by mechanical dolls.

The demo for Alisa takes between 45-60 minutes to complete.  You start by searching for a thief, only to encounter these horrifying amalgamations of limbs that drag you underground.  Next thing you know, Alisa wakes up in the aforementioned mansion, clothed in a frilly blue dress.  Wait, who changed my clothes…?  Hmm…  Anyway, you start out with your gun, but you need to buy back your own saber and uniform, alongside a blunderbuss, ammo, and limited medkits.  Oh, and you even have to pay to save your progress, so do so sparingly!

During the demo, you’re able to explore a small portion of the mansion, where you look for items and solve a few minor puzzles (a sliding puzzle and a puzzle where you must fill in the blank word in a phrase).  There are also a handful of enemy types, slow-moving, human-sized dolls, faster ones that crawl on the ground, and a bigger dude loitering in the kitchen.  I played the demo without auto-aim turned on, which makes hitting enemies tougher, but also earns you more money for defeating them. 

With the limited resources, I’d imagine this would be a rather difficult survival horror game, though I think I’d enjoy the challenge.  After all, games from the 90’s often were pretty difficult.  Though there are a few areas in which the difficulty is not exactly welcome.  The game starts with tank controls, though you can change to modern controls in the settings.  Even so, aiming your gun (again, I chose to not have auto-aim) is rather slow and clunky, making it rather hard to hit enemies coming at you with any real precision.  And even the saber requires you to hold a trigger button before you can slash away.  I understand the appeal of retro aesthetics (the pixelated graphics, stiff voice acting and animation, and music are all spot on), but I’ve never been fond of outdated controls.

I’ve never really played one of these retro survival games before, and I must say, I’m intrigued.  A lot of people seem to like the game, though I don’t really know what future puzzles or enemy encounters are like.  Nevertheless, the game is on my watchlist, and if you’re interested, Alisa is available for $17.99 on all modern consoles and PC and can take anywhere from 7 hours for the main story or 25 hours for 100%.