Review: Siren New Translation (Blood Curse)

Survival Horror ranks among my most beloved video game genres despite its shortage of quality titles. Much like horror in cinema, quality horror games are sprinkled in among a whole slew of mediocre to downright terrible titles. In the past decade, I have grown to love game franchises such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill primarily due to their excellent story pacing, terrific atmosphere, and solid gameplay. Of course there are other franchises that deserve a mention such as Fatal Frame, Condemned, Dead Rising, and Dino Crisis but its getting harder and harder to come across a fresh new horror franchise that can stand among the greats. That is where Siren: New Translation comes in. The original Siren made its American debut in April of 2004 where it received a rather bland score from just about every critic due to its complex gameplay and horrible voice acting. The game didn't even sell well enough to warrant a release of the games sequel in the U.S. Luckily, Sony has remade the original Siren with several tweaks to the games characters and plot and re-released the game in Japan while giving American audiences a chance to download the game via the Playstation Network. The game is "Siren: New Translation" in Japan and is known as "Siren: Blood Curse" in the United States. I played through the Japanese Import of the game and was pleasantly surprised by what I found.
"Siren: New Translation" is split into 12 episodes that are presented in a fashion that is similar to episodes of a TV show. Fans of the Original Siren will be happy to see that the story from the original game remains primarily intact but uses a new cast of characters to tell this dark and sometimes confusing tale. The story surrounds a TV news crew and a high school student that both find themselves trapped in a cursed village hidden deep in the mountains of Japan. After bearing witness to a horrible human sacrifice, the characters are separated and each are forced to try and survive on their own. The first thing you will probably notice when you start playing the game is that the game is really stretching it's "next-gen" muscles. Sony has worked hard to create highly detailed environments and characters along with an excellent lighting system that all works together beautifully to create one of the darkest, most bone chilling atmospheres I have ever seen in a game. The games visual appeal is complimented almost flawlessly by a disturbing but often beautiful soundtrack that maintains its quality throughout the game. The detail put into the enemy Shibito throughout the game is incredibly disturbing and makes them some of the most vile enemies ever seen in a game. The first time you are face to face with a Shibito and are able to see the blood pouring from its eyes and nose, you will most definitely feel the chills run down your spine. But how does it play? Let's take a look.

The basic controls in Siren are handled very well with the analog and face buttons handling the basic movements as well as combat and crouching. The different D-pad directions can each be used to perform a different sub-function such as "yell", "hide", or "set trap". Combat is not the primary of the focus of the game but is still handled in an impressive manner. Faster, weak attacks are used by tapping the square button while slower but stronger attacks can be used with R1. While this may not seem very deep or engaging, the game is filled with up to 50 different weapons that can be used in different ways. Each weapon has a unique attack style and finishing move that can be activated by sneaking up behind an unsuspecting enemy. Combat is not the most innovative but is definitely a rewarding experience none the less. The games complexity comes in the form of a unique mechanic called "sight jacking" which allows the player to see the world through the eyes of surrounding enemies. In the original Siren, sight-jacking took up the whole screen and didn't really allow for much movement while in this mode. Developers have improved on this by splitting the screen in half and allowing you to control the character on one side while still sight-jacking on the other. By tapping the L1 button multiple times or by tilting the analog stick, the player can cycle through various nearby enemies. Once you have found your ideal enemy, tapping the square button locks onto that enemy's line of sight and allows players to navigate the environment, avoid unnecessary confrontation, and locate key items that an enemy may be looking at. This adds a unique twist to tradition survival horror gameplay that turns out to be much more polished this time around.
The game does stumble in a few areas such as gameplay variety. In this game, variety isn't always a good thing because escort and protection missions are incredibly annoying. The fun of this game comes from solo, stealth missions through creepy hospitals, villages, and mining tunnels. For the most part, switching up the gameplay mechanic makes things more complicated than necessary and can often become frustrating. I also had a little problem with how dark this game is at times. When the flashlight is turned off, it became incredibly difficult to see or comprehend what is going on around you. This can lead to a lot of cheap deaths and some chunks of time spent wandering aimlessly. The map is also a bit confusing to read because it is presented with a full 3D representation of the environments that can be spun in any direction. It looks cool but it is often hard to use. Last but not least, while the game has some great plot points and some down right epic event sequences, the story is incredibly hard to follow because of the constantly changing timeline and the theme of time looping. You will have to play the game to know what I am talking about.

In the end, "Siren: New Translation" has a lot going for it. The presentation of the game has been improved ten fold from the original and the gameplay has definitely been cleaned up and made easier to control. It has some frustrating moments and the ending of the game left me a bit speechless but the overall experience was positive. This new Siren will forever rank among the other great survival horrors of my time.

Final Score: B+