Creeping Terror

Creeping Terror is a short, serviceable title that pays tribute to a bygone era of horror gaming. That sentence is probably the nicest thing I can say about it.

Creeping Terror feels like your typical horror movie that one would watch to get a cheap, quick scare but proceed to forget about once it's over.

Creeping Terror is a fun pixelated game that won't make you jump, but will likely raise the hairs on the back of your neck. The overly simplistic gameplay is made up for by the excellent music and graphics, which work together to give you a creepy good time.

With clear inspirations from iconic survival horror games, such as Resident Evil and Clock Tower, Creeping Terror is an attempt to pay homage and rescue the old model of the genre in a more gentle way for new players, but it ends up sabotaging what it sets out to do. While the game is entirely based on chases, it gives the player enough resources to avoid going through them without much pressure. This destroys any tension created, making each encounter with Shovel Man become more silly and irrelevant. The immersion of the scenarios, the story and its characters is lost amid the standardization of situations and the ease of getting out of them.

I hadn't taken my 3DS out in a while, and I wouldn't recommend taking yours out for this one. Creeping Terror isn't a game devoid of any good moments, but it's one where they are so sparsely placed that it feels like you ended where you started, with the same questions.

To its credit, Creeping Terror has something of a unique premise in presenting the usual hide-from-the-horror gameplay in a 2D perspective. Unfortunately just about everything else that the game has to offer is pretty much what I expected from the genre.

The game's commitment to survival horror is mostly skin deep. Artistically and thematically, it resonates. Mechanically, not so much.

Creeping Terror was unfortunately just a dull, uninteresting experience through and through. It did absolutely nothing to try and distinguish itself from other horror games, and that is abundantly clear from the first minute of gameplay. The only solid and well done part of the game is the flawless translation.

Creeping Terror's best quality is by far its impeccable production quality and graphics. Generic and uninteresting stalkers aside, the art direction and overall look of the game are incredible for a downloadable 3DS release. The very 'by the numbers' adventure gameplay is serviceable, and really the main event should have been the stalkers, but they are completely undermined by a lack of challenge and pushover difficulty. It is regretful because Creeping Terror could have been the definitive horror 3DS game since all the working pieces are present but are, ultimately, horribly implemented.

Overall, Creeping Terror was a revelation in my horror gaming experience. In my 4-hour playthrough, I was constantly on edge, yet kept putting one foot in front of the other in my attempt to find out what was actually happening. Though I did manage to get Arisa safely home, I didn’t get the best ending, so I will assuredly be playing it again very soon. If you’re a fan of horror and own a 3DS, Creeping Terror is a bargain at $8.99. Aksys has published a winner here, and I hope they continue to bring over unique and creepy titles.