KOJOUJI Reviews

Kojouji is a good game with some major flaws that make it not a good game. I had fun playing this. I liked the mood and the creatures. I had a hard time trying to find my way because everything is too dark and it looked the same. As much as I wanted to play more it takes me almost an hour to get far before I die and have to restart from the begging. Update: Kojouji is MUCH better after the update fix for lighting, gas masks, and more. The implementation of a save system is splendid. I don't think the game should cost more than $5, but It's now a good indie horror game.

[i]Kojouji[/i] is an incredible ten minutes, and I'd recommend it to anyone if they're willing to pay for that; and if that's you, [b]I beg you to stop reading.[/b] Booting [i]Kojouji[/i] up for the first time is this incredible experience. You have no idea where you are, what you're doing at this factory site, and who you even are. The player character pulls out a gas mask and fits it over their face, and a letter from a distressed wife missing her husband pops up on screen. You start exploring your surroundings, ignoring a pop-up that asks if you want to leave, and instead pushing deeper into the factory, as the ground begins to squelch beneath your feet. Unfortunately, [i]Kojouji[/i] doesn't maintain the kind of unknown that it starts with. The setting melts away as you start hunting keys to doors, and avoiding not-venom and not-face-huggers. What becomes a spooky factory soon becomes a slog as you get lost, start backtracking, checking every door whether they're locked or unlocked, and dying. [b]You're reminded that the enemies are blind and rely on sound, so you start crouch walking. Not-venom can't kill you when you're crouching.[/b] As for graphics, there's that Unreal Engine lustre and shine that makes me want to cry. It's grainy, way too reflective, fogs are too foggy, and simultaneously too dark and too bright. The music is fine, it's that barely present atmospheric work that holds everything together. Beyond that, there's nothing much more notable to mention about [i]Kojouji[/i].

Kojouji - Biggest waste of 20$ I've played in a long time. (15$ as of steam release) The game looks good but it has basic horror elements that you can find in hundreds of free horror, the big problem comes from the game play and items. I call this genre the hide and seek bullshit genre. The story is resident evil if someone tried to hire a private investigator to inspect the umbrella corporation. You spend the game wandering around a dark factory finding keys (Not always keys but items that work the same as keys),changing the batteries to your flash light, and replacing filters to your gas mask since the whole area is filled with deadly gas. Sound familiar? It is but the big change (Just kidding) is there is a super slow monster that is constantly following you as you back track around the map trying to remember which dark corner you got the key and which door its for. Oh and fyi, if you die you start over again from the beginning with none of your items. I only found three enemies while playing the game. Slow monster, Fast monster, and Quick time event monster. The slow monster is a worm that follows you around the map and kinda looks like a butt hole with teeth. They kill by eating you in a one shot animation if they gets too close you. They cannot climb up any stairs or enter doorways so if you hide they will fart gas at you, you'll mostly die to this monster if you get so bored of the game you stop looking forward. The fast monster is a humanoid that runs at you and kills you in a one shot animation. This enemy is where the stealth aspect comes in because you'll die to this monster if they hear or see you since once they start chasing you can only sprint away for about 2 seconds before your characters starts gasping for air. The quick time event monster is the same as worm but smaller. You don't really notice them until they jump at you but the animation is super slow and you also don't have to click at a certain time you can just spam left click and kill them. You'll die to this monster maybe once before you realize you just click at them, quick time events suck. The flashlight moves independently of your mouse movements, its pretty hard to explain but Ill try. You have a cross hair that is at the middle of the screen where the circle of light will be. If you move your mouse to the left or the right instead of the circle of light remaining in the middle the circle will go to the farthest edge of your cross hair. So if the light is centered when not moving, if you aim to right the circle of light will move farther right then your cross hair so that the far left of the circle becomes centered. Like I said, its hard to explain but it is janky as fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccckkkk. Also the batteries will run out about every 2 minutes and when you change them you are stuck in an animation which is a pain in the ass when a monster is following you. You will spend a good bit of your game play either finding batteries or changing batteries. The gas mask is the worst part of this game easily. If you want to run you'll drain your gas mask quicker than piss which also locks you into an even longer animations when you go to change the filter. So just walk you say? You walk at a snails pace, I cannot imagine that any human who is in a life or death situation would ever move this slowly. If not changing batteries this will be the other half of your game play. I wouldn't knock on this game so bad if it wasn't 20$ but there is nothing unique or interesting to it. I wont buy the one man dev team excuse either, since many amazing games have been made with only one dev. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAsLlGUwgU0&t

It's a really interesting game, the Gasmask and being killed restarting you really destroys the fun of it. Nothing less fun than getting decked by a giant sprinting monster to have to start again.