Crow Country takes things back to the PlayStation 1 era while carving out its own niche. As a survival horror title, it's been most heavily compared to games like the original Resident Evil and Silent Hill, a fair evaluation that nonetheless ignores the equally obvious connections to FF7 and fails to fully explain Crow Country's unique brand of charm.

The narrative set-up of Crow Country is simple. A special police agent named Mara arrives at an abandoned theme park, armed with a handgun and a file declaring the disappearance of the park's owner. It's a far cry from the dizzying spectacle that opens the original story of FF7, but as Mara ventures into the park and begins to unravel the secrets within, the reasons for FF7 fans to check the game out become increasingly apparent.

Crow Country Brings The FF7 Aesthetic To New Life

Charming Environments With Familiar Inspiration

Crow Country might be a survival horror game in name, but it's not especially focused on scares. In its loving look back at the PlayStation 1 era, Crow Country hones in on the charms of chunky characters and cluttered environments, building up a world that's as endearing as it is moody. Through a haze of dithered greenish fog, the details of the park become the big selling point, and even those who aren't especially into horror could find a lot to love in poking around.

While Crow Country doesn't use pre-rendered backgrounds like FF7, it constructs its 3D environments with a very similar touch to the way FF7's art is rendered. The low-poly amusement park has the same clay-like look as the Gold Saucer, but the industrial style of other FF7 locations is equally present. Underneath a grungy level of general disrepair that brings Midgar to mind, the park is as clunky as it is beautiful, and venturing into the areas not meant for the public to visit reveals a surplus of machinery held together by shiny, over-sized bolts.

The original FF7 features two areas that draw explicitly on the aesthetic of classic horror, and, unsurprisingly, Ghost Square and Shinra Manor are the most obvious sources of FF7 inspiration in Crow Country. One haunted mansion exhibit in the park ends up feeling a lot closer to Shinra Manor than even FF7 Rebirth's take on the material does, even if the vampire sleeping inside an open coffin isn't Vincent Valentine himself.

Gameplay Differences From FF7 Shouldn't Be Alienating

Survival Horror & RPGs Can Have Shared Appeal

Crow Country's gameplay obviously diverges heavily from FF7's — there aren't any turn-based battles to be found — but it still doesn't feel that far off from the parts of FF7 where battles aren't the focus. Puzzles encourage Mara to prod the environments of the game, and although a surplus of clues prevents anything from rivaling the one or two real head-scratchers in FF7, they're cast in a similar mold. Minigames also feature in Crow Country, and an unlit arcade doesn't remain out of commission forever.

As for the combat, it mostly consists of lining up shots to gun down lumbering, grotesque enemies with a control scheme that splits the difference between retro standards and modern fluidity. On the standard difficulty, it's easy enough to make it through the game without ever dying, so familiarity with the style definitely isn't required. It's also possible to turn off combat entirely and simply focus on solving the challenges of exploration, which is likely to be engaging enough in its own right.

Crow Country Is A Proven Hit That's Perfect For October

A Perfect Halloween Experience For 2024

To be clear, the link between Crow Country and FF7 isn't speculative. The creators of the game weren't shy about referencing it as a chief source of inspiration, slipping it in alongside Resident Evil in some promotional material, like a tweet from developer Adam Vian in March. It's certainly not the only game to be influenced by FF7 in the decades since the release of the juggernaut RPG, but it is one of the few to linger so directly in the aesthetic of FF7's bygone era.

There's also a lot to back up the notion that Crow Country is a standout experience, although that's more subjective by nature. On Screen Rant's review of the game, which places it among the site's most acclaimed titles of the year.

The Halloween season provides a great opportunity to get comfortable with a hot drink and indulge in Crow Country, which fits squarely into the kind of horror that's as oddly comfortable as it is unnerving. It's the perfect time in more ways than one, actually, as an October 16 release for the game on the Nintendo Switch was just announced in a trailer on Nintendo of America's YouTube channel. Considering the focus on reveling in atmosphere, it might not be the best for playing on the go, but the low-poly graphics can remain beautifully intact on a less powerful system.

Crow Country is also coming to PS4 on October 16. The game is already available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

At the end of the day, there's no other game that scratches an identical itch to FF7, but Crow Country might be about as close as it gets in some regards. Although the difference in genre means that the truly horror-adverse should probably still avoid it, it's a great option for anyone comfortable with the slightly more gruesome touch. With several more years likely to before the final chapter of the FF7 Remake trilogy shows up, Crow Country could be a nice way for Final Fantasy 7 fans to spend a few hours of that long wait.

Sources: Adam Vian/Twitter, Steam, Nintendo of America/YouTube