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The first time I booted up Crow Country, I remember thinking this might finally be the survival horror experience that brought me back to those tense, resource-scarce nights I spent playing classic titles from the golden era. I've been covering horror games for over a decade now, and while I appreciate innovation, there's something sacred about inventory management and the constant, gnawing fear of running out of ammo. So, you can imagine my surprise when, about two hours into Crow Country, I realized I was essentially a walking armory. The survival aspect, a cornerstone of the genre, is surprisingly forgiving here—some might even say easy. Unless you go out of your way to pick a fight with every single enemy you see, or you're just not exploring the environment at all, you'll find that resources are plentiful. I ended most major sections with over 60 handgun rounds, a dozen med kits, and a handful of antidotes, just sitting there, unused. It completely shifts the dynamic from survival to something closer to a guided tour through a spooky theme park.

This abundance directly impacts the game's tension. The genuine threats to your life are few and far between. I'll admit, the first time one of those small, skittish, Pinocchio-esque creatures darted across my path, my heart did a little jump. They're fast, and their sudden movements are startling. And the sound design deserves credit—the eerie rattle of bones that heralds the arrival of those strangely elongated skeletons is genuinely unsettling. For a moment, it tempts you to just nope the hell out of there. But that feeling is fleeting. Both of these enemy types are relatively rare, and their behavior patterns are simple enough that you quickly learn to breeze past them. They never really pose a sustained danger. I kept waiting for that classic horror moment, the one that defines so many games in this space: the sudden, chaotic ambush. I was braced for a pack of zombie dogs to explode through a window or to encounter some deadly, frog-like creature in a tight, claustrophobic corridor where every shot counts. That moment never came. The sense of challenge, for a veteran like me, was severely lacking. It felt like the training wheels were never taken off.

This leads me to what is, in my professional opinion, the game's most significant departure from genre conventions: the near-total absence of inventory management. For years, I've argued that the limited inventory space in games like the original Resident Evil or Silent Hill isn't just a mechanic; it's a narrative device. It forces you to make difficult choices. Do you take the extra healing item or the key that might open a door to a crucial shortcut? That constant, low-grade anxiety is part of the horror. In Crow Country, that staple is gone. Instead of carefully curating my loadout before venturing into unknown territory, I found I could just carry everything. This was never more apparent than when I walked into the final boss fight. I had all four firearms on me, each fully stocked with ammo. There was no strategic decision-making, no last-minute inventory tetris. I just went in with all my guns blazing. While it was certainly a spectacle, it profoundly diminished any sense of reward from the combat. Beating the boss didn't feel like an achievement born of clever resource management and skill; it felt like an inevitability. The victory was hollow.

Now, I should be clear. This design choice isn't inherently bad. I can see it being a fantastic gateway for players new to survival horror, those who might be intimidated by the genre's traditional difficulty. It lowers the barrier to entry significantly, allowing them to enjoy the atmosphere and story without the frustration. But for someone like me, who craves that specific type of tension, it left me wanting. The game is beautiful, the story has its intriguing hooks, and the sound design is top-notch. Yet, without that ever-present risk of failure driven by scarcity, the horror never truly sunk its teeth into me. It's a fascinating case study in how tweaking a few core mechanics can completely alter the emotional core of a game. Crow Country is a competent and often charming adventure, but for this particular horror aficionado, it was a little too comfortable, a little too safe. It's a great Discover for the genre-curious, but seasoned survivors might find themselves longing for the good old days of desperately counting every last bullet.