Next in our Indi bought a lot of cheap games on the PS sale and now she's reviewing them series is Loco Parentis by dev Fair Games Studio. You have just moved into a new flat but when you leave to meet your friend to bring her to your new place, you meet what appears to be a little girl who has lost her mother. Horror Ensues.
The action takes place wholly in the never-ending stairwell of your unkempt building. Upon meeting the little girl for the first time she is snatched up by an old woman and you are tasked with saving her. You must pop balloons that hold her last breaths with a gun you are gifted by a mysterious woman calling herself Mother. There's a lot of complicated familial relationships in this game, or I suppose I should say pseudo-familial? But I digress.
Of course, the little girl isn't who she seems. She's a malevolent spirit who makes you torture the other residents of the building in increasingly elaborate ways. The Crone drowned in her own bath. The Repairman gets stabbed with one of his own tools. The Other was brutally stabbed. The Photographer was burnt to death in his own dark room. The Medic was sacrificed to become one of the Mothers the little girl used to protect herself.
For the most part you have to go along with the little Hellion, there being no other recourse. The true pivotal moment is a few minutes from the end, where you can either sit in the chair, offering yourself up as the new Mother, shoot yourself in the face and deny the demon or shoot 5 dolls containing the other residents to free them and let them have their vengeance. Unfortunately it is very unclear that you even have a choice, there being very few indicators that you can do anything other than go along with the little girl like you have all game. I had to Google it when there were achievements I was missing. I would have liked it if there was more of an indication that rebellion was even possible, my previous attempts to change my fate thwarted by the game.
So what does Loco Parentis have you do? The gameplay involves traversing various levels of the unending apartment building completing various tasks, for example destroying "traitors" by stabbing a child's chalk drawing on the walls. It's very much a "can you find the things required and not die?" sort of vibe. There aren't any puzzles as such, it's more like an extended fetch quest. I didn't hate it though, and I think that's down to the monster design.
Loco Parentis has the highest honour I can bestow upon a game - it managed to scare me. This hasn't happened since Outlast broke me so full props for that. The variety of monsters and hazards made me genuinely fearful about what lay on the next floor. The worst for me were the Hungry - translucent monsters I often didn't see until it was too late. Special mention to The Shadows, they didn't hunt you but I ran face first into one several times and it scared the bejesus out of me.
Loco Parentis wasn't a complex game by any stretch of the imagination, but it was fun, which is the most important thing a game can be. Sure the voice acting in English was a little clumsy but I believe the native language of the dev team was Russian, so honestly they did a better job than I would. Overall it was a competent horror at an excellent price. Well worth picking up.
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