Song of Horror is a janky old-school survival horror game that has the origins of a failed Kickstarter campaign, yet somehow, despite the technical flaws it works, and I cannot help but fall for its odd charm.

Failing its Kickstarter in 2015 for some indie developers this might be the end of the road, at least for the game in question. Yet the developers at Protocol Games stuck with it and Song of Horror began its episodic release for PC on Halloween, 2019. Song of Horror would hit a few setbacks before it would release on console, but finally, it arrived on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on May 28^th, 2021.

Firstly, despite initially releasing over five episodes on PC, the console comes with all episodes in a single bundle. I won’t give anything away in terms of the episodes because much of the charm from Song of Horror comes from its cast of ten characters and how their stories will unfold and entwine over its duration.

At first, when I heard that Song of Horror had 10 playable characters, I thought that it might be overkill. Surely with 10 characters, I won’t care about them all that much because the story might get a little convoluted. Thankfully, I was wrong, because I most certainly cared about the characters, well at least most of them. The reason being is that Song of Horror has permadeath, meaning that once a character dies, it’s game over man. Then you’ll choose another character with a different backstory and quirky to lead the way.

In a nutshell, the basis of the story revolves around the disappearance of a writer by the name of Sebastian P. Husher who comes into possession of a spooky musical box.  Little is known about this musical box, other than it seems to be powered by an evil entity known as “The Presence” and whoever encounters it, will likely disappear forever.

Firstly, my incompetence led to my first death. Well in truth, pretty much all my deaths were a result of my incompetence. However, much like over permadeath style games, you will learn each time you die and with a bit of luck, you’ll survive a little longer on your next run. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t lose everything with a death, only a character. All the items that you acquired from your previous run will carry over.

But with each character that you control, you’ll be that little more careful next time. Though as it happened with me, such as not listening for spooky inhabitants beyond the next door, I was soon pulled into the darkness, and it was on to the next character. This permadeath element really emphasizes survival horror, and it soon became one of the aspects that I appreciated about Song of Horror most of all.

Song of Horror also has a quite clever gameplay mechanic that generates dynamic events. Meaning that every time your story restarts, the game will adjust to how well you are performing in the story. So, every time you play Song of Horror, subtle elements should be a little different from your previous playthrough.

Now, Song of Horror is not without its flaws. It doesn’t look all that good, you will most certainly encounter graphical glitches, the facial animations are not great, yet I couldn’t help but fall for this game. Not only is this a great throwback to survival horror games of yesteryear, but it also has the 80s/90s horror movie charm. It might take you a little while to warm up to Song of Horror, but once you have that connection, you’ll be looking forward to your next run.

To conclude, within the first 30 minutes of playing Song of Horror you could easily be put off. I know because I nearly was. However, I stuck with it, and it wasn’t long until I began to fall for its charm. I cannot quite pinpoint exactly what it is about Song of Horror. As I alluded to before, there are some negatives you could highlight about this game at a glance. Yet it has something, and it’s more than just old-school horror and charm. Song of Horror has that something that keeps you going, wanting to learn more, unravel its story, and then go again. From one survival horror fan to another, give Song of Horror a chance and you might be pleasantly surprised.

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