Dare to Climb the Cursed Mountain?

I’m not going to lie. Apart from Dead Space: Extraction, Cursed Mountain is an incredible third-party game, though it’s not my favorite, and I’m saddened to see that it’s received such poor sales. No matter how hard a third-party developer strives to make games on the Wii, nobody seems to give real credit towards them whether it’s from other developers or from fanboys, or whether the game is Mature-rated or not. And when they do give credit, they don’t really mean it because “it’s the Wii”, “it’s on the Wii”, and my favorite “the Wii is a toy for kids”. Of course, there are exceptions as some people and developers don’t think that way.

The third-party developer I’m talking about of course in this case, as you can clearly see on the box art, is Deep Silver Vienna. Now why am I caring about some third-party developer company who just wants to make money like every other company? Why should you or I care about the company anyway? Why am I even reviewing a game that’s already a Mature-rated flop?

Well I’ll tell you why:

First of all, the Presentation 8/10:

Cursed Mountain is a new IP that could’ve had an impact on gaming, mainly the horror and exploration genres. This is not your Silent Hill, Ju-On: The Grudge, or Calling haunted house game. This is not your Nazi Zombies or Left 4 Dead either. You’re not exploring haunted houses or buildings, you don’t have a flashlight, there are no zombies, and there are no guns. Instead you’re climbing the Himalayas with only your climbing gear, and a magical axe. The axe is powered by Buddhist Prayers which you use to fight off evil spirits of the dead. How many horror games have you seen that offer something like this?

Graphics 10/10:

I know, I know, graphics aren’t everything, but this game…this is the most beautiful game I’ve laid my eyes on (for a third-party game that is; Nintendo still tops them all). This game, in my opinion, has the best graphics engine to date that I rate it even above and beyond Monster Hunter 3 and The Conduit’s engines. Sure the cut-scenes are still-arts, but once you see the game in person, your jaw will drop to the floor. Video quality on the net does not do the game justice at all. You can see banners, flags, and tents being blown in the wind, dust being blown up from the air. When walking in a blizzard, you literally can’t see an object until you’ve walked up to it. You may want to turn the brightness on max during a part where it’s dark because you can’t see a darn thing unless you keep moving forward (spoiler: you’re literally drugged in this part). There is no PS2-like quality seen anywhere with this game.

Overall, you can definitely see the production value and how hard DSV has worked on this game to making it look as beautiful as it is, but as I’ve said earlier, graphics aren’t everything. What about controls?

Controls 9/10:

Like I said in Presentation, there are no guns and no zombies you fight off with. Instead, you’re given your climbing gear and a magical axe powered by Buddhist Prayers written on parchments. After all, you’re climbing the Himalayas, not High Charity. You use the axe as you would in Third-Person-Shooters, but it’s not all about shooting random magic spells at spirits. Each spirit has a specific damage limit to how many times you “shoot” the axe. For example, the first spirit you encounter can only be “shot” once. Once the spirit is paralyzed, you follow the on-screen prompts that match the particular spell to silence the spirit once and for all. As you progress through the game, you gain new spells with new gestures and enemies will need to be "shot" more than once.

There are also little gestures such as climbing an icy wall, and running from a cave-in. With icy walls, you use the Wiimote as one chisel and the Nunchuck the second and you move them in rhythm as you climb. Move them faster to climb faster, but watch out the walls may give away and you could be falling to your death. Think of it as when you’re playing Modern Warfare 2 and you’re climbing the icy cliff in the beginning of the third level. With controls like these, it really makes you feel as if you’re climbing the mountain itself, no joke.

The aiming is flawless like in the Metroid Prime Trilogy. There is no lag, whatsoever. The controls respond very well, despite the main character moving like he’s stuck in mud. Also, it might be a little hard to register up movements when doing on-screen prompts.

Sound 10/10:

Listening to Buddha music and chanting is just awe-inspiring to your ears (well to some maybe). Sound effects are extremely well, as you can hear the wind and storm blowing across the mountain range. Voice acting is very, very well done.

Story 8/10:

I gave you some spoilers in the story already, so I might as well give you a brief summary, even though I’m not the story-summary type. You play as Eric Simmons, hired by archeologist Edward Bennett, to search for an artifact. Your brother has already gone to retrieve the artifact, but something has gone wrong. Now you must climb the harsh and creepy mountain to search for your brother while battling the creepy Buddha Spirits cast by the angry goddess of the mountain.

Some of this may seem like it’s been taken out of some horror flick you’ve seen before, but I don’t watch horror movies or read horror stories, so I wouldn’t know if this is an original horror story or not. But to me, this is what an original horror story should be. The last cut-scene though is very stupid which is why I deduct points.

Game-play 8/10:

Well, for a game that’s obviously about a cursed mountain, there has to be a cursed mountain in the game right? And obviously, you’re a climber trying to climb said mountain right? I’ve pretty much explained about half the game-play here which was the combat, but did I tell you that there are extremely hard boss battles?

The other half of the content involves puzzles, which are very inventive and clever. However the main objective, which gets kind of repetitive, is to try to unlock doors that bare a symbol and in order to do that, you need to find the matching symbol across the level. But how do you find said matching symbol? Well, that’s where the puzzles come in. Each puzzle itself is very unique. The only one I can remember at this point is one where you have to record the voices of 3 specific ghosts. In order to get near a ghost, you must carefully walk your way towards them without stepping into spikes. These spikes generate a toxin that, when stepped on, the ghosts will evade and you’ll have to start all over again. There are also a few hidden collectibles which increase your health bar, and to heal you must fine a shrine and have matches that can be collected as you go along. Once you run out of matches, however, you’re done for when a boss arrives.

Replay-ability 1/10:

Here’s where things get iffy. After you’ve done all that climbing and found your brother, what happens next? Well, nothing actually. There’s no point in climbing the mountain again, now that the curse has lifted. And I mean that literally. There’s no difficulty setting, no side quests, nada. The levels are long, but there are so few. And what point would there be if multiplayer was put in? There’s no level select, which means if you want to collect a few artifacts you missed you must play the entire game all over again. With the lack of content, you might be wondering why this is a full retail game in the first place. But sometimes it’s not just about the quantity, it’s the quality of the quantity that matters, and because of that this game should at least be considered a rent rather than a buy. That is, if there are any copies left at your nearest gaming store.

Overall 8/10:

Cursed Mountain is definitely a game that may not truly shine, but adds a sparkle to one of the many gems you can find on the Wii crown. It’s truly a shame that Deep Silver Vienna had to close down after putting all their effort into this game.

Next up is the tried-and-true Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.

And on a side note, reviews made by “Guest” in the review section are actually mine for those who don’t know.

Nice review, and i agree about the 3rd party support thingy.