Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas Review

Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas Review Screenshot 1

Hitomi Akeneno receives an anonymous invitation to board a luxury cruise ship.  There is also a secret she is carrying with her. She has two psychic powers. That might be the reason she has received the invitation to begin with. The invitation also states specific instructions to meet at a specific room aboard the ship. If you received such an invitation would you accept?  For some reason she decides to accept the invitation but takes her best friend Chisono Shio along for the ride. Upon following the instructions on the invitation she gets stuck in the room and an explosion occurs at the same time on the ship. Now it is up to you to help Hitomi escape with the help of her friends and powers.

When you first start off your goal is to just escape the suite. The farther along you get in this game the more complex things get. The story starts off backwards. The only piece of information you start off with is knowing you are stuck in a room. Everything you need to escape is that room. Once you manage to escape the events that led up to the explosion start to unravel. You learn that the person you were suppose to meet at the suite might be the person behind the explosion. You also meet 2 more girls and the 4 of you try your best to escape the ship and survive.

Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas Review Screenshot 2

Hitomi isn’t the only one with psychic abilities. Her best friend Chisono can use her mind to communicate with people. The other two in the group Merja and Misaki do not have any psychic abilities. Misaki is a singer and Merja is the daughter of the CEO of Amabishi International Industries. Amabishi is the major corporation that just so happens to own the sinking ship they are aboard. Hitomi discovers that Merja has a bomb wrapped around her neck and decides to help her get it off. In order to get it off they must follow a series of clues and directions.

Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas is escape game meets story adventure meets visual novel wrapped up into one game. It is a lot like a visual novel because there is a lot of dialogue in it. It is not wise to skip the dialogue either because you need to read through it in order to figure out what to do next. Unlike most visual novels there is more to it than just dialogue. Hitomi and the others get themselves in some tight spots and it is up to you to help them get of it. You as the player has to explore your various surrounding to find items that will help you escape. To do this all you do is tap on the item through the 3DS lower screen.

You get to use Hitomi’s powers throughout the game. Hitomi can use clairvoyance and telekinesis. Items are hidden in various places such as drawers, closets, and safes. Some of them are locked. That is where her powers come into play. When using her clairvoyance you can see through what you are touching on the lower screen of the 3DS. If a drawer is locked you can use clairvoyance to what is in it. Then using her telekinesis you can move the item you need out of the drawer without opening it. It definitely comes in handy. These powers aren’t unlimited though. You only have a certain amount of points to use with each power. Once all the points are used up you can move any more items or see through anything. You would have to restart the ability all over again.

Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas Review Screenshot 3

Collecting ether throughout the game increases the amount of points you have for each power. The only character you play as throughout the game is Hitomi. Unfortunately you can’t play as Chisono and use her power.The overall goal of the game is to escape from the sinking ship. At times the game feels like a hidden object game. It can get old pretty quick. At first it can be exciting to look for clues like a detective but doing the exact same thing all throughout the game just annoyed me. At times I just wanted to skip it and get to the point. There isn’t a lot of replayability in this game. That is where the story part of the game comes in. Once you beat the story there isn’t anything left to do or figure out.

The graphics are just what you expect from a visual novel except that this is on the 3DS. You get the added 3-D effect which was pretty cool. I won’t say that this game is super easy but it is a challenge. You don’t need to be a video game expert or a genius to play it. What I mostly enjoyed was unraveling the story and finding out who was the master mind behind everything.

Parascientific Escape Cruise in the Distant Seas has pretty good graphics and a good story. I liked the hidden object and mystery part of the game but after awhile it got old and annoying. Overall its a decent game that is worth checking out.

Rating 6

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo 3DS code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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