Synopsis: Fear and anxiety prevail after the darkest tales from Japanese folklore come to life in this first-person psychological horror game. Set in a feudal era, Ikai revolves around the priestess of a shrine struggling to defeat the spirits of her past and her present.
Publisher: PM Studios
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Also available for: PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Cast: Vanille Velasquez, Alice Himora, Hussein Mohammed
Developer: Endflame
Producer & Designer: Laura Ripoll
Artist: Ivan Perez
Programmer: Guillem Travila
Intern Concept Artist: Elisabeth Rubio
I jumped at the opportunity to review Ikai because the Feudal Japanese setting paired with traditional Japanese yokai and creatures from Japanese folklore is unique for the horror space. Unfortunately, even with a solid basis, everything quickly falls apart in Ikai as repetitive gameplay, tedious puzzles and busywork make the 3-4 hour game feel double the length.
You play as Naoko, a priestess left to defend her village against evil spirits. These come one after another, and each haunts and chases Naoko in different ways as she searches for a way to defeat them. This starts as a typical indie horror game as you slowly creep around the village and attempt to evade a creepy woman, and eventually lead to hiding in tall grass in the forest surrounding the village as a snake-like creature slips through the grounds searching for its prey.
For most of your time playing Ikai, you’ll be walking from one point to another while sometimes hiding along the way. When you reach your destination, you’ll probably have a short puzzle to deal with or have to search the surrounding area for an object. The latter is always tedious as opening and closing drawers, and doors in Ikai is clunky, at least on console, as the game uses an on-screen cursor. The puzzles range from super dull and easy to frustratingly obtuse. Neither are two ends of the puzzling spectrum that are any fun, and it’s shocking how not a single puzzle in Ikai manages to hit the middle ground.
There are many translation issues, and I strongly dislike how robotic the English voice sounds, but there is a decent mix of creepy sounds here that makes the atmosphere of the game work. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the design of Ikai’s world and creatures that look cheap and do a disservice to the origins they’re based upon. Texture pop-in was also a constant issue, as was a weird feeling that the game was slowing my character down to help the game catch up with where I was headed.
As much as I enjoyed the folklore exposed in Ikai and came into this game wanting to like it, the short horror experience was a slug to get through from the moment I pressed start. I couldn’t help but keep finding elements and ideas I wished could have been built upon in a better game, which kept my attention enough and gave me a reason to see the story to the finish. Still, there’s nothing scary here, and it’s just frustrating, tedious, and a major letdown.
(Ikai code provided for review)
