SANRI

Welcome to 2023; let's greet you with another psychological horror game. SANRI is arguably the first indie title to land this year, following the same formula as so many other games, yet trying to strike fame with their terrifying narrative. The rinse and repeat in some of these games is becoming tiresome, and it's getting to a point where it will have to do something truly extraordinary to catch player attention.

SANRI doesn't stray from the typical narrative or mechanics around these first-person indie psychological horrors. A loved one has gone missing, and it's your job to piece together the puzzle of where she went. The only difference is this time, a bunch of weird camp monsters is chasing you down. So will SANRI impress or fall into the standard genre pile?

No Hand Holding

It's never a great sign when you fire up a game and don't know what to do. That's immediately the feeling in SANRI, where entering the game world raises more questions than it does answer. You're in a camp, looking around, but not sure why you should feel a sense of urgency. Oh yeah, your wife has disappeared! You should find her, right?

Gameplay is standard for the genre. Players take a first-person perspective, trolling around the campsite to find clues about their wife's whereabouts. Things start to come together when you cross paths with some weird-looking frogmen and get a little more urgent when they chase you down, attempting to rip you apart. It's your eureka moment when you realize your wife's disappearance and the monsters might be connected.

The entire playthrough of SANRI consists of three things. Those are finding and looking at things, exploring the deep dark forest, and running away from humanoid creatures. The latter is a hybrid between terrifying and humorous, with the visuals and animations of those characters looking ever-so absurd. But what about the other two things? Just standard to piece the narrative together.

SANRI is entertaining enough as a psychological thriller despite its lack of direction. But a few bugs could irritate players and hinder their enjoyment of what should be a seamless rollercoaster of jump scares. Still, it builds enough of an atmosphere. It integrates enough interactivity to give the game a leg over similar titles.

The Frogman's Legacy

So does SANRI burst out of the average bag with its take on psychological thrillers? Not really. The exploration mechanics seem like a lazy attempt to gloss over the fact that there wasn't a solid plan for a straight horror gameplay experience, especially when the developers had to come out and justify them. It's hardly a Phasmophobia if you're looking for a hallmark to compare the game.

Round-Up - Pros & Cons

Pros:

• A well-curated atmosphere for a horror game
• Added NPCs enhance the experience
• Genuine scares throughout the game

Cons:

• Little direction from the beginning to end
• Character animations look a bit ridiculous
• Mechanically not very exciting