Paranormal Motel
- March 11, 2022
- SeedWall
"Paranormal Motel" is a first-person horror game with a focus on attention to detail and immersive atmosphere, featuring realistic graphics and American motel setting. As a walking simulator, the game encourages interaction with decorative objects and offers a psychological horror experience, where a ordinary night takes a turn for the worse.
Reviews
- The game features a unique and interesting setting, particularly the hotel environment.
- The graphics are aesthetically pleasing, showcasing nice character design and visuals.
- For its low price, the game offers a brief experience that can be entertaining if approached with the right expectations.
- The game is plagued by numerous bugs and glitches, leading to a frustrating experience.
- Gameplay is extremely short, often taking less than 30 minutes to complete, which many players found disappointing.
- Voice acting and translations are poorly executed, detracting from the overall immersion and quality of the game.
- graphics5 mentions
- 60 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 40 % negative mentions
The graphics are noted to be aesthetically interesting and surprisingly good for a low-cost game, although some users found them inconsistent, particularly when settings are adjusted. While the visuals may stand out, the overall experience is marred by cheesy jump scares and a lack of engaging gameplay.
“Aesthetically quite interesting, so I'm still recommending it.”
“The graphics might be amazing, but the jump scares are cheesy and the game is generally boring.”
“I realized one hotel room is completely pitch black if you turn your graphics down.”
“Keep in mind this is a dollar, so I wasn't too surprised that the voices were poor, but I was surprised by the graphics.”
“From then on, I realized one hotel room is completely pitch black if you turn your graphics down.”
- story5 mentions
- 40 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 60 % negative mentions
The game's story is criticized for being short and poorly written, with significant grammatical errors and inconsistencies, such as misgendering the main character. Additionally, the narrative touches on sensitive themes like child abuse, which some players found troubling. Overall, while the gameplay may be enjoyable, the story leaves much to be desired.
“The game is so short that you can beat it in less than 30 minutes, and my game time was mostly due to cooking and cleaning. When I finally sat down to play, I found that the English was poor, the grammar was bad, and the story written out at the very end was also full of mistakes, including referring to the female character as a male.”
“I ended up watching someone else's playthrough to see the finished story.”
“This isn't a bad game, but it would be better if they came up with a different story that didn't include child abuse or even allude to it.”
- gameplay4 mentions
- 75 % positive mentions
- -50 % neutral mentions
- 75 % negative mentions
The gameplay features a unique skirt mechanic that adds some enjoyment, but overall, character movement feels robotic and lacks fluidity. While the gameplay runs smoothly, it may strain lower-end hardware.
“The skirt mechanic was pretty nice.”
“While gameplay is smooth, I can hear my laptop screaming.”
“Other than the skirt mechanic, the character movement seems very robotic.”
“The controls feel unresponsive, making it frustrating to execute basic actions.”
“The gameplay lacks fluidity, resulting in a disjointed experience.”
- stability2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game is criticized for being quite unstable, with numerous bugs that detract from the overall experience. While some users find humor in its quirks, the consensus is that it requires significant improvements to achieve better stability.
“Kind of a buggy mess.”
“It has some jank charm (the text-to-speech voice action can border on hilarious at times), but it's really just too buggy and needed some more work.”
- atmosphere2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game features an interesting setting that contributes to a great atmosphere, especially when played on epic settings. However, despite the appealing ambiance, users note that other aspects of the game are poorly executed.
“The setting is interesting and the atmosphere is great.”
“When played on epic settings, the game truly delivers a nice atmosphere.”
- humor2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is characterized by a charming jankiness, particularly highlighted by the amusing text-to-speech voice action. However, many users feel that the overall experience is hindered by bugs, suggesting that the humor could have been more effective with additional polish.
“It has some jank charm; the text-to-speech voice acting can be hilarious at times.”
“I wanted to be funny about the review, and I was very close to writing a stupid analogy, but nah.”
- music1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The music in the game has received a positive reception, with users expressing strong affection for its quality and emotional impact.
- character development1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Reviewers highlight the positive strides in character development, particularly noting the strong design and depth of female characters, which adds a refreshing dimension to the game's narrative.
“Finally, some good female character design.”