Square Enix’s acclaimed 2023 mystery visual novel Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo recently got a sequel titled Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse. Launching to Overwhelmingly Positive reception on Steam, the game retains much of the original title’s supernatural and spooky vibes, telling a story about mermaid legends on Japan’s Ise-Shima.
On the other hand, the sequel also tones down some of the more straightforward horror elements of the first Paranormasight. Talking to Game*Spark in a post-launch interview, series director and scenario writer Takanari Ishiyama and producer Kazuma Oushu were relieved to hear that The Mermaid’s Curse comes across as less scary, commenting that the subdued horror was something they purposely aimed for.
“While there are still some scary scenes, we decided early in development not to make it a hardcore horror game. The reason is that with the previous title, we got a surprising number of people telling us ‘If only it didn’t have horror elements’ or ‘I’d play it if it weren’t for the jump scares.’ So for this game, we want to loudly proclaim, We’re not doing horror this time. Rest assured,” Ishiyama explained.
To begin with, the director considers horror elements an “addition” to Paranormasight (whose main focus is its mysteries), meaning it would be a shame if the horror were pronounced enough to drive players away. Still, that’s not to say the goal was to eliminate horror – conscious of the part of their playerbase that enjoys the genre, the developers sought to do away with jump scares and outright horror elements, but still deliver a scary “occult” experience.
Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse is out now for PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch 2, iOS and Android.
