The Coma: Recut

From a gameplay perspective, Coma has little to offer: A 2D exploration through a korean highschool, you can't do anything else but go left or right and interact with objects. There's no challenge to it. You can use a flashlight, but I found it unnecessary. The monster chasing you isn't special either, if at least it's AI were more sophisticated and it had a persistent place in the world so you could logically try to avoid it (think Alien: Isolation style) while it grew more and more powerful with time as the game claims, but doesn't happen gameplay-wise. The sprite changes, but it doesn't actually do anything new. Exploration is dull, as the enviroment is sadly fairly uninteresting. For me, someone living far away from South Korea, a legitimate look at a highschool there would be very interesting, instead you're running around in a dark building and you don't get to actually see how the school runs. It's drawn well, I guess. The animations could be more fluid though. Story-wise, which for me could excuse the gameplay, *if* it were good, is sadly as dull as the gameplay. The characters are stereotypes, the notes around the building are uninteresting and don't give a good enough look into an entirely different culture to excuse to bad characters and plot. I couldn't even bring myself to finish this game, and stopped, what seems to be half-way through. The driving motivation (to get out of the school) isn't strong enough as I don't care about the player character at all. Considering the game advertises itself as "showing the stressful life of a highschool student in South Korea" it spends very little time in the real world. I'd rather have the mistery be more subtle, grounded in the real world so you get to explore the school while it is intact, get to experience those stories you keep reading the notes about. That's the problem: The notes (the only "lore" in the game) tease interesting stuff, but you don't get to see it.

The Coma Recut is a definitive edition of The Coma: Cutting Class, which was a mobile release. Even in the Recut edition the game was not able to entirely shake its mobile roots, so the gameplay is fairly simple and at times clunky. It's a 2D survival horror game. The graphics are drawn by hand and feel surprisingly vibrant because of it. The sound is fine, pretty minimalistic but not offensively bad. The gameplay loop consists of avoiding or escaping the enemy while trying to make your way through a nightmare version of a school. In true survival horror fashion there are puzzles involved and combat is outright not an option. The game forces you to rely on your hearing to notice when the enemy is approaching, and then avoid her. Unfortunately there is some backtracking involved which pads out the game time. The enemy challenge grows over time though, forcing you to adapt your strategy somewhat. The story is pretty good. It serves as an introduction into a greater universe that the devs continued to flesh out in a later title. There are several different endings, but they rely on you making decisions regarding optional objectives in the mid part of the game. This means that in order to see every ending you need to tread through the lengthy end-game section several times. If you liked the first Clock Tower, this is a K-Horror version of it with a more fleshed out story. Nice for about five hours of horror experience, but it slightly overstays its welcome with the ending hunting. The devs did develop their formula in the Coma 2 and there is a Back To School edition which includes both entries, get that one if you are interested.

A 2D side-scrolling survival horror game set in a nightmarish version of a Korean school. The art style was what captivated me, and kept me playing. I enjoyed getting the notes as I explored and piecing together the story, as well as witnessing the way the school transformed. The creature hunting you is also genuinely scary. There were times where I got frustrated and needed multiple reloads to try and proceed, but consider this a minor gripe to an overall positive play experience.

Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of the "run and hide" horror genre. I prefer games like Lone Survivor, where you can actually fight back. The game's strongest point is its atmosphere, genuinely creepy and unsettling. I also liked the art style. But that's where my enjoyment ended. The run & hide mechanic gets old really fast. The enemy encounters sometimes seem random, but sometimes the enemy camps out in areas you're trying to explore or go past. Getting past the enemy isn't hard, but forget about trying to explore the area and collect various lore-notes and such. The controls are not very good. If you're examining your surroundings, or have the map open and the enemy appears, good luck trying to cancel out so you can run. The game has stamina-restoring items, but again, good luck trying to use one when it counts. Game badly needs a quick-slot for using items when literally on the run. The last area was particularly frustrating. I got one seemingly bad ending, did not have the patience to replay, so watched the rest on youtube. All of them were disappointing. I might have given this game 3 stars, but endings earned it a 2. I would only recommend Coma: Recut it if you got a really good discount, otherwise forget it.