Noroi Kago: The Cursed Domain is More Frustrating Than Scary

The games market is not short of multiplayer horror games these days. Whether it’s the asymmetric PvP entries like Dead By Daylight or the team-based PvE of Phasmophobia, there are more than enough options right now. Noroi Kago: The Grudged Domain follows in the footsteps of the latter. You and your friends must work together to deal with a stalking horror before everyone dies.

Noroi Kago: The Grudged Domain is set in a dark supernatural world occupied by yokai. However, you won’t find goofy butt-grabbing turtles and plaster walls that like to block hallways as a joke. Instead, these yokai are out for your blood and will obtain it if you don’t escape fast enough.

At present, there are two of these yokai to challenge you. The Gyuki is a gigantic spider with an oni face who stomps around leaving poisonous clouds everywhere and the Hyakume is a mass of flesh and eyeballs that operates a surveillance system. You are trapped in an isolated space with one of these creatures and must unlock the exit before they get you.

To escape from this nightmare, you need to break the locks sealing the exit. This can only be done by collecting cursed items hidden around the map, cleansing them in a special well and then using them on specific figures. Do this the correct number of times and the exit will open, leaving you free to escape. However, the yokai is constantly stalking around and will hinder your progress as much as possible.

The first thing to note about Noroi Kago is how atmospheric it is. The game uses a stark desaturated color palette that emphasises the cursed nature of the locations. It’s as if the presence of the yokai has drained all life from the world. This is enhanced with stark shadows and a grainy filter that all combine to feel like you’re playing a flashback from a Fatal Frame game.

You and your friends will quickly begin to feel like the hapless stars of those flashbacks while playing the game too. This is because you’ll find yourself constantly dying in horrible ways due to how aggressive the yokai tend to be. While on one hand there is a palpable tension from this, it can also make for an endlessly frustrating experience. I played this with a friend and we both found similar annoyances in the game’s current balance.

One of the principal problems of the game right now is how difficult it can be to keep track of where the yokai is. While some mystery is welcome, there weren’t many warnings when entering the creature’s vicinity, allowing us to make appropriate decisions about hiding or defending ourselves. I lost track of how many times the coast seemed clear, only for the creature to suddenly pop up behind me. These things are fast too. There were multiple occasions where my friend had been killed on the other side of the map, only for me to turn around and find it was suddenly on me. The detection seemed unfair too, with the creature seemingly able to find us through walls and floors.

These frustrations were only amplified when facing off against the Hyakume. When it’s chosen as the yokai, the stage becomes populated with floating eyeballs. If these eyes see you, the yokai will teleport directly into its position and give chase. Walking near an eyeball also slows your walk speed. In theory, these add an interesting element to the action, as you have to stay vigilant for these eyes and plan accordingly. In practice they have an alarming tendency of spawning in large groups in extremely inconvenient places. In one of our games, three eyeballs spawned directly on the cleansing well, making it impossible to cleanse a single item in that game without being instantly spotted.

On top of this, there are additional mechanics to deal with. The game features a curse system, where you can be turned into a half yokai that needs to cleanse themselves with chalk and a mirror before you can return to the task at hand. Another interesting wrinkle on paper, but neither of us could figure out what caused the status. With so little explanation, it ended up being an annoyance rather than something that made the game more interesting.

All this is compounded by an item system that only lets you carry one thing at a time. While there are defensive items you can use to keep a yokai at bay, they occupy the same pocket as the items you need to collect to win, meaning you’ll likely never pick them up. Similarly, the chalk you need to cleanse yourself also occupies this single slot, meaning a lot of shuffling items around at annoying times. With the yokai’s tendency for surprise greetings in the middle of doing that, the game swiftly moves from scary to annoying.

It's a shame these frustrations are so common within the average game of Noroi Kago, because there’s potential here. So many of the gameplay systems show promise, but it’s the current execution that makes it all so unpleasant to play at present. The balance is a significant part of what makes the game truly feel like an Early Access release that needed some additional testing.

However, because it’s Early Access, it’s clear that improvements could be on the way. As such, I do have some suggestions for how the game can be great in 1.0. Our main gripe while playing was feeling the yokai had every advantage and we felt like we had little ability to turn the tide in our favor. Even just a handful of these changes would improve the experience.

Allow the player to carry one defensive item as well as the quest-critical item (dropping this for chalk can stay, since you can only cleanse either yourself or the items anyway). Add some music cue that plays as the yokai gets closer, allowing the tension to be maintained but giving the player time to react and plan accordingly. Reduce how much the yokai can seemingly detect players through walls. Offer the ability to temporarily remove the Hyakume’s eyeballs. Extend the time limit, which feels way too short for the amount of searching you need to do to succeed. And most importantly, clearer explanations for how the curse system works would be welcome.

The lack of content is also a problem right now. As well as the two yokai, there are only two maps – a mansion and an abandoned hospital – so you’ll find yourself playing everything the game has to offer within a couple of hours. There are also only four playable characters, enough for a full party to have someone unique, but they all play largely the same. Some variation in the cast would help make things more interesting. Give the construction worker the ability to repair broken doors or give the chef faster healing on his allies, for example.

Right now, Noroi Kago: The Grudged Domain is an interesting idea with potential. With the right balance adjustments and a lot more content, this could easily become a fun time to gather your horror-loving friends around. In its current state, it’s a little too frustrating to be fun or scary.

Noroi Kago: The Cursed Domain is out now in Early Access for Steam.

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