Ikai PS5 Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

Ikai PS5 Free Download GAMESPACK.NET I’m a huge horror fan, and I’ve yet to encounter a sub-genre that I don’t enjoy. However, there are some sub-genres that I tend to gravitate towards more than others, one of which happens to be Japanese horror, and this is for a magnitude of reasons, several of which are on display in Ikai. If you’re unfamiliar with PM Studios’ latest title Ikai, it’s a psychological horror game that derives inspiration from Japanese folklore, which just happens to be some of the most fascinating legends you can come across, to me at least. It should certainly tell you that from a narrative perspective, Ikai has plenty to offer. As such, that’s where I’ll start. In Ikai, you find yourself in a Shinto shrine, and the game begins with a rather mundane task of learning to draw symbols. However, while it seems nonsensical, it’s a smart way to get you to familiarise yourself with the mechanic, which is essential for what’s to come. So in that regard, the symbol sequence is great, but several more lacklustre tasks follow, which adds to the initial lack of interest I felt. Eventually, it’s time for you to do the laundry, so off you go to find it – and there’s no map or guidance marker throughout the game.TOP/BEST ADULT VIDEO GAMES IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA)

Ikai PS5 Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

You just need to wander aimlessly until you stumble upon what it is you desire – a feature that I can appreciate to an extent, but my frustration was paramount at the beginning of my journey. However, the surroundings are haunting yet beautiful, so walking around a pond and through various buildings isn’t such an arduous task. Nonetheless, once I found those dirty clothes the time came to leave the shrine and head to a nearby river to complete the task. But alas, a giant door stood in my way! And here’s where another major mechanic that Ikai relies on comes into play – puzzles. Yes, because this is one horror game that trope that many deem to be quintessential, when in reality they aren’t always necessary, and can even be detrimental to the experience of the player. Anyway, I finally leave the grounds of the shrine, and it’s at this moment that Ikai’s beauty truly hits me – the forest is luscious, and it begs for exploration, though that’s far from the point of this game (outside the shrine, at least). So, I take great pleasure as I walk through my serene surroundings, and listen to the wonderful sounds of nature. That is, until I come across a scene that not only intrigues me and my character, but fills the pair of us with dread.

Fell The Fear.

At first glance, it might not seem like an issue, but upon closer inspection, you find what appears to be a ritualistic dagger, and, as every single horror protagonist would, you pick up the knife, which causes you to pass out. Were this real life, I certainly would run for the hills, and pray at the shrine from the next town over. Sadly, that isn’t an option here. So it’s time to walk through the forest at night. What was once a beautiful sight now emits terror. In the dark, this place loses itself, and thrusts a thick atmosphere upon you, which only intensifies as you slowly work your way back to the shrine. However, I hasten to say that one puzzle you must complete felt completely unnecessary and served as more of a hindrance than anything else. You need to discover a path through some flames, and frankly, it feels like content stuffing, when you could simply return to the shrine and bask in a horrifying ambience before the true terror begins. At this point, I should say that you encounter various pages, each of which has information on different Japanese spirits – this is no coincidence, and it serves you well to pay attention to the history of the evil beings that now walk the grounds of the shrine.HYPER DEMON

Ikai PS5 Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

This is where Ikai truly shrines, because the implementation of Japanese folklore is fantastic, and the narrative embraces the element fully. Not once does it lose itself, as determination to cleanse the area fills you. Speaking of which, now that you’re back at the shrine and the village that encompasses it, you need to dispel the evil spirits, which you do so through the use of symbols. Those lessons at the start of the game now pay off, but it’s not as simple as drawing a random symbol in a peaceful and secluded area. The mythological beings you need to cleanse from this place aren’t friendly, nor are they in a rush to leave, so after you grab some ink and parchment, it’s time to evade and evict those that want to kill you. Of course, when you do find a table and a brief moment of reprieve, it’s vital that you’re both fast and somewhat accurate when you draw the symbol. The bulk of Ikai’s gameplay takes place in and around a small shrine deep in the woods. The environment is surprisingly mazelike and presents plenty of opportunities for getting turned around. After a brief introduction you’ll begin taking on malevolent spirits one after another as you seek to cleanse them from this once peaceful shrine.

DRAWING.

You don’t have any traditional weapons, so most encounters come down to some exploration and perhaps some light puzzle solving before ultimately needing to put enough distance between yourself and an enemy so that you can create a seal. Creating seals isn’t a particularly deep mechanic, but it is perhaps the most unique thing you’ll be asked to do. At key points you’ll use your controller to write out a specific symbol on a scroll. This feels an awful lot like any Mario Party minigame in which you need to trace a specific shape, and it works about as well. That being said, you do feel a real sense of tension as you scramble to complete it with a demonic creature banging around on the other side of a wall. The yokai themselves are mostly well designed. Some translate better than others from classical illustration into 3D models, but the net perception is positive. Throughout the journey you’ll find hidden pages containing lore on each one and a more traditional illustration. They’re varied as well, making each one visually unique, even if gameplay usually amounts to just hiding and running. Your only tool is the ability to paint sigils that will banish the creatures, which requires you to walk or, in emergencies, perform a slight trot to carry you from room to room in your shrine, avoiding the ghosts until you can overcome them.White Day: A Labyrinth Named School Switch NSP

Ikai PS5 Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

That’s a fine premise for horror. Games like Alien: Isolation and Fatal Frame make hay out of reversing the power fantasy of most video games, giving you the heebie-jeebies by putting the player in a situation where you can’t win by fighting, but by hiding or standing still. Where Ikai stumbles is that while it puts you in the situation of being in a feudal-era shrine fighting creatures from folklore, it forgets that I have no idea what it means to be in a feudal-era shrine fighting creatures from mythology. It doesn’t so much throw you in the pool’s deep end, it blindfolds you, throws you in a bag, spins you around several times, and then throws you into an empty swimming pool with no ladders. I get what they’re going for; the iterative process of a Souls-like game where you keep trying and trying until you finally have an “a-ha!” moment that allows you to finally overcome your foe. But it doesn’t feel like a Souls game, it feels like one of those insane point and click adventures where you have to put the fish in the bird feeder so that the cuckoo will drop the rainbow sticker on that one you can paint back using the bucket of tar then wear as a mustache to fool the guard at the book store.

STEALTH & RUN.

The biggest difficulty of the game is simply knowing what you’re supposed to do. You start Ikai helping your master by making sigils using a simple drawing mechanic: you pick up the pen and match the pattern on the paper. After that, you have to sweep the shrine. Okay. But,where’s the broom? Good question. There are several doors in the room, and if you go out any of them to find the broom, you can easily get lost as you roam the compound. Is there a map? There is not. Ikai is a first-person psychological horror game that heavily takes inspiration from Japanese folklore and sees you assume the role of Naoko, a young priestess tasked with protecting a shrine from various evil spirits and yokai. Sadly, this is about as strong as the game’s story gets, with it being told mostly through notes found in-game as well as short sections of [terrible] narration given by Naoko herself. The gameplay is rather simple; you will be exploring a linear area solving puzzles, collecting items, and avoiding demons. There is no combat, so Naoko’s only defence is to run, crouch, and hide making it rather monotonous at times.

This gameplay loop does get boring pretty quickly and the act of looking through drawers and cupboards feels as exhausting as it is awkward. Not to mention that the act of getting caught by demons and monsters that are stalking you is infuriating since some of them have no telltale signs that they are close by, resulting in you getting jump-scared and having to restart from your last checkpoint. The puzzles you will encounter and be tasked with completing in Ikai can be both rewarding and infuriating. Some will require a little bit of clever thought to figure out but that’s very few and far between. The majority of them are either way too simple, or insanely difficult in the way that you would never ever think of the solution without a quick Google search. Where Ikai succeeds is through its building of suspense and atmosphere, because let’s face it, no horror game is going to do well without that. The game does a good job of creating a chilling ambience mostly through its use of good sound design; creaking floorboards, mysterious banging, and unexplained whispers help to prepare for whatever spookiness you’re going to come up against next.

Ikai PS5 Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

Unfortunately, the visuals don’t come across as well as the game’s audio. Ikai looks okay, average at best, but that’s not the problem. The game suffers from numerous issues such as texture pop-in, which makes loading in just a little more frustrating. Not only are the loading times a little longer than I would like, but you then also have to wait another few seconds for textures to load in too. On top of this, the game’s resolution is extremely low resulting in a consistently poor frame rate whether you are playing in handheld mode or docked. The game’s controls, as simple as they are, feel quite sluggish. Walking at your normal speed feels incredibly slow but sprinting feels abnormally quick, making chases quite awkward. Not only that but the act of opening doors, drawers, and cupboards in a timely manner was tricky, to say the least. It just seemed rather heavy. Ikai also sees you physically drawing seals onto paper using a paintbrush which – as interesting as it seemed at first – was not only difficult to do quickly whilst being chased, but it also doesn’t feel natural or smooth.Amnesia

Note: This game will only run on consoles with the original firmware that are connected to the PSN online account and purchased the game from PSN.

ADD ONS/PATCHES AND DLC’S: Ikai PS5