At first glance, Crow Country is a nostalgia piece. It pulls on the horrific sprawl of Resident Evil, populating its theme-park setting with brain twisters and monsters contorting into human shapes. It borrows from the toy aesthetic of Final Fantasy VII, its characters rendered in blocky, plastic proportions like Playmobil. Yet, it's more than just a throwback, it lays bear the haunted roots of nostalgia culture.
Protagonist Mara Forest visited the titular theme park as a child, but it was not a happy experience. There, a strange man bit her and she gained some terminal illness, which is slowly killing her. She has returned to make things right, find out what happened, and stop it from happening again. She returns to what was, only fleetingly, a site of childhood joy. She finds death, its shadows, its echoes, its remnants.
Crow Country's entire setting is a place of childhood play. The park is clearly designed for small children. It lacks thrilling high-rise roller coasters and is instead populated by graveyard ghoulies, thicket mazes, and fairy-tale stage shows. It's all playful and encouraging. Even the "Haunted Hilltop" section of the park is more trick-or-treat than Horror Nights. But without the bustle of life--the parents and children to animate it--the park gains an eerie quality. This is not an original observation, of course. Theme parks are a common setting throughout horror, but Crow Country begins at the park's gates and ends when Mara leaves them once again. The whole game is enveloped by this childhood environment. It is in the contrast between the toy aesthetic and its eeriness--between theme park and haunted house--that Crow Country builds its horror.
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