Review for Hollow Cocoon
The hide-from-the-monster game has long since become a staple of the horror genre. Games like Amnesia: The Bunker and Alien: Isolation pit you against an unsettling AI that stalks you as you try to stealthily accomplish some goal. Hollow Cocoon, developed by Japanese studio Nayuta, knows that the success of its predecessors is dependent upon quality AI and distinctive set pieces. It takes cues from other horror stealth games, but its atmosphere and story give it an inimitable feeling. Boasting gorgeous environments and excellent pacing, it provides players with a gameplay loop that may feel familiar, but there’s comfort in familiarity, and this type of horror is effective when done well.
Hollow Cocoon follows Minato Jinba, a college student in 1980s Japan, who’s returned home to the countryside after his grandmother is hospitalized following an accident. While his dad remains at the hospital to care for his grandmother, Minato stays overnight at her house. Low-key exploration soon leads to sheer terror, as it appears someone — or something — has been unleashed on the unassuming house. This is where the hide-and-chase sequences begin. Your goal is to move through the house as quietly as possible, finding a way out while avoiding the monstrous creature within.
Hollow Cocoon has two major gameplay segments with a break in-between. The first of these has you freely exploring your grandmother’s house in first-person view, finding items you need in order to discover a way out. It mostly serves as an introduction to the game’s mechanics. Following this is a brief narrative reprieve, which is much needed for the sake of pacing. Then you find yourself in a larger map, the twisted maze of an old, abandoned mansion that’s full of locked doors. There are plenty of keys to collect, giving it a bit of a Resident Evil vibe. You’ll avoid the monster while solving environmental puzzles and winding your way throughout the mansion, often backtracking to revisit a locked door or interact with an item that requires something you’ve picked up elsewhere. There is another final segment after this one, but I’ll leave that for you to discover.
The monster design takes inspiration from Japanese Yūrei — long-haired ghosts á la Sadako from The Ring. Hollow Cocoon’s eerie monster is reminiscent of Sadako but more gnarled and twisted. Her skin is ghostly pale and scarred. She’s unnaturally tall with long, spindly arms, legs, and fingers. Her eyes are black and insect-like, and her lips are painted a bloody red. The sound design adds to the overall creep factor. Her sporadic, labored breathing is spine-tingling, and at random moments she’ll stop to heave and spit up blood. I was hiding from her at one point, peeking around the corner watching her, when she vomited. While it was as disturbing as you’d expect, it was fantastically horrifying and I’m glad I was able to catch the animation in action.
Most of the gameplay involves sneaking about the mansion and cowering in dark corners or designated hiding spots indicated by a special icon. As long as the monster doesn’t see you entering a hiding place, you’re safe from her prying insectoid eyes. If she sees you hop into a closet, though, she will open the door and attack you. If she spots you while you’re wandering through the mansion, she’ll give chase, prompting you to sprint away. Sprinting can be disorienting, as you navigate the cramped hallways at top speed, and you usually have to hope that you lose her long enough to escape into a hiding spot before she sees where you’ve gone. You do have a stamina meter, but there are pick-ups that restore both your stamina and health, and I found enough of them to honestly make stamina a non-issue.
Save points in the form of glowing talismans are strategically placed throughout the map. They can be used not only to save your game but also to make the monster temporarily flee, as their fiery magic effect will harm her. You can use these talismans strategically, at times when the monster is especially pervasive, to help you slip past and navigate the place without fear of her for a while. You only have a few at your disposal, though, and they can only be used once on Normal difficulty, so a good amount of thought should go into utilizing them. In addition to save points, the game also has checkpoints after major events, such as picking up a key item, making save scumming easy if you get caught and that’s your style.
What this game excels at the most is pacing. When it felt like the monster was omnipresent, I was situated in a good spot to deal with her. I don’t know how much of this is due to Random Number Generators (RNG) or AI, but once I grew accustomed to the map, she never felt too overbearing. The talismans added a nice sense of strategy to the game, giving me some breathing room when I most needed it. The pacing felt just right, and that’s in large part due to some scripted moments as opposed to sheer luck. There are times when the monster will appear not because of RNG but because the game wants it to happen, leading to exhilarating chase sequences in well-thought-out locations, and it was genuinely fun to deal with her in these moments, making me feel almost giddy with fear.
The story is told through scattered documents and journals. Thus, there’s a lot of exposition and reading, which can get tiresome after a while. In the beginning of the game, we’re treated to an artistic collage of a cutscene that’s filled with blood-curdling imagery. More of those would have been welcome versus simply having all of the narrative spoon-fed through writing. That said, the documents and journals are well-written and engaging, making reading much less of a chore than it would be if they were stilted or boring.
Nayuta has done an exceptional job with the atmosphere and environments here, creating an ambience that conveys both horror and all the trappings of Japan in the 1980s. There’s even an old television on which you can flip through channels and watch the Home Shopping Network or a creepy serial reminiscent of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. Most of the time, you’re walking slowly or crouching, and the environments are a pleasure to navigate and just exist in. The shader effects and assets are lovely, and it’s easy to tell that the developers have put a great deal of care into how their game looks.
Sound design is one of the most crucial aspects of a horror game, and as mentioned earlier, the sound in Hollow Cocoon is guaranteed to get your heart pumping. The floor creaks as Minato walks and wind rustles through the trees in the courtyard. When the monster gets close, you can hear her ragged breathing, which is accompanied by sinister orchestral music. During chase sequences, the music heightens, becoming fast-paced and tense. In later moments, when you learn more about the history of Minato’s family, melancholy piano arrangements play as you read the journals.
If you want a break from the narrative and gameplay loop, look no further than the 10-yen-a-pop pinball machines scattered around. No need to question their existence. These minigames offer a nice play-within-play type of reprieve if you need to get away from the monster and take a mental breath for a bit. Depending on how much time you spend doing so, they can add to the game’s length, but I rarely used them and it only took me five hours to finish, making it a relatively short but sweet experience.
Hollow Cocoon is impressive for an indie game and a worthy entry into 2023’s horror-packed year. The lovely environments and effective horror combine to make it a truly compelling experience. I found myself longing for more of the beautifully composed flashback cutscenes, but I appreciate what I was offered. It was classically good fun to figure out how to deal with the monster and sneak my way around the map. As long as developers keep making horror games that mix all the right elements like this one does, I’ll keep playing them, and I’m looking forward to more from Nayuta Studio.
