Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse [REVIEW] – A Deep Dive Into Supernatural Brilliance 

When Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo launched back in 2023, it felt like a brilliant, one-off anomaly from Square Enix, and as much as I loved it, I never really expected a sequel to grace our screens. So, of course, when Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse was announced, I was really, really excited. And after rolling the credits on the supernatural thriller, I can safely say that it is just as captivating as its predecessor. 

Check out some screenshots down below: 

Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse trades the urban legends of the first game for the coastal folklore of Ise-Shima, specifically setting foot on the remote island of Kameshima. You kick things off in the shoes of Yuza Minakuchi, a young man training to be an Ama diver alongside his friend Azami. This career path immediately ruffles the locals’ feathers, especially since Ama diving is traditionally a female practice, but Yuza has his own motives: five years prior, a devastating storm took his parents and left him as the sole survivor. The superstitious townsfolk reckon he is cursed, but Yuza is determined to uncover the truth about that night – a truth that seemingly ties into local mermaid myths. 

If you played the first game, you will feel right at home with the structure here. It is a visual novel at heart, but you aren’t just passively clicking through endless text boxes – you hop between different character perspectives and timelines, using a mechanic that lets you explore past memories to piece together the overarching mystery. You are going to hit dead ends and you will DEFINITELY stumble into some grim bad endings, but part of the joy of the experience comes in finding ways to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. Thankfully, the mysterious Storyteller from the first game makes a welcome return, popping up periodically to check in or offer a handy clue on how to progress when you have properly messed things up. And believe me, it is incredibly satisfying to take that knowledge, switch to another character’s viewpoint, and suddenly realise how all the moving parts fit together. 

The puzzle design remains a massive highlight, but be warned: The Mermaid’s Curse rarely hands you the answers on a silver platter. Instead of letting you brute force your way through a multiple choice menu, you actually have to deduce the solution and type it out yourself, which often means you will be spending a fair bit of time reading through the in-game encyclopedia and lore entries to connect the dots. It makes you feel like a proper detective, and having a pen and paper handy to keep track of some of your investigative work will make life easier. It’s always rewarding though, and solving the puzzle – especially in some of the more creative enigmas – always feels really, really good. 

“Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse is a masterclass in how to do a mystery visual novel right.“

There are also some neat interactive elements that take advantage of the 360-degree panoramas of the game, like using a hand mirror to check your blind spots when you suspect something nasty is creeping up behind you. The developers even threw in a light Ama diving minigame where you collect sea life, which serves as a nice little breather from all the heavy reading. And yes, the signature fourth wall breaking moments return, demanding that you think outside the box and use your overarching knowledge to alter the fate of the cast. These make for some of the game’s best moments, and there were plenty of times where Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse caught me by surprise with just how clever it could be. 

Speaking of the cast, they really are top notch, with an eclectic mix of personalities, ranging from a clever housewife investigator teamed up with a jujutsu apprentice, to an eccentric fantasy author poking around the island’s legends. The aesthetic bringing them to life is also stunning, featuring expressive brush stroke character portraits layered over highly detailed, immersive backgrounds. Again, if you were a fan of the visual vibe of the first game, you’ll love the look of Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse too. 

The only downside is that there isn’t any voice acting, and for a game with this much text, some folks might find that a bit of a letdown. Personally, I didn’t mind it at all – the ambient sound design and perfectly timed musical cues do a tremendous job of building tension and delivering those spine tingling moments, whilst the first game also didn’t have voice acting, so it’s not like it’s something that has been cut.  

Check out some screenshots down below: 

I’m a big fan of Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse then, but it isn’t completely flawless. The opening hours are a bit of a slow burn, bogged down by some massive information dumps, and some story routes throw a lot of dense Japanese history at you all at once before it even feels relevant to the immediate plot. The first game didn’t suffer from this quite as much, and it did take a bit longer to really get the ball rolling here. A few of the point and click sections also feel a little restrictive in terms of what you can actually interact with in the environment, though that’s more a minor nitpick as opposed to a real issue. 

Developer: Xeen 
Publisher: Square Enix 
Platform(s): PC (Reviewed), Nintendo Switch 
Website: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2701440/PARANORMASIGHT_The_Mermaids_Curse/