PAX West Spotlight:The Coma 2- Vicious Sisters
The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters is a Korean survival horror-adventure. Venture from your deserted school to survive the horrors of the night. Explore the surrounding Sehwa district and uncover the shadow realm's dark secrets. Use everything at your disposal to avoid a demoness hellbent on killing you!
Straight up, I was bad at this game but I liked it. Pretty sure I died about ten minutes into my demo and if it wasn't for the clamoring line behind me, I would have loaded up and tried it again. Unfortunately, I'm polite and didnt abuse my media powers to ask for another go (even though a part of me really wanted to) With that said, The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters is a fun horror game
The plot to the Coma 2: Vicious Sisters is shrouded in mystery and that's on purpose. You play Mina, who- for whatever reasons- finds herself waking up at school. Yet, everything about the school and the environment has drastically changed. Mina finds herself literally in a horror backdrop and cant figure out how or why it happened; what she does know is that there is a very terrifying entity chasing her down and Mina needs to scrape together whatever she can to survive.
As Mina explores the world around her, the story slowly begins to unfold in character interactions, exploration, items, map discovery. The player learns with Mina- which is a nice touch as part of the game design because the player isnt overwhelmed with an exposition dump at the start of the game. Rather, its a natural learning progression that matches pace with the antagonist. Not much of the story was revealed in my demo time at Pas West, but from the little I did get I do know that am very interested in seeing where the story line plays out.
The gameplay is The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters is straight forward. Unlike most horror games, you do not play in a first person point of view (for maximum spookage) but rather a third person- the player can view Mina and a portion of her surrounding area. Instead of relying on unseen horrors in the first person point of view The Coma 2: Vicious Sister relies on the environment and tension of viewing a horror landscape. The game wants you to see what is happening the world and if it doesnt want you to see something, its because its a game mechanic designed to heighten the horror aspect.
As players wander the school halls they begin to develop an understanding for the mechanics in The Coma 2. Naturally, you want to flood your character with all the light possible- to be able to view everything so you dont take damage or so you can better see possible threats- but the light is double edge sword. Sure, it helps Mina to see but it also makes her more *visible* the the enemy after her. There will be times where, as much as you dont want to wander in the dark, you're going to *have to* in order to escape the clutches of death
This is not the type of horror game where the antagonist is equipped with a weapon to protect themselves. The Coma 2 is about true exploration and survival. Mina explores her surroundings, attempting to find whatever items she can to move onto the next stage or craft additional items to heal/eat/rest/survive. Instead of fighting the monster that is after her, Mina has to hide under desks, in closets, wherever she can fit in order to escape. Hide to survive, Mina! HIDE TO SURVIVE.
Eventually players are able to upgrade items and back track to areas that were previously unavailable to them
Another fun feature that I loved about The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters was that permanent injury plays a role in the game. Depending on how healthy Mina is certain actions are avaliable, and I think thats fantastic and gives players a high chance of coming back and replaying the game for routes or options that they may have missing.
During my demo time, it wasnt the main ghost that killed me...it was a poisonous zombie/plant? I dont even know what injured me during my demo time, but something poisoned Mina and because I couldnt find a vending machine or antidote in time I literally died in the middle of the hallway.
Everything said and done (and even being a baddie at the game) I look forward to a full release for The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters and if you're going to be at any gaming conventions and see the demo available to play I highly recommend checking it out!
The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters is avaliable late 2019 for PC, Mac, Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch