3rd Eye, by developer 3rd eye project and publisher Sony Music Entertainment, is a charming, Tim Buton-esque horror style point-and-click adventure that is available for purchase on Steam. The game follows a little girl named Koishi, and your quest is in following her adventure. She seemingly wakes up in her bedroom but exits to find herself in a strange building filled with eerie messages and visuals. 3rd Eye has a “3rd eye” mechanic, hence it’s namesake, in which you can activate to see unlock another layer to Koishi’s reality. As I understand it, this game takes place in the world of a Japanese series of video games called Touhou Project. As I am unfamiliar with these series of games, I feel like a lot of the background to the story has been lost to me. I find myself wondering if I would understand the story a lot better if I was a prior fan of the series or simply had more knowledge of the games.
The visuals and music of 3rd Eye are fantastic. I think the screenshots speak for themselves in this department. The sound in the game married with these visuals really made for a spooky experience. I mean, there was blood on the walls, “redrum” scribbled in the foreground, and trees that looked like humans. When you activated your 3rd eye, your little friends would turn into zombies and their eyes would become empty of any soul they had before. Ghosts would pop up out of nowhere! Added with the child like innocence of Koishi, this would make some situations a whole new level of messed up. 3rd Eye will make you react in very strong ways that is for sure. That isn’t to say that this is a game where you’ll be spooked with jumpscares; however, the mindset of Koishi and how she interacts and reacts with the world will leave you with an impression.
Although 3rd Eye doesn’t look too intensive on the surface, it doesn’t really mesh well with Steam at all. Often any Steam notifications that were being sent through to me completely bugged out while I was playing, and I wasn’t able to shift-tab out to check my play time, the community tab, or message back friends. In fact, the whole window that I was playing the game on wasn’t accessible to me at all, I had to do any and all other multitask type work on my second monitor. This makes things like messing with volume controls very irritating. Not to mention that the controls are unlike anything I have ever experienced before. The whole game is navigated by your left and right arrow keys; your Z key controls interacting with items; your X key controls your third eye and backs out of your inventory; and your C key controls your inventory. I am embarrassed to say how long I stayed on the menu page just trying to start the game up before I had to look up a guide on how to start the game. I’m not sure if this is standard in Japanese games as I have little experience with them!
Logistical issues aside, I really enjoyed 3rd Eye. The translation from English to Japanese makes the game a little hard to understand at times, and some interactions seem a little strange, but the game as a whole is a spooky treat. 3rd Eye is on the short side, so bear that in mind if you go forward. A majority of people on Steam have only a few hours playtime. I’m sure for fans of the Touhou Project this game is a dream come true. However, as someone who isn’t a fan of the series, I was able to enjoy the game as someone who loved good story telling and that Tim Burton-esqe innocent child like horror. 7/10
Check Out the 3rd Eye Steam Trailer:
Steam Review
I am a senior studying History at the University of Michigan. I've been playing video games since I was very young and around age 16 I had become entirely obsessed with the medium. I hope to one day work in the industry in any way I can.
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