The Coma: Recut (PlayStation 4) Review

Final exams in school are often a stressful time, and even more so in Asia, with schools in South Korea and Japan seeing extreme reactions from the students who don't do well. That's certainly the case here as the protagonist spent most of his night awake, cramming before his finals. Not only is this final day of exams going to be the most stressful day of his life, but it may actually be his last. Upon arriving at school, Youngho finds one of his friends being carted out in an ambulance, the stress apparently having led him into attempting suicide. As the ambulance carts the boy away, Youngho happens upon an amulet, an amulet belonging to his teacher Ms. Song, a teacher Youngho has a crush on. This amulet kicks off a dark series of events where Youngho is dragged into a dark parallel dimension.

He falls asleep during the exam and, upon awakening, finds himself in a Silent Hill-esque dark version of his school that becomes progressively more twisted as the game develops.

The first person Youngho sees in this other dimension is Ms. Song, or at least something that looks like her; the thing has the classic cliché weapon of a box cutter and is determined to slaughter him. Youngho has to run and hide from her, creeping through the darkness, cowering in corners and hiding in lockers until she passes by. She's not the only thing lurking in the darkness, though; some of the corpses are not quite dead and will lash out should Youngho get too close. Some of the tentacles have a mind of their own and will poison him! These can be spotted using a flashlight, but using it attracts more attention than it may be worth.

The Coma: Recut is made up of scrambling through dark corridors, finding notes that build the overall story, and stumbling upon other beings within the school - some old friends, enemies, and even creatures of the beyond. It all begins to build up a wider story but the payoffs to these extra elements are quite lacking; a brief moment of promising a larger lore that never comes to fruition.

There are a few issues, as well; firstly, any sort of title like this that is dedicated to running and hiding should not be so easy. It's so simple to evade the killer by just Scooby Doo'ing them - running in small circles of rooms before jumping into a locker; something that makes the promise of "Lots of Game Overs" quite unlikely. It's not the only claim that doesn't deliver. It states that using the flashlight will attract untoward attention, but this mechanic seems fairly random, with the killer appearing regularly, regardless of the flashlight's use. This is also quite a short, being completed in around three-to-five hours. There are other endings to track down, too, but the method of unlocking the true ending is horribly obtuse; a few requirements that are enjoyable, but then one final requirement that makes little sense at all.