What do a spooky mansion, a guy searching for his daughter, and a dead lady’s birthday have in common? Answer: I don’t know either, but Paper Dolls 2 wants to blend them to get her in this psychological-horror puzzle game. Paper Dolls 2 has been ported and localized by a longstanding and seasoned team to the latest PlayStation consoles in the West, and yet, I still struggle to understand the premise of the game. Luckily horror genres don’t require an airtight premise. While coming in reasonably close proximity to Resident Evil Village, the question remains, does Paper Dolls 2 stack up when we’re getting amazing Resident Evil remakes and franchise high watermarks?
Developed by Beijing Litchi Culture Media Co. and now ported to the PlayStation 5 by Winking Entertainment Corp., Paper Dolls 2 is a direct sequel to Paper Dolls The Original. Over the last few years, there have been more Chinese developed games being localized to the states. As stricter laws force Chinese publishers to seek other markets to stay profitable, no doubt we’ll see more Chinese games make their way into western markets. With the current asking price on the PlayStation store of $19.99, the question is, how does it compete for the almighty dollar in an already very saturated market.
You start out waking at the base of a staircase and puzzling how to get through a pair of double doors. My first thought was “I love cold opens.” I like when games let their gameplay and context do the storytelling for themselves and I assumed I’d find out what I was doing after stumbling in the dark a bit. However, after a few hours I discovered that instead of a curated slow reveal, the developers assumed I had played and understood the ending to the prequel, Paper Dolls The Original.
A bit annoyed I found myself hunting for recaps videos online to figure out what my character’s name was and how I found myself “Scooby-Dooing” around a centuries-old mansion using a modern flashlight. I soon learned that you play as Yang Ming Yuan in search of his daughter. While previously searching for her in the original game, the lord of the manor punted me down the stairs where I awoke in the beginning moments of Paper Dolls 2. While looking for her whereabouts you find yourself trapped in a haunted house. You’ll hear flashbacks and uncover a story of a troubled mistress of the manor and the drama of a performance troupe that unearths a family secret. While the group was cursed using, you guessed it, paper dolls, they were prohibited from being reincarnated and thus haunt the said mansion.
The gameplay is primarily a first-person puzzle game, wherein you’ll hunt for different objects, deduce how to use them, and unlock the progression of doors. You’ll be hunted by these damned souls who will kill you should they catch you. It’s your job to scurry to the next puzzle area and find the safety of a save room to discourage your aggressive apparitions.
Eventually, you are given a gun that you can defend yourself with, but it only has two shots before needing to reload. The puzzles are all pretty simple, but I did stutter a few times when I needed to identify Chinese characters. While a more thorough localization would have made those times fewer, the puzzles were so simplistic that I found myself just blasting through them without much challenge.
Puzzle games have a double-edged sword where, if they are too easy, the game is boring, but if they’re too hard the player feels frustrated and eventually quits. Paper Dolls 2 is firmly in the first category. Honestly, the puzzles, save rooms, and clunky controls left me feeling like I was playing a PS2 game with PS3 graphics. While sometimes using older design choices can be charming like in Kena: Bridge of Spirits, this just reminded me of how grateful I am our medium has evolved to tell better stories.
The worst offender was the locomotion speed. I don’t know how many packs-a-day Yang Ming Yuan has been smoking, but he needs to work on cardio. You move at a snail’s pace while walking and only slightly faster when “sprinting.” This is further exacerbated by either being chased or the continual backtracking to solve a puzzle. I found myself zoning out while carrying an item to a locked door to unlock it. It made it hard to feel scared in this horror game when all I wanted was to do was give this guy a shot of caffeine and move with some purpose before the ghoul catches me. The controls are further frustrating when the shooting feels tacked on and clunky.
In the first hour, I found myself really wanting this game to harken back to the settings of the Fatal Frame franchise, or early Silent Hill. Instead, I found myself rolling my eyes and cheering for the ghosts because at least they moved with some urgency. I still hold out hope for importing some unique games from Asia, but this was a miss for me. I’d say 20 bucks can get you a lot of games on the PlayStation store these days and unless you’re dying to know what happens in this sequel, you can wait for a sale.
