The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication Review

This is why I don’t visit school at night.

I really don’t play many horror games. Partly due to it being a genre I’m highly selective with and partly since I kind of scare easily. Or at least the creepy atmosphere gets to me easily as I can laugh off or go “I knew it” after jumping. Plus, I have a tendency to play horror games with peak horror conditions: close to midnight and with my lights off (sometimes with headphones if I’m being particularly brave). I can’t help it. Anyway, I originally wasn’t going to play The Bridge Curse 2 since I swear I remember the first game’s reception was not good. However, I was actually offered a key and I thought “What the heck, why not?” and here I am with a review. I wasn’t quite able to get this out before Halloween, but better late than never. So, how was The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication?

The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication has you take control of four different characters who have unfortunately found themselves in this predicament. You switch characters for each chapter, getting to see what they had to go through after being separated and the information they acquired, and one of them you’ll be playing as twice. The game first starts on August 21st, 2016 a couple hours before midnight as Sue Lian is arriving as Wen Hua University. She just became a news reporter and she’s here to interview some students after their movie they’re creating as part of their film group supposedly captured a real ghost (and actually, the trailer is the first thing you see when starting a new game). She thought since it’s Ghost Month and these students managed to capture a ghost on film, it would be worth getting an exclusive scoop and roll the dice on it going viral. Even if it means sneaking in. You see, Sue Lian reported on a missing person’s case years ago (which you may recognize what real life case it’s referencing), which did not paint this university in the best light. And, well, Sue Lian may be using this opportunity to also get some more evidence for this case before the interview with the film club. Well, I guess you might as well do it when you’re already sneaking in anyway.

She does get caught by the security guard, but she is pretty smart being able to wiggle her way out of trouble, getting the guard to talk, and getting him to give you a little tour. However, the security guard gets frantic as midnight approaches; hinting at the significance of the date and urging her to leave before midnight before he runs off to investigate a noise. Of course, Sue Lian does not heed his warning, uses this time to do some more investigating, and the university’s whole atmosphere shifts once midnight strikes. This not only locks Sue Lian in on the terrifying events that’s about to happen, but also gives us a taste on what’s to come.

This is when we switch to focus on the characters associated with the film club: A-Hai, Doc, and Richie. To put everyone in a simple box, A-Hair is pretty much the serious one, Doc is the goofy one that isn’t scared easily, and Richie is somewhat in the middle and seems to get scared easily. They’re currently starring in and making a film adapting a murder that occurred on campus back in 1960 and they still need to do some more filming despite their first screening being in two weeks. They’re here on campus to do some last minute shoots and to do that interview that Doc set up with Sue Lian. However, this means that they’re on campus once it hits midnight and they’re locked in as the trapped ghosts gain enough power to materialize thanks to the atmosphere shift. A-Hai, Doc, and Richie end up getting separated thanks to a particularly powerful ghost that has bigger plans. Not only will you be exploring Wen Hua University to try and reunite everyone, but you will also be dealing with the various ghosts, learning about them, uncovering the mystery at the heart of everything, and hopefully making it out alive. If you want a hint at what the end goal ends up being, look up the meaning of this game’s subtitle (or don’t if you don’t want to spoil yourself).

Aside from the expected confusion with trying to keep everyone’s names in line (especially the characters that are mainly referred to by their nickname), I did like the story. It has a slow start, but it does a good enough job at building up to what’s to come and introducing all the characters both alive and dead. I was actually engaged all throughout as I was interested in finding out what the heck was happening, piecing information together and gasping as it comes into play, and wanting everyone to survive. I loved how everything ended up being connected. Chapter 1 does end on a really good cliffhanger and I didn’t even mind the dialogue between A-Hai, Doc, and Richie at the beginning of Chapter 2. I did also like how The Bridge Curse 2 had a mix of humor and horror. I don’t think it would gel with everyone, especially considering the aforementioned dialogue in the beginning of Chapter 2, but personally I thought it fit well, didn’t hurt the mood or detract from scenes, and helped characterize everyone. I don’t know if this is just due to me not playing many horror games or just going in with no expectations, but the story did surprise me at multiple turns with its story beats. Also, I really liked how you can find and read documents about an upcoming ghost or location. I just really liked the feeling of realizing that what’s happening is what I previously read about and getting more insight on it as you’re seeing the true events. It even does mix it up a bit to keep you on your toes, like making you expect something or letting you connect the dots yourself (there’s one that is so satisfying to figure out). Actually, there are a good couple aspects of the story that the game leaves you to connect the dots yourself as it doesn’t outright say it; which was a bold move but I loved catching on and knowing that I’m probably right. There’s even one aspect that I’m pretty sure I figured out as I was writing this review.

That said, you really should be looking for and reading documents. It does give you more insight and information on the various things you’ll be encountering that you won’t get through the cutscenes. The only thing that I can think of that wasn’t revealed was who the green orb spirit was.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Elisa Lam case being used as a direct inspiration, but I will say that I did end up liking how it was ultimately handled here (and it was handled better than another game that used her as direct inspiration too).

Oh, and for those wondering if you need to play the first game to understand the events of this one, you don’t. As far as I can tell, nothing from the first game is referenced aside from some easter eggs. As someone that didn’t play the first Bridge Curse game, I had no problem following along and didn’t notice anything that I felt was directly referencing events from the first game. This is a fully standalone story.

Time to get into the gameplay now and this is focused on exploring the university building you’re currently in. Of course, you won’t be able to go everywhere at first and you’ll be able to pick up key items, documents that you can read, and find collectibles. All of these are signaled by a prompt. Text in the overworld weren’t altered, but we do get them translation subtitle when you’re close enough for the character you’re playing to look read it (and sometimes they do react to what they’ve read). Other than that, there are puzzles here for you to do, ghost encounters, and chase sequences. Two of the characters also have access to a sacred object known as the Anima Lantern, which does bring in its own unique interactions through being able to reveal hidden clues or objects by shifting its light, being able to dispel evil energy, and giving you a free hit that you can take as long as the lantern is charged.

I also do want to mention that this game uses a very forgiving checkpoint system. There’s even checkpoints during the middle of encounters. Which has a double edge sword as it does stop these encounters from getting annoying if you die a lot, but you can take advantage of it as it does reset the position of the malevolent ghost.

I liked the gameplay of The Bridge Curse 2. The movement is in a good place where it’s slow enough to look around and fast enough to not feel like regularly walking is too slow while exploring. Even the crouching is at a nice speed (being slightly slower the walking, but not a lot to where it would be annoying or hinder you). The controls are actually pretty good, especially when you need to go from running to crouching really quickly. Talking about this, there is stealth here and personally I found it to be done well. The first stealth segment was pretty rough for me, there were a few moments where I felt I wouldn’t have been seen, and the directional sounds seems to not be affected by walls, but I felt that they were overall done well and I didn’t get super annoyed. Even when the stealth segments are a mix of “yeah you need to stealth around” and “you can just sprint for it lol” encounters. Talking about encounters, I did really like the encounters for all of the ghosts you’ll be running into. All the ghosts are different, have their different backstories, and their encounters are different even when some of them share an aspect or two. They also do a good job at telling you what you need to do to survive before the encounter starts and as a tip for when you die. The chase sequences are also pretty good and were tense even after I died. The best part of The Bridge Curse 2 is actually in Chapter 2 and you’ll know what I mean when you get to it. That sequence is so good.

I also did like how this doesn’t use jumpscares a lot. There are some, but it’s not overused. Funnily enough there was one part where I was expecting a jumpscare, it still got me, and I had a short laugh at myself for jumping. I did also notice that there are some scares or creepy events that you can easily miss, which is pretty cool.

Lastly, the puzzles are pretty good here. I felt they hit a good balance of being easy enough for you to figure out, but not being so simple that you can get the answer immediately. Most of them do require some more thought and some trick you if you think it’s really that easy. The other puzzles you encounter are the more interactable puzzles like sliding puzzles (which the game does throw at you pretty early and was thankfully easy and painless). There was only one puzzle that I had to look up as I just didn’t get it and man was it so obvious when I saw it.

There are a good amount of collectibles here. While not everything you can pick up will be saved, a good amount will and are categorized as collectibles. I didn’t find these hard to find and only a few of were really hidden (most of them are either just hard to miss or easy to overlook and pass by). Some collectibles do require you to rotate or interact with an item to get them or require some extra steps (which are the collectibles connected to the dog Poody). In addition, there is also a rewards tab which basically has a list of 15 challenges. These range from getting collectibles, just progressing through the story, or a proper challenge like doing an encounter without doing something. Doing these challenges will reward you with some art in the form of postcards and stamps.

If you end up missing any collectibles, the game does have a chapter select. It not only shows if you found all the collectibles in that chapter, but it also splits the chapter into parts to get a better breakdown of where you missed a collectible. Which definitely helps as it narrows down where the collectibles you missed are and serves as a good spot to jump in. In fact, the chapter select does a good job in setting you before/after key events of that chapter. Thanks to this, going back for collectibles wasn’t as annoying as I thought it would be and the worst was just having to sit through a cutscene and doing some puzzles before I could grab the last collectible I needed.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for the chapter select I wouldn’t have went to 100% this game.

It’s time to dive into the negatives for The Bridge Curse 2. None of these ended up being deal breakers or hurting my enjoyment. Just momentary annoyance or nitpicks. I did notice some voice lines being cut off at the end and there was one that restarted in the middle of the line during a cutscene and thus wasn’t able to fully finish (thankfully, I had subtitles on so I could still see what the full line was). You also can’t skip cutscenes or dialogue after you see it for the first time. The lips also won’t sync up to the voice lines, which is fine but I know some will be bothered. There was only one, maybe two, cutscenes that were hurt as there are some scenes that focus on something or someone interrupting a conversation. The phone, I feel, could have been more important than giving you optional texts and calls to read/listen to. I also wished at least all the documents were recorded so you could read back on them. There were moments while I was in the midst of learning about the ghosts or events of the past that I wanted to read the documents that referenced them. I did wish that you could get a closer view of the stamp art as some of them do look pretty neat.

Now to tie up all the loose ends, I liked how all the environments and characters looked, and the artwork was great as well. I particularly liked how all of the ghosts looked like and how they reflected their injuries they took before they died. The sound design was also well done and while you’ll mainly be hearing the ambiance, the few songs featured are good too. The translation here was also pretty good. There were never moments where there was a confusing sentence and I only saw instances where there were mistakes. Lastly, I did find the voice acting decent to good. Nothing too great, but nothing too bad either. There were a couple lines that I felt could have been better, but it’s decent enough that it doesn’t detract from the game or stand out in a bad way.

Verdict

The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication was such a surprise for me. I wasn’t really expecting much and was ready to slog my way through, but I found myself engaged and wanting to find out what was going on. I don’t think this game is particularly scary, apart from a couple instances, but it does well with having a tense or chilling atmosphere. The story does have a slow start, but sticking with it will set you down an engaging story surrounding a mystery that does trust players to connect the dots on certain aspects, great ghost encounters, good clever puzzles, painless stealth sections, and good sound and visual design. There were also some cool moments that you have to experience. I even liked this game enough to 100% it (granted I wouldn’t have done it without a chapter select).

So, yeah, I would recommend The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication.