Looking Back
Three years ago, PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo launched with almost no fanfare. Square Enix barely marketed it in the West, and yet it quietly became one of gaming’s most celebrated cult hits. Accolades included the Japan Game Awards Excellence award, an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam, and retrospective recognition as one of 2023’s most underrated games.
Set in 1980s Tokyo, it drew from real Edo-period urban legends to craft a supernatural mystery that clicked with visual novel fans and horror enthusiasts. The creative team behind it (director and writer Takanari Ishiyama, character artist Gen Kobayashi of The World Ends with You, and composer Hidenori Iwasaki) all return for The Mermaid’s Curse.
Now, Square Enix shadow-dropped the announcement of a sequel during a Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase. After a few years of silence on the series, the game is out now, just two weeks after the reveal. I had the opportunity to check out The Mermaid’s Curse before release, and I can’t help but feel that, like its predecessor, this will be one of the most underrated games of the year.
The Mermaids of Ise
Here, you shouldn’t even consider picturing Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Japanese mermaids are ningyo, “human fish”. Here, if you eat their flesh, you live forever, which already starts with a worse tone yet less cringe than its counterpart. The most famous tale is about a girl who accidentally ate ningyo meat and spent the next 800 years watching everyone she loved grow old and die. She turned to stone from grief.
The game didn’t make any of this up, either. The Ise Province, where The Mermaid’s Curse takes place, has real ningyo folklore going back to the 13th century. In 1357, one reportedly appeared in Futami-ura, in what is now Mie Prefecture. Centuries-old accounts describe creatures with human faces pulled from the Ise waters. This is the kind of stuff the game draws from, and it handles it with care.
A Reminder Of Another Wicked Summer Tale…
To Interact With A Visual Novel
The Mermaid’s Curse plays as an investigation-driven visual novel. You explore 360-degree panoramic environments, searching for clues by rotating the camera, interacting with characters, and examining documents and profiles. Multiple playable characters offer different perspectives on the same events, and a Story Chart system tracks your progress through branching paths. Seeing the same mystery unfold through different eyes gives the narrative layers it wouldn’t have with a single protagonist.
The 360-degree investigation actually matters for puzzle-solving, asking you to pay attention to your surroundings from every angle. The game also has a clever approach to tutorials, given how many systems it juggles (multiple perspectives, the Story Chart, investigation mechanics). It guides you through how to think about progressing without being heavy-handed. The Story Chart itself is relatively straightforward if you pay attention, though visual novel newcomers might find the initial information load steep. It works once it clicks.
Diving Fun
I also have to mention the diving minigame. I got hooked right at the start and delayed my actual investigation because I kept wanting one more dive. You have limited air; every action costs a bit of your meter, and every movement counts. Each dive is bite-sized, leveling up is satisfying, and it ties into Kameshima’s ama diving culture. I was not expecting this to be one of my favorite parts of the game.
The Mystery’s Pace
The opening hours are slow. The game takes its time setting up Kameshima, its characters, and its lore before the mystery picks up momentum. I didn’t mind the world-building, but I can see it testing the patience of players who want to get to the hook faster.
Once things do get moving, the game has another habit that slows it down: you can’t progress to the next scene until you’ve exhausted every line of dialogue with every character, and it doesn’t show a check in the option until you click it an additional time after reading enough. That means going through the same conversation topics multiple times until everyone has had their say. It makes sense as a design choice to make sure you don’t miss anything, but it can feel like the game is holding you in place when you’re ready to move on.
And then there’s how eager the game is to tell you what it’s about. The protagonist theorizes early on about the mermaid connection. From that point on, the story feels less like a discovery and more like he’s working to prove a theory he’s already formed. Letting me piece together the supernatural elements at my own pace could have made those revelations land so much harder. Your lead character being several steps ahead of where the game wants you to be takes some of the wind out of the mystery’s sails.
Character designs by Gen Kobayashi (The World Ends with You) fit the setting without trying to be flashy. They suit the grounded, regional tone. Regarding characters, it’s worth noting that there is no voice acting. Characters have visible mouth movement animations (sometimes even exaggerated), which makes the silence as weird as that one song from Pokémon Sword and Shield. The art quality and character presentation feel ready for voices that never come. Personally, I don’t understand this decision. The mouth animations seem deliberate, which only highlights what could have been.
The music by Hidenori Iwasaki does its job, setting the mood without demanding attention. It complements the summer island atmosphere. The ambient sound design deserves a mention, too. The sounds of island life in the background really pull you into the setting in a way the music alone wouldn’t, and are highly valuable in a visual novel like this.
The Switch 2 Experience
The Mermaid’s Curse runs on Switch 2 via backward compatibility, officially described as “behavior consistent with Nintendo Switch” with no dedicated enhancements. It runs cleanly. No performance issues, no crashes, no visible bugs. The one persistent issue, carried over from the original’s Switch criticism, is the cursor-based control scheme. The analog sticks default to cursor navigation, which feels natural with a mouse but is annoying with a controller. You can use the d-pad and confirm button instead, but you wouldn’t know that unless you tried it yourself, since the analogs push you toward cursor mode automatically.
A Franchise Worth Discovering
I came into The Mermaid’s Curse without having played The Seven Mysteries of Honjo. The game is very upfront about this, telling you early on that playing the original is important for fully understanding one specific surprise that will happen later on. It also introduces a character who occupies the role of the Storyteller, acting as your guide throughout the game (and is present in most of the tutorials).
When you tell the game you haven’t played the original, it goes deeper into how navigation and mechanics work. It’s a small touch, but it made a real difference for me as a newcomer. After spending time in this world, I want to go back and experience the original. Making a standalone entry that sells you on the rest of the series without requiring homework is hard to pull off, and The Mermaid’s Curse does it. No prior knowledge is needed to follow the story, though fans of The Seven Mysteries of Honjo will likely catch connections that newcomers won’t.
PARANORMASIGHT: The Mermaid’s Curse is an easy recommendation for visual novel fans, folklore enthusiasts, and anyone who wants a mystery that respects the culture it’s drawing from. VN newcomers will feel welcome. The diving minigame alone might hook people who’ve never touched the genre. If you need action, this isn’t for you. However, if you want a mystery that trusts its audience, The Mermaid’s Curse delivers. The first PARANORMASIGHT became a cult classic because people kept telling each other about it after the fact. This time, I’m telling you before it’s too late.
Disclaimer: Square Enix provided a Nintendo Switch copy of PARANORMASIGHT: The Mermaid’s Curse for review purposes.
