Creeping Terror is for those who want a short horror game that is still fun and also portable. Players take control of a young high school girl as they try to evade various monsters and beasts that chase them down. Find clues to figure out how to escape your current predicament and also lore to understand more of the situation at hand. With stylish 2D graphics and simple gameplay that utilizes the Nintendo 3DS dual screens, Creeping Terror is indeed a title that should be on your radar if you love horror adventure titles. Plus, with the price being under $10, Creeping Terror won’t break the bank for those who don’t want to spend too much on a quality horror title.

In Creeping Terror, your main mission is to explore several locations for clues on how to escape. However, this isn’t as easy as it may sound thanks to several obstacles in your way. Various monsters and beasts will try to impede your progress and you have very few means to fight back. Running and hiding will be your only means of safety. Creeping Terror will truly make you fear for your life as you enter the world of a mystery and fear from the unknown.

Arisa and her friends have decided to film at a location rumored to have strange incidents occur. When the group enter the mansion it seems like just a spooky old abandoned place with little to no danger. However, danger does ultimately strike when an earthquake breaks a hole into the group causing Arisa to fall into an abandoned mineshaft. Though it doesn’t take long for Arisa to discover that the rumors about a so-called monster aren’t untrue when she is attacked by it. Now Arisa must escape this horrific place with her friends before it’s too late.

Horror games are easily one of the scariest types of games. That doesn’t necessarily come from the fact that they will scare you or make you scared but because a lot of horror games—especially low-price ones—aren’t that great to be honest. Usually something keeps the horror low and the enjoyment even lower. That’s why we were a bit scared when we saw that Creeping Terror was priced at $8.99 but were also intrigued with the publishers being famous Aksys Games. After beating it we finally have our thoughts and we’re about to share them with you all in our review of Creeping Terror for the Nintendo 3DS.

Creeping Terror puts players into the role of foreign exchange student Arisa who has decided to journey with her friends Emily, Bob and Ken to a creepy abandoned mansion. While there, the four friends are quickly separated leaving Arisa to go looking for them. However, what initially is found is a large shovel wielding man who seems not too friendly. This is just one of the various enemies you’ll face in Creeping Terror but how do you face them exactly? Let’s talk about that.

The first thing you’ll notice with Creeping Terror is that it’s a 2D adventure title. On the top screen of the 3DS you’ll see Arisa and her environments while the bottom screen allows you to check your items, map, key items and various documents you’ll discover. As with most horror games that go with this format you’ll find yourself running around various locations—a mansion and mineshaft for example, the last we’ll keep secret—and progress as you do certain things. Usually finding a locked door or running into an item will cause the story to progress so you’ll rarely ever get lost.

That’s easily one of the beautiful and terrifying things about Creeping Terror’s gameplay, it’s so easy. Players only will ever find several items to use such as boards, rocks, chargers for their phones—we’ll get into detail about that in a moment—and rations for your stamina bar. To be honest, expect your inventory—which is only six slots—to get full fast as you’ll rarely need items. In fact, chargers, rocks and rations will be so plentiful in Creeping Terror that you’ll find yourself wasting them just to pick up new ones in front of you so you don’t have to backtrack later.

Now you might be asking what are chargers for and why do you need rocks and rations? Well, that’s for the survival elements of Creeping Terror. Arisa uses a cellphone flashlight app for her light source and as you use it, it drains thus chargers are used to replenish your battery. Stamina wise, when you’re running and not being chased you’ll notice it never goes down and you can run forever but once an enemy find you, your stamina begins to plummet. If you get attacked or need a boost to recharge your stamina, you’ll use rations. The rocks and boards are just tools to usually cause enemies to back off for a moment giving you a much-needed moment of respite.

Essentially in Creeping Terror, you’ll want to run and hide to avoid ever having issues with monster. Locations within the various places you’ll be exploring have desks and such to use as cover and monsters will pass by it and leave you be after a moment or two. To be honest, we rarely needed to use hiding spots as often there are ways to avoid monsters once being chased if you head into story specific locations and or just run into some areas that for some reason nothing will enter. As we said before, it becomes quite apparent quickly that Creeping Terror lacks challenge but equally the gameplay elements we explained keep Creeping Terror from being nothing but unique.

It might sound like we’re being almost contradictory here at Honey’s Anime, but that’s the odd thing about Creeping Terror, there are a lot of good ideas despite the simplicity of them. The light on Arisa’s phone for example is necessary because without it she will trip over some items as you’re running around exploring and or being chased. Equally, rocks give Arisa a means of fighting back even if it’s just briefly which is rare in horror adventure titles. Being chased might be easy to escape but when it occurs there’s a nice amount of tension that despite the easy difficulty fools you into believing that you could still die and that makes Creeping Terror’s gameplay actually quite enjoyable. The very last chase sequence we’ll mention without spoiling anything is truly tension filled and led to us actually being quite scared for some time.

Graphically, Creeping Terror looks pretty slick. The animations, environments and enemies all look well-polished despite the only minor details here and there. While we wished the main cast would have faces—which is scary in itself—overall the graphics work, especially when you realize this is a 3DS game and one that is only $8.99. The music also works incredibly well with chilling sound effects and heart pumping music during chases. Thus, both graphically and audio wise, Creeping Terror works quite well.

We have one more thing to mention in our review before we reach our Honey’s Consensus and that is a problem we have with the endings. Now, Creeping Terror isn’t a long game—2-4 hours depending on your level of play—and it’s quite clear that is because there are more than a few endings. However, here at Honey’s Anime we don’t have a clue on how to get the other 3 endings and only got ending A. There aren’t moments of choice in Creeping Terror and while some might think it could be dead ends or such, we couldn’t find them. Thus, we do think the way the different endings in Creeping Terror were used wasn’t so clear cut and that makes it a bit of an annoyance for those who want to get all 4 endings.

Creeping Terror is what we consider a great title for those who like horror adventure titles but need them to be a bit more portable and easier to play. Clocking in around 2-3 hours for one ending—though how you get the rest is a mystery to us and others online—Creeping Terror feels like a movie in every sense of the word. While there is a lot to like about Creeping Terror some horror elements felt a little lackluster and with such an easy difficulty, most veterans of survival horror games will find this to be a bit of a turn off. However, for the low price of only $8.99 if you can see past the overly simple horror and adventure gameplay then you’re going to be in for a really enjoyable time. For those who need more horror games on your Nintendo 3DS we fully recommend downloading Creeping Terror as we feel it will be worth your time and cash.

Creeping Terror is one of those horror games that you’re either going to love or absolutely hate and we can see both sides of the spectrum. On one hand the gameplay is interesting with some clever ideas that should be noted by triple A companies for their horror games but on the other hand, Creeping Terror is way too easy. Honestly, what most should take away from Creeping Terror is the price of admission which is ridiculously low for how much thought and care was clearly put into this title. That’s why if you can see past the simple designs and flaws here and there, we say if you love a good horror game that won’t take you days to beat, you definitely need to buy Creeping Terror. With that, our review ends but if you have anything to add—maybe you also played the game—comment down below to let us hear your thoughts and if you did love this review our site is filled with other game reviews here at Honey’s Anime.