Fran Bow is a horror game that looks like some kid’s drawing album at first, but then it creeps you out even more than all the bloody zombie shooters and ghost runners you played before. It is some sort of a gloomy fable centered around a schizophrenic girl. Fran is a charming kid who evokes sympathy at first glance. She looks touching even when picking her hand with a knife, tearing her teeth out with pliers and drawing a pentagram on the floor. And she has earned the right to become a star of a nightmare adventure. An adventure you’re about to experience!
It’s hard to describe what awaits you in Fran Bow. The ubiquitous, “Look, blood!” is the main tool for escalating the situation and it instantly works every time. Plus the characters do all kinds of wild things that make your face twitch even if you’re used to seeing ripped out guts and disemboweled bodies. All this happens beyond any logic. One scene isn’t connected with another, there is practically no motivation to move forward except for those unexplained and creepy schizophrenic flashes in the heroine’s troubled mind. You can’t always say why these characters are here and that makes you feel helpless because you can’t predict the further development of events. Sometimes it’s a series of cutscenes, sometimes it changes into a high-paced arcade, and if you retell the solution of the final puzzles, it will sound like meaningless set of words. Fran Bow is pure chaos. If you’re not afraid, let’s plunge right into it!
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