If you've heard much about the original (Forbidden) Siren duology, you'll probably know at a baseline that they're known for being poorly designed, frustratingly difficult messes. I would ambiguously disagree with that characterization as a Siren apologist. But while I won't get into why I like them too much here (hopefully one day I'll get around to reviewing them), noting some of those issues is important to understanding this game contextually. The original duology was on the PS2 and was in many ways one of the clunkiest of the old tank control Survival Horror games with very janky controls and a signature "Sightjack" mechanic that allows you to see through the eyes of your enemies to stealthily navigate levels and obtain clues to puzzles. The story was extremely non-linear and the game featured punishing combat and easily the most convoluted puzzles you'll find outside old school point-and-click adventure games. Perhaps most notably though, the game takes place on a Japanese island as part of the initial premise came about because a subset of the legendary Team Silent (of the original Silent Hill franchise) wanted to branch off and design a more Japanese-based horror game in contrast to that series' American settings. Unfortunately, while the game had a lot of really unique and cool aspects that I personally adore, it is widely considered a flop that is painful to play. The second game improved on a lot of the complaints of the first game, but it didn't get a North American release and generally didn't perform great either. In my opinion it also lacked some of the charm and innovation of the first game, though I still enjoyed it a lot.

So then comes Siren: Blood Curse, a supposed "reimagining" (or as we'd now call it, "remake") of the first game, on the PS3. Perhaps what is most immediately noticeable is that this game is significantly white-washed. While it still takes place on a Japanese island and much of the setting and premise are similar, the story focuses heavily on a TV crew of Western backgrounds here to shoot some kind of feature or documentary. First, far greater minds than mine can write long essays espousing the many issues with white-washing like this and they're certainly problems here as well. But it adds further insult to injury that this game is based on a series that was intentionally designed by a Japanese team to capture a Japanese horror. There are still a few Japanese characters including some rather important ones, but the fact they're quite the minority is not great, especially given the potential white savior implications, though it's not like there's much of a triumphant ending to be had by anyone. Frankly, the only reason all this didn't dampen my enjoyment too much was because I was well-aware of it going in and was playing the game more out of curiosity than expecting it to be especially good. Though separately I should also note that the game is still developed by a Japanese studio, even though it has the feel of a Western studio's adaptation of a foreign work.

Blood Curse aims to fix many of the "issues" of the original game. For one, Sightjacking in the original games required taking up your whole screen and stopping action to look around, while the level still moves around you. This made you really vulnerable in addition to slowing down the action. Now the game implements a split-screen that allows you to Sightjack while navigating, which is a welcome addition in line with the quality of life improvement that crouch-walking is now faster than a crawling baby. The downside is, whether it was intentional or not, the framerate plummets while Sightjacking. i don't mind a few frame drops here and there but my untrained eyes would estimate it's about 15 fps which is the point it gets kind of hard to tell what's even happening. This may have been intentionally disorienting, but it was just kind of nauseating. It also doesn't help that the game's aesthetics are generally kind of hard to parse with a far too close field of vision and way too much darkness and shadows that are hard to make out.

Another thing that I'd consider somewhat a net improvement is that the story is a lot easier to follow. For one, it's no longer so non-linear. It also streamlines a lot of the sub-plots, combining some characters into one and cutting some subplots entirely. On the plus, this means you might actually follow the story on a first playthrough. But I will admit that it misses part of the complex charm of the original's rather bizarre and disturbing plot and I would consider the streamlining to have lost something significant in the original. It also makes the game significantly shorter with the original clocking at about 18-20 hours WITH a guide and this game only running about 5-7 hours. The game also released in that era when episodic games were all the rage. While as far as I can tell, the game never released episodically, the game is divided into 12 "episodes" complete with recaps and chapter breaks. Overall the structure was fine I suppose, but it did feel really unnecessary, especially the 11 different recap cutscenes across a game that's only a few hours long.

Siren: Blood Curse is tremendously easier and simpler than the original. No longer are you given a vague mission objective and left to figure out the (often convoluted) route to achieving it. You're given at every point a clear simple objective. There are a few times you may need to figure out the method to accomplish your goal, but most all of them are quite straight-forward and the objective text spells out all the steps. The combat is a little streamlined, though admittedly not quite as much as you might think for a game a generation later seeking to simplify a famously-clunky combat system. Either way, on the whole, the game is way easier and goes by rather quickly with very little restarting required.

So, what's the big problem? After all, aside from the white-washing, a lot of these points probably come off on paper as improvements. Ultimately though, I just have a hard time determining what the point of the game is. All of the "improvements" above pretty much make unrecognizable everything that was interesting and unique about the original, aside from some of the story elements and the Sightjacking mechanic. The game holds really none of the same charm as the original. I opened this review discussing how bizarre it was that this game in particular was white-washed when part of the point of the original was to have a more Japanese feel. When you also take away all the quirky difficulty and everything, it feels like you kind of lose everything about it that is very Siren. Instead, the game is not particularly fun and the trivialized puzzles and missions just weren't too intriguing with few exceptions. You just get a kind of weird and "okay" horror game with a unique aesthetic.

At the end of the day, the game isn't totally awful. It's plenty playable and feels (perhaps intentionally) like a long horror movie. And while the story is simplified and not quite as intriguing, it does still capture some of the bizarre cosmic horror that so defines the original duology. I'd probably give this more of a 2.5 if I did in-between ratings, but with the uncomfortable white-washing of a game I rather love in part for its origins, I'm more willing to round down than up. As a fan of the originals, I did enjoy simply getting more of a series that is unlikely to ever see another entry. Additionally I guess it might be decent for people interested in the general story unwilling to play through the challenging and outdated original. But all in all, this is a fairly mediocre title with some high points that at least in my opinion, still underperform compared to the original in every way.