$24.99PARANORMASIGHT: The Mermaid's Curse A summer mystery with teeth
Follow several lives through a supernatural curse in 1980s Ise-Shima, where every choice pulls the story toward a different ending.
Is PARANORMASIGHT: The Mermaid's Curse worth it?
PARANORMASIGHT: The Mermaid's Curse is worth it if…
- you want a story-driven mystery with twists, multiple perspectives and several endings to chase
- you enjoy folklore and legends woven into a real place, here the mermaid tales of Ise-Shima
- you like a warm summer story with charm and comedy, more than constant horror and dread
- you don't mind a slower pace, with stretches of background reading on local history and myth
- you would rather read and deduce than fight, and you're fine playing entirely on your own
Screenshots
A curse begins on the ocean floor
Yuza Minakuchi is a young pearl diver on Kameshima, a remote island in Ise bay. He spends his days underwater with his best friend Azami, gathering pearls. Then, on the seabed, he meets another version of himself. After that, curses start to strike the island.
From there the story pulls in a girl of unknown origins, a treasure hunter from a foreign land and a housewife investigating a drowning. Their paths cross and collide as each gets closer to the secret of the Mermaids of Ise, a legend buried under centuries of fog. It is a bittersweet summer story about the passions of youth, told with a warm tone that hides sharper things underneath.
See the island from every angle
The game recreates real locations and vistas in collaboration with Mie prefecture, the region famous for its mermaid legends. You investigate them as 360-degree backgrounds, turning the view to search for clues rather than clicking through static images.
Between scenes there is a diving minigame, and it is a genuine highlight: what starts as gathering turns out to be livelier underwater than you would expect. You also play as multiple characters, each with their own goals and their own slice of the mystery, piecing the truth together from several sides at once. The tagline means it: you unearth the truth by your own hand.
A mystery you have to work for
This is a visual novel where the mystery carries everything. The story unfolds in episodes that unlock as you meet conditions in earlier ones, jumping between character groups and points in time, so you keep revising your theories as new perspectives reframe old events. There is an information file system to dig through, and the deductions themselves flow smoothly: with the file hints, you rarely get stuck, and working out an answer yourself feels earned.
The game also treats its own menus as part of the story. Saves, the story chart, even the main menu can matter to the plot, and reaching the true ending asks for something clever of you. Multiple endings mean the truth is yours to find, not something handed over.
What should you know before starting?
Do you need to play the first PARANORMASIGHT first?
No. This is a new story with a new cast, new locations and new legends, set in Ise-Shima instead of Tokyo's Honjo district. It stands on its own: the connection to the first game is light enough that going in fresh works fine. If you have played the first one, expect a warmer, less horror-leaning tone this time, with the curses and strange occurrences carried over rather than the scares.
How scary is it?
Not very, by visual novel standards. The horror element is much lighter than in the first PARANORMASIGHT, and the mood leans toward a summer adventure on a small island: murders and curses happen, but the atmosphere is warmer and often funny, with eccentric islanders and a pair of characters who bring real comedy. If you want dread above all, this may not be the entry for you; if you want a mystery with charm, it fits well.
How long is it, and is the true ending hard to get?
Expect somewhere around 15 to 25 hours for a first run, longer if you chase every ending. The route to the true ending is genuinely tricky: it involves a specific interaction with the main menu itself, which fits the game's habit of making its own interface part of the story. Most people need a nudge to find it, and the mystery itself is solvable without much backtracking, thanks to the file hints.
Is the pacing really as slow as some say?
It is slower than the first game, and that is the most common criticism of it. Large stretches go to background on local history, geography and folklore, sometimes dropped into the middle of conversations, and the same events get retold from each character's perspective. If you enjoy that material it deepens the world; if you just want the plot to move, the second half picks up considerably once the threads start converging.
Does the romance work?
It divides people, honestly. A romantic thread runs through the story and only comes fully into view near the end, and reactions split: some find it genuinely moving, with a bittersweet payoff that recontextualises the whole tale, while others feel it arrives too late to be earned. If you come for the mystery and the island's legends first, the romance is easier to take in stride than if you expect a pure detective story.
