Urban Legends, are the jangling keys to those who want to test their courage or the merit of the stories behind them, but what happens when you become part of the urban legend? That is what awaits players in The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation, a Taiwanese game based on the film The Bridge Curse. I would like to give a thank you to Eastasiasoft Limited and Softstar Entertainment Inc. for the reviewing opportunity.
The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation takes players to Tunghai University where they take on the role of a group of friends who are live-streaming their attempt to perform a ritual that’s part of an urban legend on campus about a bridge where the spirit of a vengeful woman appears. As you can guess, things go wrong pretty damn quickly for this group of friends as the evil is unleashed, and they can’t seem to escape it.
Now onto the game itself. Controls are limited which is OK as this first-person game has no other major mechanics except for interacting with objects and running or couching. The game’s art is decent and helps build the atmosphere except for in dark areas the screen takes on a red hue, this is not a brightness setting issue as I have it set to the recommended setting for it (Which is how I usually have it when I play games).
When it comes to the game’s sound design… it NEEDS a lot of work especially when it comes to dialogue. The game is dubbed over but there seems to be an issue with the pacing as dialogue is constantly being played over one another between characters as well at times cutting out completely leaving me to wonder if the voice acting is real or AI-generated (At times it’s coming across that way. My apologies to real human voice actors who partook in this game).
The gameplay is OK. You can explore and find objects that help explain to lore of the game and urban legend, even about the characters themselves. There are puzzles to solve in the game, but I can only remember playing one or two puzzles and that was it. When you encounter a ghost in the game, you can sneak by it OR hide and wait for it to be clear and you can continue.
Overall, The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation was a bit rough to play. Except for a couple of well-placed jump scares, the game certainly lacked the scares you would want from an Asian horror game. The bad voice dubbing/syncing made the experience poor. The boorish story which, much like the film the game is based on, lacked originality. Rinsing and repeating Asian horror cinema tropes with recycled characters and unwarranted subplots it cheapens the story. The film that the game is based on was given harsh critiques for the same reasons so why the devs decided to not improve on this for the game is beyond me.
If anything, I hope The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation can act as a seed to allow the growth and expansion of quality Asian horror games for the Western market and act as a reminder of what NOT to do and maybe someday a remake of this title could be done. On my scale of 1-10, The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation is a 5.
The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation is out today for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
