Love is one of the more difficult human emotions to decipher. Its very definition is a challenge to quantify, and its effects on both the people and their relationship are practically impossible to predict. I don’t know much of anything about its nuances. Fortunately, neither do those in relationships. Many couples, however passionate they may be, can struggle to grasp the challenges that love can entail, and there has been no better communicator of that message than indie hit, “Sorry, We’re Closed”, developed by indie studio “a la mode games” and published by Akupara Games in 2024. It is undoubtedly an acquired taste, with its unusual meshing of styles and genres helping it stand out from the crowd. However, there’s more to this game than its style, and digging deeper reveals a compelling surrealist adventure about love and the consequences of change.
Presentation
The story doesn’t take long to establish its hook. You play as dejected cyan-haired store clerk Michelle, who’s approaching her third year past a messy breakup with an ex. One night, she is visited by a powerful archdemon named the Duchess, who threatens to make her another of its playthings should she refuse its romantic advances. With Michelle now under a curse that lets her see into the demon world via a third eye, it falls on you to fight back and break the spell. Along the way, you can also help (or hinder) the relationships of those around you, and maybe Michelle may finally gather the strength to move on from her ex. What happens when angels and demons collide, and do opposites truly attract? Can love truly blossom, even in the face of such conflicting circumstances?
A single glance at the style combined with this mouthful of a plot suggests this game is exclusively style over substance, a nothing burger more interested in using a surreal atmosphere as set dressing for the gameplay. Even the developers admittedly struggled with establishing a specific style for the game, with inspiration taken from a wide host of media, including Resident Evil 3 & 4, The Legend of Zelda, Half Life, Twin Peaks, No More Heroes, and even Bayonetta. However, even with the chaotic mish-mash of starkly contrasting inspiration, it’s clear it was done with intentionality, and they synthesize into a compelling style centered around this contrast: the melding of angels and demons, or the mesh between the mundane and the extraordinary.
The chunky, unclean graphics harkening back to the PS1/PS2 era are supplemented with hand-drawn character portraits (mostly for major characters) during dialogue. The decrepit, rustic environments of your reality hide away what’s now visible with your third eye: tempting polish and unchanged perfection. The subdued colors of the real world contrast with the almost excessive flamboyance of the punk-styled character designs. However, it never felt overwhelming because the contrast with the dark environments treated the player as if they were always in the spotlight, which aids in visibility when exploring the world’s darker corners.
This contrast also carries over into the soundtrack as well. Moments of safety or exploration treat you to the moody soundscape of composer C. Bedford, whether that be the jazzy chords when running through the streets, or an unsettling ambience when navigating the dilapidated corridors. However, once the action ramps up and a boss comes around the corner, the soundtrack opens up, and you are treated to thematic boss tracks from rap artist Okumura. The mood shifts from “I am trapped in a house full of demons” to “These demons are trapped in a house with me,” and that is meant in the best possible way. With the dread that comes from navigating the claustrophobic hallways, boss fights offer a sharp thematic relief from horror with a burst of unfiltered punk-esque angst. It is not something I have seen before, and I utterly love it.
That all being said, this style is most certainly of an acquired taste, and you’d be justified in veering away from the game because of it. However, it is exactly this combination of oddities that pay effective tribute to the otherworldly atmosphere of Silent Hill without being anything like Silent Hill (thematically speaking). The blend of the monotonous and the weird is always a compelling theme, especially within horror, and the game utilizes it to great effect. There are many strange moments throughout the journey that the game just runs with; moments that are never properly explained and seem to happen for the sake of it. However, there are recognizable figments found in the incomprehensible, and when you zoom in on those figments, you grow a greater appreciation for what was seemingly noise around you as it begins to make more sense.
At the heart of the craziness is an exploration of relationships, and while its aesthetic is undoubtedly punk in its inspirations, the writing’s sensibilities are more ‘post-punk.’ Characters can humanly swap between humorously sassy and consistently down-to-Earth, each with human plights found beneath the surreality without either feeling ill-fitting. Even inexperienced lovers can relate to them thanks to consistently sharp dialogue and the lack of severe melodrama that supersedes reason. While I won’t delve into spoilers, the latter portion/endings explore these complicated relationships with surprising nuance. It invites us to consider how change affects our relationships, whether that be by circumstance or the change in our own character. More importantly, it forces us to consider how we move forward in our relationships when faced with change. Whilst not every response shown is necessarily the most ideal, they are still human, and the game effectively explores why we would. This turns each ending into an interesting character study, if not a satisfying conclusion.
Gameplay
On top of contrast creating a distinct aesthetic, it also breeds a distinct gameplay style, executed with arguably equal success. The majority of the story portions are executed in the mold of a visual novel/walking simulator. Michelle can walk around and talk to the odd denizens living in her strip of London, whilst making decisions that affect the endings you could receive. While certain story beats require you to occasionally run around through the street, they hardly feel like a slog, since maps are compact and enjoyable to vibe with thanks to the moody ambience. Even if sections drag slightly, they never overstay their welcome and serve as an adequate relief from the tension of combat.
Even with these elements, Sorry We’re Closed is a survival-horror game at its core. Every staple of the genre is present, though they avoid the archaic design pitfalls that befalls other games of its ilk. With the camera seamlessly transitioning between fixed angles and dynamically moving with Michelle, movement hardly ever felt clunky during more chaotic moments. However, if you are a more masochistic lot and wish to experience homoerotic Silent Hill as it would have played in 1999, then tank controls are always available. One key difference that separates the game from its roots is how it handles aiming controls. Instead of eyeballing where your shots are going based on where you see your character facing, the camera shifts to a first-person perspective, allowing you to aim and shoot much like you would in a conventional FPS. However, you are unable to move when aiming your weapons, and you must contend with the limited depth perception of first-person cameras, making for an effective trade-off: your enhanced shooting ability is compensated with subpar defense, making each offensive push a risky, but rewarding endeavor.
Speaking of weapons, you are given two guns, a hatchet, and a rechargeable superweapon throughout the game (more on the superweapon later), each of which fulfilling a unique role without any redundancy, though not all roles are built equally. More specifically, the melee: it has little application beyond the introductory level, and it isn’t even good at its job. For starters, you are required to shift into first-person to even ready your hatchet, which encompasses all the limitations of aiming, and you need to ensure the target is within melee range, which is uncomfortably strict. Even after all that, you still have to contend with both the attack wind up and the recovery, leaving you vulnerable before and after each swing. If you aren’t elegant in your ability to weave through enemy attacks, you are inevitably going to tank a lot of damage, an offensive model that is of odd contrast to the firearms. However, given the abundance of ammo combined with the short period of time between obtaining the hatchet and the gun, it is made abundantly clear that melee is strictly a ‘last resort’ weapon. The bread and butter of the combat for Sorry We’re Closed lies in its guns, and that is where it shines brightest. They feel powerful, responsive, and reliable, capable of wiping out enemies with a few well placed headshots.
While the game’s core is solid on its own, things get interesting once you activate your third eye. Once you snap your fingers, you reveal the alternate world around you in a short radius, including items, demons, and even weak points. Enemies are stunned if they are within your range upon activation, and they take extra damage when shot in their weak points. If you shoot a series of an enemy’s weak points in succession without missing (also known as a perfect combo), they take a much larger portion of damage, usually killing them. It is a potent offensive tactic that can quickly dispatch enemies before they can reach you. However, on top of the vulnerabilities you face when aiming, enemies are invincible to your bullets outside your radius and their weak points, requiring greater deliberation and precision to fully utilize your offensive capabilities. Alternatively, you could avoid using the third eye, relying on your experience with other shooters to nail the headshot. You’ll consume more ammo to defeat enemies, but it is much safer, and missing is far less punishing. With this in mind, each encounter becomes a tense internal debate of how much trust you have in your own aim. Do you go for the quick kill to conserve ammo with the risk of losing resources, or do you expend more to keep yourself safe?
Where this dynamic gets more interesting is the introduction of the Heartbreaker, the game’s rechargeable superweapon. Dealing damage to enemies fills up a meter, and once it’s completely full, you can stop time and shoot the Heartbreaker. When shot at a weak point, it can deal devastating damage, even to enemies that can’t be killed with conventional weaponry, including bosses. However, a full meter only gives you one shot, and you have a limited amount of time to aim before taking the shot. If you miss, then you will have to fill the meter all over again for another chance. However, the meter fills up significantly faster when performing perfect combos, meaning accuracy becomes a lot more important if there is a powerful enemy in your vicinity. This also makes bosses especially tricky, as they can only be truly damaged by shooting them with the heartbreaker, creating further tension while simultaneously forcing you to keep your cool and preventing the fight from going south. It retains the tension of standard survival horror combat while still giving you full control of the situation.
The third eye mechanic is generously used and iterated on throughout the game’s many challenges. Puzzles are relatively sparse throughout the game, and while they do encompass inventory puzzles in the sense that you use items at specific spots in the environment, they are more akin to glorified keys from something like Doom than a puzzle that you would expect from Silent Hill 2. As such, most puzzles in the game are divorced from standard adventure game fodder of trial and error, and the pieces are usually pretty salient. However, once the extra dimension is introduced via the third eye, the game uses it to its fullest extent in increasingly interesting ways. For example, some items may only be visible/accessible in the demon world, perhaps the demon world lights a safer path through a series of brambles, or maybe a generator can only be powered within your radius whilst surrounded by enemies. I won’t spoil any further details, but these varying interactions and encounters make each level thoroughly entertaining to play through, even if the difficulty may snag you at certain points.
While the game isn’t extremely hard, the difficulty curve of the levels can occasionally be wobbly. It’s not an uncommon occurrence to play through a level/segment that is quite simple/easy in one moment and find yourself cornered and killed in another. While the encounters are all manageable with the right strategy, going in head-first is undoubtedly going to get you killed at some point. Nothing is extremely hard, but if you do find yourself stuck, there are a couple accessibility options to use at your discretion. They don’t completely trivialize the game, but they even the difficulty curve if you find it too steep.
The Platinum Trophy
When first looking at the trophy list, it certainly comes across as frighteningly dense. With many collectibles, four prospective playthroughs and earning the highest ranks in every combat level to boot, it may seem like earning the platinum for Sorry We’re Closed would be an incomprehensible mess. While there are plenty of missable trophies and four different endings to contend with, it is quite possible to compartmentalize the trophy list into only two playthroughs with minimal help required from a guide. So long as you know which choices you need to make at certain points and where the collectibles are during combat segments, the large “missable” count becomes a lot less scary. A large portion of the game’s trophies are acquired naturally when going for the different endings, and any trophies unrelated to the story can be cleaned up via a level select available after clearing the game. While certain endings are tricky, their requirements are usually made clear in what they require.
Where things get more interesting is the game’s ranking system. Much like Silent Hill 2, the game grades your performance in each level on a star system, measuring 7 different statistics like your time, deaths, collectibles, and general accuracy. Fulfilling certain par scores in these categories will award you stars, with the highest amount possible being 6. As such, earning the platinum trophy requires you to earn 6 stars in every combat level in the game. This is certainly an intimidating prospect when playing the game for the first time, since you need to know collectible locations and combat encounters well enough to string it all together in a relatively clean run through levels that can take between 20-40 minutes.
However, it is a challenge that becomes less scary as you gain experience from playing the game. With at least 2 playthroughs worth of experience and having to learn collectible locations as a baseline requirement for the platinum, you’ll have plenty of time to internalize the levels. Additionally, the game does not demand a perfect run from players, and there is flexibility in how players wish to reach 6-stars. The par scores for each category have decent leeway, and the leniency of 6-stars means that you can score less optimally in 1-2 categories if you do well in the remaining categories. However, if there are any levels you are struggling with, please refer to the playlist containing a 6-star clear of every level below:
(PLEASE NOTE: The footage was captured on an older patch of the PS4 version, which suffered considerable performance issues at the time. However, the performance has since been fixed, and the game runs buttery-smooth on both PS4 and PS5.)
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Full Playlist
