Paper Cut Mansion Review (Xbox Series S)

by Jim Smale · November 3, 2022

For our Paper Cut Mansion Review, we play a roguelike horror set in a cardboard universe. Explore, Solve Puzzles, Discover The Story, Fight or Flee, Prepare to Die, Gear Up, and Repeat! Play as Toby, a police detective arriving at a mysterious old mansion. Explore the mansion floor by floor as you seek to unravel the story behind this bizarre place, with each run giving you the opportunity to collect another piece of evidence to be added to your Evidence Board. The Mansion also hosts a mysterious cast of characters who may help or hinder your progress on each run…

Paper Cut Mansion Review

Paper Cut Mansion Review Pros:

Beautiful papercraft-looking graphics.
2.1GB download size.
1000 Gamerscore.
The brilliant opening sequence, song, and all!
Has a Tim Burton feel to it.
Puzzle gameplay.
Interact with objects by rotating them around and opening and closing drawers etc.
The Green moth acts like a radar and will tell you when something important or missing is still in the room.
You go from room to room, level by level of the mansion.
Riddles can be found and solved.
Generally speaking, the answers to puzzles are hidden in the rooms.
Simple aim and shoot gun combat.
Interact with NPC to get story, hints, or clues.
Portals can be entered and change the way the world is like changing the atmosphere etc.
3 difficulties – Normal, hard, and very hard.
Boss encounters.
Each time you go through a portal, you are in the same world but in a different time or atmosphere.
Discover evidence to fill in your board and uncover story elements.
Coins can be found and are used to buy medicine, boosts, or packages.
Packages are random and give upgrades or abilities, and are permanently unlocked.
Folder to fill in with packages and weapons.
Interactive elements will highlight.
Ghosts can appear and will chase you for a short time, you cannot damage them but if they hit you then you lose coins.
Booby traps a plenty.
Earn medals for solving riddles and pick a medal that changes your stats and is placed on your jacket.
Roguelike elements.
Levels and room layouts are randomized every run.
Upon death, you lose all stat changes and coins.
Love the style of it all.
The voice work is excellent.

Paper Cut Mansion Review

Paper Cut Mansion Review Cons:

The opening section is a slow walk.
You can only go to the settings in the main menu.
The game is not that good at explaining what’s going on.
No map or anything.
Constant feeling of being lost.
Not always sure what the game wants from you.
Small claustrophobic rooms which is a pain when it’s a combat encounter.
Every run, the game thinks it’s your first one and will give all the same dialogue again.
NPC will repeat themselves.
The auto-aim goes wonky and will just randomly lock onto the wrong enemy or maybe it won’t lock on at all.

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Paper Cut Mansion Review

Paper Cut Mansion:

Official website.

Developer: Space Lizard Studio

Publisher: Thunderful Games

Store Links –

Xbox

8/10

Graphics - 8/10
7/10

Sound - 7/10
6/10

Accessibility - 6/10
7/10

Length - 7/10
7/10

Fun Factor - 7/10

7/10

Summary

I really like the style of this game, the theme, the music, and the intro in particular are great. You play in a mansion that randomizes every run and has three Realms that change how the world plays out. The fire realm will create monsters to fight, the cold realm will slowly kill you unless you stand near the fire and the third is the “normal” realm. So yeah the style is not just visual, they have it where you interact with say a chest of drawers, spin it around and look for items on it or open the drawers, etc, it’s just a cool thing that unfortunately repeats itself in that all beds have the item in the same place as does fridges and that. The Realms do mix it up but the combat whilst a simple aim-and-shoot affair, takes place in really small areas and with slow camera control it all just gets mashy and not fun. The puzzles are different as they are well thought out and later on do need brain power and clues but the puzzle part is not a problem and is actually a real highlight. I spent my first hour feeling lost and confused as the game just chucked me around and gave me vague clues on what I may have to potentially do but it just never felt like the game wanted me to get into it. I want to play it more as I love the idea but it just feels loose in its approach to introducing new players and rooms needed to be a bit bigger with tighter combat. The thing is though I honestly cannot go to bat for it I also can’t hate it, Paper Cut Mansion is strong in places but falls down in others and it’s a mixed bag but man oh man they nail the style and atmosphere.