[PlayStation 5] Paper Cut Mansion Review

Paper Cut Mansion from Thunderful and Space Lizard Studio is a papercraft roguelike on PS. Learn more in Paper Cut Mansion review!

Hello everybody! I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas festivities with your families, friends, or both! As the year draws to a close, we are all beginning to look forward to what 2023 will bring us in terms of games. Do let us know in the comments what are your most anticipated games of 2023! I am a big Assassin’s Creed fan, so I expect the next installment around to hit before 2023 is over. I am sure we will see a slew of brilliant indies in-between the big hitters, and 2023 is the year we get the next entry in The Legend of Zelda series! As for today, I’m here to talk about handmade papercraft roguelike action game Paper Cut Mansion from Thunderful and Space Lizard Studio.

It’s set in a creepy mansion, and you play as a detective named Toby. You’ll explore it floor by floor, collecting evidence and solving puzzles as you uncover the story behind this creepy and bizarre mansion. The game is a roguelike, so each run has some pieces of evidence for you to collect, which is then added to your evidence board for you to view at your leisure. The environments are very maze-like, with each floor being huge. During your time with Paper Cut Mansion, you’ll run into a host of characters that can either hinder or help your progress. There is a priest that can banish ghosts and a merchant from which you can purchase a variety of supplements that can boost your stats (per run only) and heal you, amongst other things.

What makes this game stand out from most roguelikes is the fact it is a 3D game made from paper cut-outs, right down to the paper cut-out projectiles. You need to beat the entire mansion in one complete sitting without dying, and in order to do this, you must collect all evidence, complete all quests, and travel to other dimensions. There is the Limbic system which is a cold dimension, where your cold meter will fill up until you find a warm room to bring the meter down, so you kinda need to be quick. Then there is the Neo-Cortex dimension, where you need to stay on your toes, as anything can happen without warning. There is the Reptilian dimension which is full of enemies, and you get a gun… because they are everywhere!

The puzzles are logic-based, and the answers are in the furniture in the room. You need to search every piece of highlighted items in order to uncover the clue and find the answer within that clue. For example, you find a door that requires a number code to open. Amongst the furniture, you find a poster. You may think that poster is pointless, but it actually isn’t! That poster has the answer you seek in order to open that door.

Paper Cut Mansion is a roguelike in the purest form. You die, you lose absolutely EVERYTHING. Money? Gone. Upgrade medals? Gone. Bought some boosts? Gone. Back to square one and start again. You do get to keep your story progress, which is in the form of evidence you collect. There are collectible cards that you can add to your character slots, which can sorta work like upgrades, but they’re quite rare!

The concept for the game is great. The creepy paper cut-out environments and characters are brilliantly done. Replayability is high. Then what’s the issue? Well, roguelikes are marmite. You either love or hate them! Paper Cut mansion is definitely up there with all the other marmite games. I don’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either. There’s certainly plenty to see in this one since it has 25 endings on offer. No, that’s not a typo. TWENTY-SEVEN. Can you find a way to get all of them?

Along with the collectible evidence that you get to keep post runs, you can view the story from the main menu outside the mansion. Every piece of highlighted furniture you examine will drop some money or stat boost items. Some items are one-time use, and others will boost stats for that run only. With the money, you can visit a merchant to buy stat boosts and healing items. You can only buy one of each, and every merchant that you visit has different items to purchase. The combat system isn’t fully fleshed out, although it is mainly just tied to events, some dimensions do not have weapons, so you need to run and find a priest to banish them! Sometimes they disappear after a set amount of time has elapsed, so the game will definitely keep you on your toes.

As I mentioned before, Paper Cut Mansion is a game that you’re either going to love or hate. Due to its pure roguelike nature, having to beat the game from start to finish in one go as you hope to get one of the rare cards that can help you during subsequent runs will certainly keep you busy… if you’re into roguelike games. Paper Cut Mansion is available as a Cross-Buy title with a $19.99 asking price, so when you buy the game, you’ll get both the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5 versions of the game at no extra cost.

Disclaimer
This Paper Cut Mansion review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Thunderful.