Cursed Mountain Revisited (Captain's Blog)

Day 1

I am going to finally playthrough Cursed Mountain for a second time and I felt like I needed to blog it to hold myself accountable to doing so. I played it a long time ago (2013 I think?) and since then I’ve always mentally marked it down as a very special play experience. More specifically I remember it being the best depiction of mountain climbing I ever did saw in a videogame.

I have never climbed a mountain in my actual life so my reference point for what I claim as its greatest success is already shaky but realism isn’t what I want from this, or really any mountain climbing game. ‘But’, you might say, ‘I played Jusant, Getting Over It, and/or Cairn and thought it/they were OK’. Yeah well, Getting Over It was p gd I guess but the qwoppy controls mastery isn’t what I want from mountain climbing. As for the others, I wasn’t moved toward them. Mountain climbing can be beautiful and cosy, a decent focus for an emotional pseudo sim, but there’s something more raw I’m looking for from Cursed Mountain. I am plagued by recurrent visions of a screen filled with white, howling cold wind, no music. But perhaps this too is a false memory. A sublime almost extraplanetary videogame level in which to exist within and pretend I have struggled up a mountain not as part of a simulation but as a transcendent vision that comes to me when I think about the game. This is the final level of Cursed Mountain. Something that sticks with you and won’t leave, reeling you back to play something you really should leave in the pile of giant plastic boxes full of game cases. It exists all the way at the end of the game so in the purist spirit, I must play through to this moment.

I fully expect the game not to hold up but that’s why I want to reexamine it. If it really is so special, then I’ll surely find those nuggets a second time through. I held off doing this for a long time because I got it for the Wii and the Wii is just a bit of a pain to set up (for just one game) with all the other plastic boxes that sit under the screen. The time has never felt quite right with moving house so frequently in the last decade and my arm injuries makes playing a game that uses motion controls doubly annoying. My back-up plan is to emulate it, but I want to attempt original hardware because my brain just works like that, and I think the revisiting of a mostly forgotten third-party game via this method is part of revisiting the experience holistically. I think an emulator might take a little of that midlife-Wii sting out.

Cursed Mountain is a horror adventure game, but it rarely gets across an unsettling atmosphere from a horror perspective. What it does do well is gets across the isolation I presume comes from ascending a mountain of this size and remoteness. The enemies and combat are frustrating but not in the restricted way that I think survival horror is often praised for.

It’s set in Tibet on a mountain which I thought was legally distinct from the Himalayan peaks, specifically Everest or ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ (Chomolungma ‘holy mother’) to give it its Tibetan name. In fact, the mountain its set on does exist. It’s called ‘Chomolonzo’ (in Chinese 珠穆隆索) and so already my hazy memory is failing me. I think I misremember this because the game takes great effort to never mention Everest, or at least that’s my memory. The other details I can half-remember before playing again are:

  • You play as a grizzled Scottish explorer who is the only man left from some failed expedition and thinks it wise to scale a 25000 ft peak by himself with minimal supplies.
  • Tantric sex is a major plot point that I think the writer got really into. Tantric sex needed to happen to suppress mountain demons or something
  • The game has significant colonial overtones. The game depicts Tibet in an atmospheric way but also squeezes much of it out what they can through a very colonial press.
  • There are some extraordinarily shit bossfights
  • Lots of Wii waggle
  • Some levels have no enemies or encounters and I remember it being remarkably restrained in terms of pacing when most other similar games were turning to full-on over the shoulder shooting in the wake of RE4. It’s still a part of that trend but I liked the emptiness of certain levels.

Before beginning I might as well chronicle the equipment any self-respecting mountain climber needs to get to the top. I had to brush aside many spider corpses to retrieve all this:

  • Game
    The first jumpscare of the journey, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code’s case lies, unloved, on top of Cursed Mountain! I really need to sell it. The disc seems free of rot but all will become clear when we boot up.


    I bought Cursed Mountain for £4 in a secondhand store in Cornwall which sold all sorts. The other Wii games going were mostly dance games and sports titles. I remember seeing it recommended in various game grids going over more obscure titles in each console’s catalogue, probably originating from 4chan or something. I saw it in this store and figured the price wasn’t too high a risk.

  • Game case Manual


    Looking forward to doing all this nonsense.


Our spry 25 year old protagonist

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Day 4

6 quid! Seemingly more than the price of the game itself but actually quite close in value when adjusted for inflation. I set up the Wii but have been too tired to get started on the game proper just yet.

I slept really bad in the night and got up to get a drink. It was completely dark except for all the little LEDs around the flat keeping me on track. I turned around while drinking and got creeped out seeing the Wii’s little red light staring at me.

Next time I’ll see what state the Wii’s in and maybe finally start playing this thing!

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Day 8

I boot up and actually play the video game!



So I’ve still got save data from the end of the game from my last playthrough. The game doesn’t have a manual save system so if I miss something I can’t really go back and have a look.

Also, I don’t have an easy way of taking screenshots so it’s rough and dirty photos for a while. Apologies, my TV is one the opposite wall to two windows so I’m doing my best to avoid light reflections on the TV. Imagine that the quality is not much better with a clean screengrab.

1 Frank

First chapter is extremely short and serves as a little peek of what Frank (our protagonist’s brother) was getting up to on Chomolonzo.

The nunchuk might be dying as it either didn’t respond or became ‘detached’ despite being plugged into the Wiimote. Concerning. But then I haven’t used it since 2013/14?

This is the good shit I remember. Just no UI and a horrible wind blowing snow particles all over a barren rock that you climb at a snail’s pace. Frank walks and climbs a cliff face with his friend Paul and that’s it.

2 Eric

We’re already at 16800 feet! Would be kinda interesting if the game started with 10 hours of mountain trails and then the survival horror just started halfway through the runtime.

Eric drools that Chomolonzo has never been summitted. The game takes place in 1980s. It was actually first summitted in 1954 so either the developers didn’t do research or just wanted to write in more motivation for Eric to go on a hopeless solo climb.

This second chapter is the first proper level and mostly a tutorial. You go to Lhando which is a fictional city loosely based on Lhasa(?). The game claims it’s the highest settlement which is also dubious but it’s all fictionalised so let’s roll with it. It also contradicts itself since you go to a higher settlement in the next level, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The city’s religious government has evacuated the city because ghosts have shown up. Eric has been lured here by money from the sponsor of Frank’s trip (Bennett). Eric also had to bribe a truck driver to bring him to a ghost-infested city so hopefully he’s getting a good deal cos we’re already in the red.


The truck we came here on is just dead. Driver gone? Cainhurst Castle start.

There’s a lot of ‘Look’ prompts that end in text trying to emulate Silent Hill.

You can only see item pickup VFX when nearby the item (the white column behind the gate above) which pushes you to case every perimeter. I guess it creates a small anxiety for the player but mostly I think it’ll just waste time. A lot of levels, I recall, are just mountain and base camps and this first level is the most city you ever see.

I am dropping my Wiimote, nunchuk and phone all over the floor as I juggle them for taking photos. It’s the worst controller to regularly put down. I think the nunchuk got fixed by the smack.

Some genuinely nice fixed camera sequences:

The game is mostly over the shoulder but I don’t remember so much fixed stuff. I wonder if they’ll abandon this later.


It’s worth remembering that Uncharted 2 also depicted Himalayan settlements and both released in the same year. Obviously there’s a hardware and dev pedigree difference but it’s one of those funny convergences that happens from time to time. I think I prefer Cursed Mountain in terms of vibes since Uncharted’s mountains were very pristine and clear. Cursed Mountain has a careless roughness to it that I feel like captures an average day at this elevation. The environment will fuck you over here as soon as it can.

You move extremely slowly but can run by holding Z. Unfortunately it’s not much faster. The game warns: ‘Careful not to alert nearby ghosts by jogging’ and then slaps me with a ‘boo’ screen for daring to jog lightly. The ghosts now show up.

Frank’s journal reveals he likes mountain climbing but hates the surrounding culture and settlements that come with this line of work. I think his characterisation makes him kind of an unlikeable cunt but he’s Eric’s brother dammit.

There’s a trippy cutscene where a monk just shows up and afterwards he immediately starts teaching this random stranger to ‘use his third eye’ as if spiritual enlightenment is like making sure to have a backpack and some snacks. No introduction to the NPC and Eric doesn’t say shit.

The monk just vanishes. This abruptness of NPC interactions and cutscenes contributes to a loose dreamy feeling of the narrative though I’d prefer that these scenes were just more visually interesting than slideshow stills of characters.

You can hit ghosts that show up with your pick axe because it’s been blessed a bit. I can’t really get pictures of combat easily because of how you have to use the Wiimote.

I got the Kartrika which can fire spiritual(?) energy at ghosts. Eric just pops it on his Pick Axe

Boop

Sometimes you can initiate a waggle QTE to perform a ‘compassion ritual’ by No-More-Heroes-slashing the ghost away and healing yourself.

We get to Bennett’s house and there’s a sigil preventing the door being opened. Being a Wii game you’d think you’d just draw the symbol to dispel it but actually you have to shoot it with your Kartrika/proton pack and then motion slash it.


Oh look Bennet is just here waiting for us.

When you cutscene-meet Bennett it’s implied that he’s using some sort of occult power to obscure something. Eric says he ‘can’t focus on what he’s saying [because the cutscene is hard to follow]’. He says he needs something of Frank’s to perform a ritual to see if he’s alive, thus, making it worth doing the trip. We get a bell that belonged to Frank that happened to be here but Bennett just vanishes so Eric decides he’ll just climb up the mountain anyway. Even though Frank is probably dead (it’s been 3 days) and the guy paying us is gone now as well. The only other motivation is there’s treasure too that this expedition of British climbers just want. The treasure is a terma, an artifact that contains hidden teachings and allegedly gives you immortality. Paul and Frank found it but had a fight and then Bennett found out? How? With the bell? Paul I think climbed back down but the game is so vague and blurry with the details. Also have you been keeping up with Eric-Frank-Paul-Bennett so far?

The vagueness sort of helps for a horror game and I feel like my initial misremembering of the game is really just a product of the storytelling being so loose. It’s just odd because I’ve picked up about 8 journals already detailing the setup for the whole thing but when it comes to people sitting down and organising a rescue everyone just sorta mutters to each other before passing out and then leaving. Either development constraints or a stretch to be cryptic were interfering with clarity around the inciting incident.

I’m not joking when I say I’d have loved to do these koras as my initial level instead of messing around with these nonsense men and their convoluted reasons for going up a mountain.

The writing of the expeditioners makes them out to be foolhardy ignorant westerners such that it’s hard to care about them. The writers also struggle to write the perspectives of the sherpas and locals as anything other than easily-spooked superstitious spiritualists who sanctimoniously deride outsiders as disrespectful. It feels like the writing lacks a sense of empathy or sympathy for the mundane of either the climbers or the locals. No-one is really characterised because of the paucity of dialogue and interaction. The situation (literal ghosts) is only framed as tragedy because the notes left behind says it is. Eric just puts all the weird stuff down to him hallucinating from altitude sickness. I just don’t get a sense of who it is for. The dourness is too dull for teens and the shallowness gives no purchase for older players. It’s writing that is in a huge hurry to get the player to spooky horror at the expense of the setting and characters. But this isn’t a slasher with cheap thrills, someone did some research on the culture. Like most things I’m putting it down to a novice studio not having time, knowhow, or all the skills.

Only at the end here we learn that Bennett already tried the climb once. I could swear we never hear from or about this man again and I’m hoping I don’t. With this second level done there are 11 left. Next up is the village of Cherku as Eric sets off up the mountain.

I might try playing when there’s less sunlight to avoid so many blown out shots but there may also be less to take note of as we go forward. This level was quite dense with information.

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Day 22

3 Yogini

We’re 18000 ft up and coming up on the village of Cherku. I’m playing at night this time to see if the images come out of it better and I think it works. Sometimes I like walking with the default walk speed, slow enough that it actually feels like you’re hiking across pretty large levels (for a Wii game). The entrance to the village is a forest of prayer spears to ward of spirits but even this has failed. The village is abandoned as word that the entire mountain becoming haunted seems to have led to a fairly efficient evacuation. The refugee displacement it presumably caused is something I’m thinking about a lot.

Before we get there, there’s this imprisoned man/voluntary ascetic just chanting. When you approach, he tells you to ‘cut through ignorance’ and see the yogini for help. He’s like a sort of Souls-hole NPC who just chants and then tells you some cryptic stuff. I think this character is based on a myth of spiritual immurement/anchoritism by which yogi/nis and monk/nuns hole up in a cave to do a hermitage but I can’t find much on it.

Again, the developers did some research. I find Buddhism and Tibetan culture interesting though I am far from an expert. The developers are all Austrian as far as I can tell and it would be easy to accuse them of doing a lot of culture costuming in the aesthetics but I’m not sure how productive this line of criticism is. It kinda just makes me want to read and learn more than claim a bunch of people are getting something totally wrong. Maybe I’ll travel to the Himalayas before I finish this game.

So, the village is deserted and now that we are further into the mountains I feel like the atmosphere is picking up. Although the skybox and textures are pretty rough, they work nicely with the sound design and uneven geometry to really make you feel like you are alone in the mountains. Outside of combat the game’s score/soundscape is very understated and bassy with the only treble being the Wii disc shikikking in the drive. I think playing this at night also improves things. The dark is partner to the lower frequencies.

Steady on Eric.

The floor has so many steep angles because of the setting where [I imagine] they were gathering reference from villages situated on steep topography. In reality, villages situated like this make much more use of stairs rather than have steep hills as the only major paths so might just be a topography of convenience for doing quick and dirty level design. It works quite well to make the game’s levels feel unique and I noticed a fairly good animation system which adjusts your walk cycle based on steeper inclines/declines. You can see a lot of this steepness throughout the village.

To rest my arms, I am now crossing them over each other and resting them on my knees when I can. Right hand wiimote on left knee, left hand nunchuk on right knee. I can do this until I need to aim which is when I do this kind of pseudotactical aiming stance so I can rest my right arm a bit.

There should be far less enemies in this game for two main reasons:

  1. Switching to the aiming grip is getting tiresome
  2. The game’s biggest strength is atmosphere

If the number of enemy encounters was reduced by 90%, the horror would be much more effective at building suspense through long sections of travel, and it would feel more like a journey not constantly being interrupted by ghosts demanding their QTE tax. The only resource is incense for healing so combat has no carrot to be gotten from moment to moment encounters (no upgrades, ammunition, currency, or modifiers).

We learn a bit more about the expedition and how Bennett set up Frank to be his favourite for the Mountain Ascension. Of course, the ritual required to ascend the mountain involves two tantra partners to do a ritual, one of which must presumably be involved in the actual climb. Therefore, the hateful Frank is put forward as a Tantric partner candidate. His diaries continue to condemn him. The locals are hesitant to let him go up the mountain due to their beliefs. Frank writes ‘Who gives a crap’. He follows this up with his own zinger to seal the deal on us caring about rescuing him.

I choose to believe that Eric (us) either just wants the glory/thrill of the climb or has some other motive for getting Frank back, because it’s seeming less and less like it’s because he liked him. He never talks about him really. Just an unlikable Frank in Distress.

We go all the way down the hill and find a building with three spiritual Resident Evil locks so we must go all the way back up the hill for the keys.

Some of the keys require new QTE motions. The nunchuk QTE where you shove the nunchuk forward with the trigger facing upwards is very unreliable and I am praying it doesn’t show up in combat. The more motion inputs that the game introduces, the more they get woven into the QTE requirements to kill ghosts. So it’s like you get an upgrade that makes basic combat worse.

Your pickaxe can collide with doorframes and walls that ghosts can noclip which put me in mind of the environmental awareness required in Demon’s Souls where your weapon can just bounce off the environment if you’re not careful.

A busywork boss, the Khorlo, shows up and requires that you do the symbol unlock QTEs whilst also fending off ghosts. I think the developers were worried that there wasn’t enough combat depth in what is ostensibly a hiking sim. The atmosphere and camerawork are really what I’m enjoying, not the slog of ghosts who are almost always preceded by a cutscene in this early part.

We continue.

We come to Foreshadower’s Bridge.

Another QTE later

QTEs really were huge in the 2000s.

The yogini, Jomo Mengmo, awaits in the creepy fashion most other NPC interactions are presented in.

NPCs are just mannequins around which cutscenes emerge. It seems to be done to avoid having to animate NPCs and having a proper cutscene system but then ghosts have cutscenes that run in-engine so… After we meet Jomo it’s implied that she drugs us with incense and lures us into a trap.

Jomo then pushes us off a cliff and given Frank’s actions leading to the ghost infestation who can blame her?

Altitude: 18000 ft
Incense remaining: 12

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Great thread!!

My favorite part of survival horror is this sense of isolation from unreliable NPCs.

Noticing a human silhouette from afar, hoping we’ll finally find an ally, watching a cutscene where they go off on a tangent about the meaning of « divinity », then seeing the unceremonious « Jack has left » after the cutscene ends. « That’s it? » hell is other people

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Yeah it’s a particularly dreamy aspect of these kinds of games I’m not sure how intentional it was but the effect is appreciated. My memory is there aren’t that many more NPC encounters but curious to see if we get more of this

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Day 50

4 Demon

Chomo Lonzo means ‘bird goddess’. Creatures that sail the sky are natural residents of the mountain, though it provides relatively little to eat. We awake left for dead by the Yogini Jomo. This is the first level where the environment is primarily just mountain walks. We are slowly leaving buildings behind.

The game is also trying to experiment a little bit now by creating fake checkpoints and fake ghosts to gesture at subversion.

At the very start of the level there is a path behind you which you can go down to see nothing except a statue of Aksobhya. Decisions like these in low-budget games always intrigued me as they feel like they are both deliberate and pointless. They almost create a sense of verisimilitude, that the world is not just created for you the player. Things exist here because that’s where they exist. The specific name drop of Aksobhya (a buddha of wisdom) also carries the feeling that they just had a lot of research notes left over that they wanted to fit wherever they could. Later there is a large mani stone blocking the way to a side area which could have just been a rock given how little comment it registers. Side area is cool though:

Immuration seems unusually common in this game’s modern Tibet. ‘Chod’ means ‘cutting through’ and relates to philosophies surrounding the destruction of the ego. But also suckling ghosts. An emerging theme of this level is how the writer thinks of an interesting aspect of Buddhist philosophy and then it becomes the most function-over-form game element imaginable.

‘The walls are alive with ghosts’

Don’t touch. You know what the arms of the dead reaching out of a cliff kind of like? Steam vents that you have to navigate while shimmying over a ledge. They even happen in extremely discrete spots and for a set duration.

Because they do so much damage this is where I get my first game over.

This is where I recall that the game makes the bold choice not to make healing shrines checkpoints. Instead they are arbitrarily attached to different bits of the level, presumably to make loading assets efficient. It’s unfortunate because the game is slow enough that resetting to a checkpoint often means you need to endure some busy work collecting resources healing etc before you even got to challenge that killed you. Although the game is generally not very hard, the time lost can be quite punishing. Be not weak.

A ghost keep spawning right behind Eric to make you turn around. Again, the game is starting to realise it has tools other than just endless combat. It does this fake out about four times before the ghost actually turns out to be a real enemy you have to fight. I took the opportunity to take a clearer picture of what ghosts generally look like.

We come now to one of the parts of the game that I remember most strongly. Mainly because it is the biggest difficulty spike perhaps in the entire game.

This wide-open courtyard precedes a boss fight that is extremely difficult, or at least that was my memory of it. A few ridiculous videogame things to note. We cannot pass by the way we are meant to go because there is a blockage in the path. Trust me you cannot climb over this or move around it.

Instead let’s go back and inspect these creepy vulture statues.

They crackle with electricity(?). Eric has no thoughts on any of this. I think we can all agree we obviously need to head right and touch the electric vulture statues more before trying to sidestep a trash pile to the left. Well, touching all the statues summons the boss, the vulture demon, which is never really given a proper name so I’m not sure to what extent it’s based in mythology. The main connection seems to be to sky burials which the game hasn’t really covered yet.

Time to explain the fight since this now takes quite a long portion of my play through. The boss is much more mobile than you are. It’s attacks take one third of your health. There is a healing shrine in the boss arena but if you use it you will almost certainly be attacked since it locks you into a lengthy animation. So you have three hits you can take in the whole fight. You can swing at it with your axe to do small damage or shoot it with the Kartrika laser beams to do big damage. Big damage takes about seven hits to drain the boss’ life bar. Eric manages it. So far so good but I forgot that the electric vulture statues will resurrect boss after you kill it. You then need to destroy the vulture statues to stop the revive triggering, so far so Fool’s Idol. Destroying each vulture statue summons a regular ghost that hangs out near the area of the arena that the pillar was in. The last pillar summons a tanky ghost that is a bit harder to kill. You have to kill the boss, destroy all pillars, kill all of these summoned ghosts, and the boss again. You can take 2 hits maximum while every other enemy including both phases of the boss takes about 6-7 attacks. If you do take 2 hits you start moving slower a la RE. The arena is a circular area with lots of walls that you can collide with if you graze them.

After about 7 attempts I am starting to wonder if the playthrough is over. This level alone is likely the reason most don’t persist with the game. It is an unusually Souls-y difficulty peak and your guy just isn’t equipped for it. It’s time to consult the FAQ!

One thing in advance: the healing Shrine also works during the fight, so use it if you need to!

:waynestare:

The FAQ helps understand the basic design of the fight but could be a bit more nuanced regarding strategy. The vulture demon has quite a predictable AI, it teleports after a while then attacks. It’s set to teleport generally ahead of the path the player’s currently travelling so as long as you are making a curved path you can always dodge it reliably as long as there are no walls in the way. Knowing this, the first phase poses little threat since you can reliably weave out of the attack, do a 180, and do damage. When it comes to destroying the pillars and the other ghosts this is where it becomes a bit chancy. Since the ghosts don’t really roam too far from their pillar of spawn, you can essentially do cycles. At that moment the PS360 classic The Club sprung to mind, you know the one where you do laps through hundreds of mooks trying to get a highscore? This is what I need to do to clear the arena and get back to exploiting the vulture’s shortcomings. Not getting hit while doing all this was quite stressful and the fact that I need to hold sprint and aim to do certain actions was taking a bit of a toll on my hands. I only had so much time before I had to stop playing and come back another time.

Suddenly, while playing I start chanting to myself that I am delivering milk. The spiralling pattern and the fact I can only get a couple hits on each ghost at a time makes me realise that I am on my milk round and bringing the milk to the people who need it. I stop at pillar 1 and deliver the milk to the ghost. Pillar 2, Pillar 3 repeat. ‘Delivering Milk, Delivering Milk’. The chant gives me renewed focus and motivation. Whatever works I guess. Thoughts of the poorly placed checkpoint before the fight flashed in front of my face (the fight doesn’t start until you’ve done a long walk up to the arena, topped off your health, and activated the three pillars individually). I ain’t doing that shit again. Delivering Milk! At the final blow, the vulture fucks off.


The reward for what I remember being the hardest boss in the game is that the pile of trash that Eric could easily sidestep disappears. The real reward for me however is that I am reminded how much I enjoy the mountain walks.

The narrow, uncertain geometry that I get to slowly walk across. Just me and a mountain. It is at this moment that Eric decides to start pontificating about his relationship with Frank. Worth highlighting at this point he said absolutely nothing to react to the giant vulture demon. Anyway, we learn that Eric was so incredibly cool and respected by everyone that Frank could never live up to him. This appears to have led to them falling out so I guess Eric is just motivated by some guilt. It’s not really enough for me but Eric is such an incredible climber, and now demon slayer that maybe it’s not such a big deal to go pick up Frank.

Frank ain’t worth it.

The game has still not saved so if I die at this point it’s back to the milkcart which I am very nervous about. We get our first climb as Eric though.

It’s hard to show how ‘flingy’ the side-climb animation is but this is the keypose:

The climbing input lag is about one second when changing direction. It’s slow and cumbersome which makes it feel both an effort and to force you to commit to movement properly for later sections where you’re navigating obstacles iirc.

Special commendations go to the camera crew. I feel like they’ve always got my back when I start to get discouraged by the awful combat. I think this game is genuinely beautiful at times and I feel it strongly here.

We’re back at Jomo’s tent. It turns out we haven’t really made much progress from the previous village. Eric stands ready to murder the old woman. But alas…

It’s round 2 since the vulture wants us both dead. This second bossfight is a lot easier. Neo in the corridor. The terrible gauntlet of the first encounter basically makes this a victory lap. I haven’t shouted like this at a win in a while. We kartrika the boss so hard:

DELIVERING MIIIIIIIIIILK!!!

As is probably stated in Tibetan myth, defeating the vulture demon bestows upon the exorcist a
weapon upgrade:

Jomo does a ritual and tells Eric the mountain goddess is not exactly against him climbing further but she ain’t happy either. We progress onto the terraced fields with our goal being to reach the monastery to see if those monks can’t sort this all out.

Current altitude: 18,200 feet
Incense remaining: 18

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8 Likes

Is this the end of Cursed Mountain posting? I love this thread

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There will definitely be more entries soon. I’m just a bit waylaid with work and life stuff which has clogged up the weekends I normally play in. Cursed Mountain will return, hopefully before Easter.

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Day 85

5 Mist

This level is comparatively breezy, mostly made up of a linear path of shacks in the mist.

The mist is probably the most notable element and the filter on the screen that adds to the mist changing from barely visible to completely white is quite hypnotic to watch. This language of shacks and mist calls to mind early RE4 and Silent Hill respectively. This level is essentially a gauntlet through the ghost funhouse with budget-saving, misty vistas. The shacks are essentially small close quarters fights that the mechanics don’t really support while the outside misty sections are just regular arenas with the added difficulty of the low visibility.

The shacks, and narrow paths between them, bring to prominence the ghost’s ability to walk through walls as a major obstacle since you have a lot less manoeuvrability in this level compared to others. The ghosts still must interact with boundaries of the level though so you can actually trap a ghost at the outer edge of the level and stun lock it into a pattern and so the level resorts to sheer numbers to even the odds. This is the first series of non-boss/non-environmental deaths just trapped in the cage with the ghosts.

The area we’re travelling through fictionally is the farms of the neighbouring areas, but we never really get to travel across the stepped fields (you can just about make them out in the image below). Instead, we get a winding corridor that makes liberal use of blind alleys to direct the player one way before doubling back up the next path.

If I were directing this game, I would probably have an entire level where Eric basically holes up in a shack to rest and regather himself. We could do some fun stuff with actual hallucinations that might be brought on by altitude sickness or flashbacks to an earlier time, but this level is more concerned with saving what little budget remains.

A brief aside.

Long ago I lived in Exeter in Devon in the Southwest of the UK. It’s a nice city with great cycling and walks, if a bit posh - the stench of the gench is everywhere. However, it is the only place I can ever recall happening upon a Tibetan street food vendor. He was a friendly guy displaced from China-occupied Tibet and made his living primarily making ‘paley’ or ‘pally’. These are a type of pastry usually filled with vegetable or meat and similar to an empanada or pasty. The way this guy made them was closer to a pancake and they were incredible. So much so I wanted to eat more Tibetan food but realised that there are so few Tibetan expats that Tibetan restaraunts/cuisine are quite rare. I bought a cookbook a while back (the only one I own) to make some stuff of my own. I never really got into cooking but this flavour text reminded me I had it and it includes a recipe for Poe Cha. I might give it a go and report back. I might even try some of the other recipes and make this a cooking thread who knows.

Now I know you’re keen to know. Has Frank redeemed himself? What about Frank? Is he the same old Frank we knew? Please, be at ease. Frank is no slave to tact.

Eric hears an old man’s voice as he walks through this area, implied to be the monk guy we met in the very first level. He telepathically(?) calls to us to bring the ritual tools to the monastery ahead to complete the ‘Dark Jhator’.

Since this level is so minimal with regards to what actually happens the notes and keys that we interact with essentially tell the story of how the ritual didn’t go very well. Frank and Mingma Yangzi were candidates for a tantric ritual required to appease the Goddess of the mountain. Almost everything they are required to do doesn’t happen.

  • The ritual required somebody to be sacrificed, specifically one of the tantric partner’s hearts to be pierced by a Kila – a ritual dagger symbolising various aspects.
  • The ritual didn’t use the correct tools at the time (we find them along the way through this level – the Kila and the Hammer).
  • The ritual wasn’t done with compassion because Frank is a cunt (implied to have raped or murdered Mingma).

Because this is a Wii game they vague about what Tantric rituals involve but the modern Western fascination is often with the sexual side of it – the idea that spiritual enlightenment can be found through the unity of two bodies. Not all tantra is sexual but much of its practice would likely have made the content ratings boards nervous and so we’re left with a sort of dreamlike patchy understanding of exactly what was meant to happen and what went wrong.

Eric please! I think given everything we’ve seen it’s uncharitable to refer to superstition when we are in regular contact with the supernatural.

Dark Souls was famous for many things, but I think Tomb of the Giants was particularly infamous for using pitch black as an obstacle but also as an intimidating, absolute aesthetic choice. My emerging thesis around Cursed Mountain is that the same kind of experience emerges from its use of overwhelming near white-outs on screen. Sometimes this is the general fog created by the ghosts, sometimes it’s the mist of the cloud layer at this altitude, sometimes it is the blizzards. I can’t think of many similar experiences in other games where indistinctness brought about by a saturation of white is the dominant palette. The occasional dark grey edge acts as the only lighthouse in the bright white dark. As a result some screenshots will come out very indistinct:

This Buddha makes a very pleasing resonant sound.

Throughout the level, ghosts have been summoned by ‘beard ghost’ [image not found], setting him up as the boss. Once you get the Kila, you get mugged by his buddy and the ghosts try to strap you to a rock to sacrifice you. This is the first time the goal of the ghosts has been more concretely laid out other than just being mindless zombies. Some of them appear to retain knowledge of the ritual and are trying to use you as a stand-in for the sacrifice that should have happened. Eric briefly remarks upon the fact that the ghosts are stopping him from getting what he needs but it does at least paint the people who died and became killer ghosts in a somewhat sympathetic way, even if the developers didn’t really emphasise this particular story beat.

The drama of the moment is undercut somewhat by the Wiimote/nunchuk graphic.

You’d think we just waggle the remote and get out of the situation but you have to do it many times. If you fail you get stabbed but the stab doesn’t do very much damage which leads to the absurd situation of my Eric being stabbed about 3 times in the stomach before I realised how much waggle was necessary. I successfully waggle and Eric dramatically rolls out of the way and the Kila hits stone. Rather than roll away, Eric rolls back into position so that the qte can continue like some sort of Naked Gun scene. We eventually get free and do a sort of Ornstein and Smough dance with the beard ghost and his mugger buddy. Buddy can fly and shoot lasers while beard ghost is really just a minor annoyance.

Most basic enemies by this point are now requiring quite a lengthy motion-qte to defeat and have health pools that are too large to just wail on with regular melee attacks. Also because the developers are preferring larger groups it means that you have to get much better at firing off your own lasers with the Kartrika. Melee becomes a means of breaking out to gain space. It hasn’t really changed my feeling that there is too much combat generally in the game but I can see what they were going for. After doing my wiimote katas I emerge victorious and the mist subsides.

Onwards Eric.

The monastery awaits.

Onwards.


Current Altitude: 18,400 feet
Incense Remaining: 17

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Day 143

For various reasons I haven’t been able to continue this playthrough lately. It is a high priority for me though once I start playing games regularly again. It’s been one of the most enjoyable projects of this year and I still want to see it through. I vow to keep at it like Eric here is demonstrating:

Cursed Mountain will return…

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I missed this thread so great to read it while I am in a Wii Phase.

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i noticed cursed mountain is not in my wii megalist. it is definitely fascinating enough to be on that list! i might be too lazy to edit it now tho lol

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Day 170

6 Monastery

This is the longest level yet.

Nothing will stop me from climbing this mountain. From here it’s a long linear path up into Nyen-de-Kyi-buk monastery. Eric has nobody else to turn to except for the monk, Thod Pa, he briefly met in the very first level who he knows is still in the Monastery because of monk telepathy.

We cover a mountain trail and bridge which soon acts as a tutorial for the new weapon the Kila. It is functionally a long-range railgun compared to the Kartrika’s slower rocket launcher. The game is indicating here that it has much better accuracy at range but an extremely slow recharge time.

The foley is noticeably much better here with the wind + rope bridge. The composer is going all in on the throat singing throughout the level as well. This level feels the most like a proof-of-concept since it gives us a bit of everything. We get mountain trails, temple courtyards, tight interiors, and lots of key hunting and combat. We also get a real sense of promise of the setting now that we are at a much higher altitude but still encountering buildings. There is a point that I remember the game becomes pure mountain and it starts to get quite abstract but at least here we are still grounded in scenic vistas that are contrasted by the architecture.

I think the developers get worried that the player might be bored in this level a lot. It becomes a running theme, the first instance of which is a random rockfall quick time event which is easily dodged.

I really like this reveal of the temple grounds, we enter into a cool-looking building, see it at the top of the stairs, and it opens up into a nice little scene. We also get the customary ghost POV shot but here it’s nice because we still have control, I thought it was a cut scene initially.


Unfortunately, this is where we encounter the first hard crash of the play through. After I defeat some enemies the console completely freezes.

A quick reset brings us back to our first of many key hunts. These usually have us going around the large monastery buildings into every room that has a grey monochrome filter applied to it. When you enter into these ghost dens, the game also applies a very consistent Dutch angle which is now becoming almost comical because of how mechanically precise the angle change is every time. The monastery is pleasant to walk around at least. An abandoned liminal space.

Ganesha masks are our key. Yet more religious paraphernalia that gets reduced to an inventory keychain.

We open the door they unlock and are more formally introduced to the flying ghost enemy. These guys are here to reinforce that the Kila is worth using since they move almost immediately after you fire and they add a little bit of wrinkle with the banishing QTE, now you can’t see the sequence of motion icons until you have to perform them.

As we progress onto the temple, another of many frustrating gimmicks, the incense room, nearly stops the play through.

The setup is that we are locked in a square room with an incense holder in each corner. This particular species of ghost is invisible/invincible except when near smoke so you have to frantically light incense and dispatch the ghosts in the 3 seconds they are visible, all while dodging damage over time. I was thinking about taking a break before the 4th attempt; my hands are still not fully there but they are much better. Luckily, I stunlock both ghosts in the corner and get the banishing QTE off. One of the nunchuk QTEs is starting to become really inconsistent and I feel like it’s a matter of time before the hardware collapses at this rate.

After this we get to the temple proper. We see a vision of Frank who actually calls out to us.


I think this might be first time we’ve actually heard him speak for an extended period. I haven’t mentioned it much but Eric speaks with a distinct Scottish accent while Frank sounds English. I’m not sure if this is an oversight or just a bit of background detail, it’s not infeasible. Just a bit odd, am wondering if they gave Frank less voice-acting thought given how infrequently he speaks aloud so far. The Frank echo is trying to get into the temple but the door’s locked.

This area has a blind corner which stumps me for about 10 minutes before I consult a FAQ and find the right way through. This room with the three windows feels significant somehow, but it isn’t.

Progressing into the Monastery itself we are met with the traditional ‘3-key’ configuration and the game briefly feels like a Zelda dungeon. Systematically working our way through the rooms to find the three ghosts that need banishing.

Because I’ve been playing the game for so long and the console and disc seem to be disintegrating, a background sound (some kind of collision noise?) seems to be looping on top of itself and it creates a sort of tearing noise. It’s literally like the sound of tearing fabric. I don’t remember this from my first playthrough and it quickly becomes clear that it’s a glitch, but it does not go away. Several combat encounters are made more difficult because of the noise. I have to do a full reset to get rid of this as well, but I have to admit that playing the game in the dark with that sound creeping in differently gave it more tension. Kind of an Eternal Darkness feeling.

We finally unlock the inner chamber and fight the temple super ghost. We are rescued by Thod-Pa beating the gong which is functionally equivalent to ghost bleach. All the text logs on this level talk about the difficulty the monks had trying to find ways to get rid of all the ghosts but Thod-Pa has just been manning the gong this whole time.

We get the Lag pa, an unsearchable name for what I think is more commonly known as a ‘Vajra’ ࿇ , a ritual hand for pacifying and destroying demons. This game interprets it as a sort of ghost fishing rod. There is a brief tutorial on how to use it but with no ghosts to use it on. This will become a pain in the arse shortly.

We then meet up with Thod Pa get the longest cutscene in the game which, in very uncharacteristic fashion, unambiguously explains the entire plot thus far. He even apologises for the game being confusing.


It’s a summary of all the things that have been briefly hinted at by previous characters or explaining more detail in the text logs, so I assume this cut scene is basically made for players who probably weren’t paying attention up until this point. Basically he confirms that the whole plot revolves around finding the terma, rather than wait for the scrolls that discuss the terma to be fully translated and studied, Thod Pa tells Bennett (remember him?) a British occultist about it which leads to the expedition that has caused this curse to happen. Although the cut scene dryly explains the plot, it has some moments.


Killer 7 vibes here ^

I had thought this cutscene would be the end of an already quite long level. It is not!

We enter into a relatively cosy feeling section where Thod-Pa says we need to learn from the previous lamas to gain the strength to defeat ghosts as we progress up the mountain. Because the original ritual has not been properly completed by anyone who has trying to ascend the mountain, the next best thing is for Frank to do some accelerated monk training.


We get a free health upgrade from exorcising one of the statues and it’s the first time I realise that the statues give the health upgrades via Jomo Mengmo’s prophecies, a category of text log. I’ve got three of the possible five(?) so far which raises the interesting possibility of a player being completely screwed if you didn’t realise the statues confer this benefit. I’m only just noticing the statues do this and we’re nearly halfway through the game, the game never really makes you do this or completely feeds back that it’s what causes the health upgrade. It is never mentioned in the manual and is a bit of a secret mechanic. You can’t do anything to go back and get missed health upgrades, so the player really needs to be on it to not get put in a situation where they are extremely limited by their base health.

Getting back to the lamas… To learn more we now embark on a stealth section in which Eric uses a tape-recorder to record ghosts reciting mantras. He is literally required to gather evidence of the existence of ghosts. The stealth section is another mild inconvenience as you can only see the path while aiming your third eye. Otherwise touching these ghost spikes means the ghosts evacuate and you have to try again.

Once we have the mantras, Thod-Pa takes us back to the temple for a rematch.

After the Eagle Demon I didn’t think the game had a more deranged skill check but they kind of manage it here.

You have to do an extended lasso motion input which simulates ringing some kind of instrument associated with meditation. I think it’s a handheld prayer wheel or possibly a ritual bell (dril bu - འབྲིལ་བུ) but the game never actually shows what it is that you are manipulating. The feedback on how well you are doing is very poor here and it requires an extremely sustained effort to keep the appropriate amount of motion, acceleration, and rhythm. The goal is to do the motion correctly until the screen gradually goes black. If you let up on the correct motion for even less than a second, it resets your progress. This segment is unskippable and must be performed every time you attempt the boss.

The boss itself is vanquished very easily but only if you know what to do. This is where the tutorial for the Lag Pa would have been appropriate. We are taught to use a new weapon quite a long time before we ever encounter an enemy we can use it on. This bastardised to it in one hit but it requires that you remember to hold B, make contact with the enemy, and flip up. It also helps to know that this action is hard to do consistently. Although the boss can essentially be killed in one hit, it can also kill you very quickly if you are not ready.

I lost count of how much time I spent trying to do that QTE before the boss. I actually decided to take a break from the playthrough. Normally I complete each level in one sitting but this level was so long, and had so many bizarre little skill checks I was feeling both physically and mentally exhausted. One time I attempted it, it just would not let me progress. I think I tried twirling my arm for a solid two minutes. I don’t what it is that drives people to be so cruel about these kinds of gates. I have to trust that it was a lack of time and resources that inflicted this upon me, not a deliberate decision to challenge the player. I’d be really curious to know what you do in the PC version of this game.

  • [I looked it up and I’m furious. There’s an actual interface that clearly feeds back what motion is required for your mouse and how close you are to completing it. I assume this version was released later when they might have had time to correct it.]

I took a break for about an hour but still felt like I wanted to finish the level since the FAQ indicated it was almost over. I booted up the game again and still couldn’t progress past this QTE.

I gave it another half-hour, tried again, and beat the boss.

After all this Thod-Pa gives us his final warning. Frank is almost certainly dead but his soul is still in the bardo (sort of liminal purgatory in Buddhism). Eric feels it completely necessary to state once again they doesn’t believe in anything that is happening.

What are you chatting Eric? The level required so much effort and active learning about the different ghosts. In order to progress we we had to record the undead and lasso a super ghost. We have witnessed the ghost of our own dead brother who we are searching for. I think Eric is just trying to say that he is thankful but can’t find the right words.

Our next stop is to rendezvous with the apparently still alive Master Lama Khenpo in another temple complex further up the mountain.

Current Altitude: 18,700 ft
Incense Remaining: 24

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It’s worth remembering why I’m putting up with a lot of the shit that the game is throwing at me. The crappy bosses and awful motion elements remind me that I am playing the game mainly for its strange beauty. What does it matter if a game has faults, as long as it can give you these moments?

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