Grizzly Man is the latest Visual Novel from LCB.

I was looking forward to this game when it was announced. I like the visual novels that LCB makes, and Grizzly Man is excellent. It is like a forgotten slasher movie from the 1980s.

This is a pretty fun game. It gives you a reason to go back and try to do better than the previous time. It reminds me of games like Until Dawn and The Quarry but in a visual novel.

The ending leaves me with a few questions. Some of the characters are built up, and then we don’t return to them. Each Pixel Pulp game has some mystery to its story, and this game is no exception.

TLDR: Grizzly Man looks Great and has an Awesome Story.

Narrative

Since this is a visual novel, the story is the star of the show here. It is pretty good. It sets up a few things that I hope are explained in another game. LCB does have a few more games planned, so I hope a few of the characters from this game show up in the next games.

Like many horror movies, the story starts with some characters for Grizzly Man to kill off. We meet Claudia and the two people she is traveling with. There is some character development for Claudia, and I guess I can give you a rundown of the characters real fast:

• Grizzly Man – The killer.
• Claudia – Our first narrator. She is a college student from Argentina. She is hiking in Alaska and had a threesome with Mike and Ava.
• Mike – Victim.
• Ava – Victim
• Robert – He is our second narrator. Robert is a bit of a mystery. He is working as a tour guide but has amnesia. He is probably one of the Men in Black.
• Abigail – Some lady who is helping Robert. We don’t learn much about her.
• Ethan and Leo – Our college bros and stoner.
• Hanna – A documentary filmmaker.
• Johan – A painter. He is a pretentious person.

There are two other characters: the Interviewer and the Whistleblower. We don’t know their names, but they add a lot to the plot. We learn about the different conspiracy theories that inspired the game through these two.

As a former CIA agent, I love it when the agency is in stuff like this! It makes me chuckle as I see the creative directions these stories. It probably wasn’t what the developers hoped for, but it sometimes made me laugh.

The Grizzly Man has ties to the M.K. Ultra program and some secret laboratories in Alaska. If you play the game right, you can see inside one of these secret labs. This is one part of the story I wish was better.

The majority of the game is a paint-by-numbers slasher movie. Our heroes make their way to a cabin where they call for help. The less important characters are killed, while the main characters escape the killer. It adds some replay value to the game as you can play again to try and save people.

If you’ve seen a horror movie with a supernatural killer before, you know how this ends. Our heroes kill the Grizzly Man and wait for the police. Then we see inside the cabin, and the Grizzly Man’s body is gone. Which means… he is still out there! It’s super spooky stuff.

I like the story quite a bit. It isn’t a long game, but it tells a good story. It feels like the plot of a 1980s slasher movie, which is the time period I think the game is taking place.

Gameplay

There isn’t too much to talk about here. You’re making dialogue choices, solving some simple puzzles, and doing a few quick-time-events. It is what you should expect from a game like this. The story is the main focus of the game.

The visuals can cause problems with the quick-time events. Also, you don’t always have instructions on what you need to do. This can be a little frustrating at times but it isn’t too bad.

You have the option to retry some of the puzzles until you get them right. This can be helpful since it can be hard to tell what you need to do the first time you attempt one. It also helps you to get different endings.

Like the other Pixel Pulp games, this one has a card game. It is slasher solitaire, and it is overly confusing. They give you the instructions, which provides a nice distraction from the story, but I was more interested in the story than learning how to play.

There is something about these card games that I like. Even if I don’t like all of them, they make me smile. They remind me of the games I would learn when I was in the Navy and when I worked for the government. If you had some downtime and the right people there, you might learn a card game you’ve never played before.

The gameplay is what you should expect. The story is the main part of this game. The mini-games are nice to have, but I was more interested in going through the story.

Visuals

This is a gorgeous game! I love the pixel art in Grizzly Man. Everything in the game looks very good. At times, though, the visuals do have a negative impact on the gameplay.

There were a few times when I missed what I was supposed to do. A quick-time event would happen, and I would miss out on what I was supposed to do. It was the only bad thing in an otherwise great game.

Since this is a visual novel, the graphics needed to look great, and LCB nailed them! When the Grizzly Man shows up, he looks scary, and when the game needs to look pretty, it does. This is such a beautiful game!

9/10. This was a lot of fun! Grizzly Man is like a slasher movie from the 1980s. The story isn’t as good as Varney Lake or The Mothmen 1966, but it sets up possible sequels.

Pros

• Great Story
• Great Graphics

Cons

• Unfinished Plot Threads
• A few confusing mini-games

Conclusion

I liked the story a lot, but there are a few problems with it. We don’t learn much about the Interviewer and the Whistleblower; some survivors are just gone from the story. A few questions were unanswered, or I didn’t find the answers.

I guess that gives me a good reason to go back and play this game again. If I keep everyone alive, the answers to some of the dangling plot threads might be tied up. They might get fixed if I let everyone die.

Grizzly Man is a great visual novel. It would be nice if the game were a little longer, but that isn’t as big of a deal as it could be. The game is around two hours long.

If you liked this post, please check out the posts on the other LCB games, like Varney Lake and Mothmen 1966.