The second in the Horror Tales series, Horror Tales: The Beggar, takes players on a journey of sci-fi horror that seems to be bending the laws of physics themselves to reach the end. Impressively developed by a solo developer, Horror Tales: The Beggar has a lot going for it, making it more than worthy of checking out. However, the game doesn’t quite live up to the “horror” genre it suggests to be in, and some performance issues may downgrade your otherwise enjoyable experience.
Carlos Coronado, the developer dev who has created something of a following with his unique titles, created the Horror Tales: The Beggar by himself. It unmistakably feels like a game made by Coronado, carrying over the uniqueness of his creative vision as well as a lot of the jankiness that comes with being a solo developer. We’ll touch on that a bit more later on.
Horror Tales: The Beggar takes place in a near future unmistakably ravaged by war. Many of the game’s sets are ruined houses and otherwise run-down buildings, with boarded-up doorways, windows, and graffiti-lined walls telling the story of a near-total societal collapse.
You are the victim of dangerous and addictive substance abuse, one that seems to have been at least partially responsible for the decay of the world around you. This substance, however, has also gifted you miraculous powers: Telekinesis and the ability to change the time of day make you a living superweapon.
Unfortunately, this substance has also brought to life a malicious spirit, at least in your mind: the beggar, a terrible skeleton-like entity that wants nothing more than to kill you and maybe worse. This being can only be seen by you, is terribly powerful, and appears constantly during your journey to make things worse for you—a journey that will take you quite literally around the world before it is over.
The thing about Horror Tales: The Beggar is that it never quite felt like a horror game to me.
As I mentioned before, you are an incredibly powerful being, able to move objects with your mind and blast them at deadly speeds. The game uses this as its main mechanic; You move objects into place to platform and blast through obstacles as they get in your path.
Like many horror games, you do have a big creepy monster trailing you. However, it’s a monster that you actively fight back against with your, again, insanely cool psychic powers. I can’t say there was a point in this game where I felt particularly tense, excited, definitely, but not scared.
I would call Horror Tales: The Beggar more of an action game than a horror title, and that’s fine. The world presented is incredibly interesting, with an engaging story and fun mechanics built around telekinesis, which is creative and fun to play with power. Again, this feels more like “Sci-Fi Tales: The Beggar” to me.
The idea of a constant battle with this nemesis living in your mind is a really cool concept that Horror Tales: The Beggar executes pretty well. As you grow in power, so does the beast living in your head, and each time the two of you fight, he’ll whip out something new to challenge you, keeping you from finding comfort in repetition.
Horror Tales: The Beggar has some, unfortunately, bad physics to play with for a game that relies so heavily on in-engine physics for its mechanics. Your ability to lift objects with your mind, while being fun in theory, I often found to be tedious, if for no other reason than grabbing objects was so slow. It’s a mechanic that was popularized and, arguably, perfected in Half-Life way back in the day, but in Horror Tales: The Beggar, trying to move and carry objects felt so slow that it was as if I was fighting gravity to move a box across the room.
Which, I guess I kind of was. Still, it didn’t feel incredible.
Horror Tales: The Beggar relies on Unreal Engine 5 for its stunning graphics, something it discusses quite a bit in promotional material and the Steam page description. It can’t be argued that the game doesn’t look good—not very stylized, sure, but very realistic and with interesting set designs. The problem is that I feel like it can be too heavy on the graphics.
I frequently had moments where the objects in a level would not load in until later. I’m talking invisible walls and floors, barriers I couldn’t see, etc.
I don’t know what to say about these performance issues except that they are performance issues. Not everyone is going to mind having to stand there and watch the level load, and once it is loaded, it doesn’t exactly take away from the experience. These issues won’t gatekeep your progress or anything, but they notably exist.
The most intrusive bug I faced was a random crash/lockup that would happen on occasion. However, these only happened when I was exiting to the main menu to quit the game anyway.
Horror Tales: The Beggar is a nice, well-portioned game you can complete in one sitting, with a very generous price that reflects the playtime properly. If you’re still on the fence about the game after reading this review, I say go ahead and give Horror Tales: The Beggar a try. If nothing else, it is undoubtedly worth forming your own opinion on.
The Final Word
Horror Tales: The Beggar is a nicely portioned, exciting, and interesting game that is well worth checking out. While not exactly what I’d call horror, the game offers plenty of interesting ideas and world-building at an incredibly fair price.
Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Horror Tales: The Beggar is available on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation.
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