Lost in Translation.
The Tag-Along Obsession, developed by LuLuDu Tech, is a dark atmospheric horror game based on a Taiwanese urban legend. It's about facing the terrifying unknown to break a life oppressing curse that threatens to swallow you whole.
The curtain rises on The Tag-Along Obsession and begins to reveal news articles concerning the tragic and mysterious deaths of a TV news reporting team. They had endeavoured to investigate an infamous and long abandoned resort and amusement park. The nameless site played host to a horrible accident that began a landslide of unexplained events and ultimately led to its closure.
The reporting team were overwhelmed by one horrifying phenomenon after another until only one member managed to narrowly escape. Even that brought no solace or peace. Hui Ting, the lone survivor, is haunted by the ghastly events every waking moment and can scarcely embrace her life away from the site that claimed the lives of her colleagues.
Strange disembodied voices whisper in her ear in the dark of night and she begins to see things she can't explain moving towards her. It becomes too much to bear and deep down she knows that the only way to truly be free is to continue the investigation. Hui Ting resolves to return to the very place she barely managed to free herself from and break the curse that plagues her.
The Tag-Along Obsession opts for something against the grain that makes most of the horror game genre these days. The main drive and focus is placed on the atmosphere and story, rather than gripping action. There is no real combat to speak of. The most you will ever do against pursuers is momentarily cause them to disappear while you continue on your way. Instead, your character must rely on the creation of many different styles of spirit warding paper seals and knowing how and when to utilize them.
The resources needed to craft these talismans are scattered throughout the environments you explore and are all presented as small drawstring bags. You will create talismans that will heal you, turn you invisible for a short time, temporarily seal your enemy, and even one that will craft a doll to confuse the spirits into going after it instead of you. And while functional and pivotal to surviving, the targeting itself could use some work to make it as precise as you’d want it to be. All items created are merely supports to get through whatever situation you are in with a deadly spectre on your trail.
Exploration is a fairly simple affair and must be done while you keep your eyes and ears peeled for signs of spirits in the area. The darkness that permeates every inch and corner of the desolate resort could be concealing just about anything. It often requires you to bravely venture into areas that might appear to be a dead end but might contain useful items, news articles, or journal entries with useful information. Just be ready to ward off a ghost or run in case your pockets are empty of talismans. You can always escape an area for the time being so you can safely hide and return once they leave. Not to mention, being that it is an abandoned resort with an attached equally scary empty amusement park, the environments leave you with many creepy structures and atmosphere to see and experience.
Since there is no combat and the main focus being the draw of the story, there aren't many mechanics or systems to speak of. If you can believe it, there is no “run” function. This is a strange thing not to have in a horror game, especially one where the spirits will chase you down and dog every step you make if they find you. The only saving grace is that the walking is set at a quick enough pace which serves an escape provided you are on your toes. Another of the few systems in place is a modest UI you can access with a button press and navigate sections with shoulder buttons. Here you can access your journal of your progress in the story, your pack of items, keys and collections, and any news clippings or journals so you can always refer back in case you get stuck.
Now let's touch on the tech behind the scenes. The game is available to play on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. The performance across all systems is fairly similar and runs consistently smooth at a stable 60 fps, rarely slowing below that even while in highly populated areas and moments. The only noticeable graphical struggles would be on PC if your system needs to run minimum requirements or you are performing downloads or system functions in the background. I played on the Xbox series X myself and never noticed any chugging or frame rate drops whatsoever. This is great news if you want your spooky adventure to not pull you out of the moment with any jarring graphical bugs and you can play it on your choice of system with no real visible difference.
Now that we've discussed all that, let's talk about the good and the bad of The Tag-Along Obsession. The game is set in an East Asian resort theme park and the story, as well as the settings, represents Taiwanese culture and mythology. I always enjoy horror stories from parts of the world that utilize cultures and people different from our own. The Art design is great and well crafted in every creepy detail and the story as it unfolds is an interesting experience.
While the animations were smooth and the environments had no glitches, the functional aspects of some systems, however, could use a bit more polish. There were quite a few moments that made the game almost feel unfinished to me, with one section even testing my patience to even continue the game. While the story itself is engaging, and something of a slow burn, there does seem to be some issues with the translation, due to missed queues on subtitles, or comments from the main character that talk about unrelated events that haven’t been presented to her.
Horror stories based on cultural folklore and old tales, especially those of a culture rarely explored, can often surprise you with narratives you’ve never explored or experienced before. TAO can surely find its audience, but its poor translation does a lot to fumble the execution of its story, greatly weakening the immersion, despite the excellent atmosphere the game absolutely nails.
Developer - LuLuDu Tech, Eastasiiasoft.
Publisher - Eastasiasoft.
Released - May 5th, 2026.
Available On - Xbox Series X/S, PC, PS5.
Rated - (M) - Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Violence.
Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X
Review Access - A review code for The Tag-Along Obsession was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Rebecca is a huge fan of JRPG’s, RPG’s, and Survival Horror. From Silent Hill to Resident evil. Xenogears and Final Fantasy. When she isn’t tinkering with skill trees or equipping the right rifle to take down numerous monsters, you can find her farming away on Stardew Valley.