How to get S-Rank in Crow Country

Crow Country is watching your every move inside its abandoned theme park, where your effort is ranked based on particular criteria. If you’ve got your eyes set on the coveted S-Rank, you need to learn how to achieve the highest of honors in this PS1-inspired horror game.

Being the last achievement on Crow Country’s list, the hunt for S-Rank isn’t for the faint of heart. While you can attempt it in your first playthrough like I did, you may be truly disappointed when challenging encounters like the mushroom puzzle come round. A lot of encounters are optional, and each counts toward Crow Country’s 15 secrets. You must finish Crow Country with as little help as possible if you want that S-Rank. Here is everything you need to know.

Crow Country: S-Rank requirement guide

Like old school Resident Evil, Crow Country houses a ton of secrets for you to sink your teeth into. You’ll uncover new weapons, upgrades, and lore, all aiding Mara in her search for Edward Crow. Luckily, Crow Country is an easier game than most in terms of combat and survival. You find most resources in abundance and can evade most monsters as long as you keep your wits about you.

We recommend playing through the game at least once, saving as you go, so that you learn the easiest route through Crow Country and how to solve every puzzle this monster-filled attraction throws at you.

There are multiple requirements to keep in mind when attempting to S-Rank Crow Country. These are:

• Use a healing item less than 10 times: Some puzzles force you to heal, especially secret encounters. Limit your resources to 10 healing items in your inventory so you can easily keep track of what you’ve used.
• Don’t use the Fortune Telling Machine (zero hints): The machine offers 10 hints. Avoid using the Fortune Telling Machine throughout your whole playthrough.
• Find all 15 secrets: These are optional puzzles that give you upgrades.
• Don’t die: Save as much as you want but try not to die in the process. It may be safer to reload a previous save file if you keep dying.

So, if you’re a fan of Silent Hill’s red-screen jumpscare and Resident Evil’s safehouse music like I am, you’ll probably return to that comforting fireplace to save your game more times than you can count. Thankfully, saves aren’t a S-Rank restriction. You’re free to save to your heart’s content. Crow Country offer three save files that you can continuously overwrite. Saves are counted on the save screen, but this number doesn’t lower your Crow Country rank.

While saving your game isn’t a problem, dying is. If you repeatedly die from monsters because you’re limiting your healing item usage, then this greatly lowers your chances of achieving S-Rank.

I highly recommend you keep a save file just after the mushroom puzzle, as you must use three healing items to survive this encounter. You shouldn’t have used anything else until this point. From here, you can count your items until the end of the game when you’ll finally achieve your S-Rank.