Corpse Party: Blood Drive（コープスパーティー BLOOD DRIVE）

If it wasn't painfully obvious, I'm a pretty big fan of Corpse Party: Blood Covered Repeated Fear and while I was disappointed by Book of Shadows, overall I like the franchise (and actually Hysteric Birthday is pretty damn funny in a weird way). So given that BLOOD DRIVE is the last and final game at least for Tenjin elementary, I wanted to take my time with it (and no it has nothing to do with the pile of untouched games in my Closet of Shame™ #denial).

Alright Ayumi, it's time to fucking end this.

Looking back, it's been a fun ride over the years and Corpse Party was personally my gateway into a whole genre of games that is now one of my favorite pastimes to curl up on a rainy evening. After supper, I like to grab a nice glass of wine, cuddle up in my bed, turn down the lights and fucking shit in my pants. It stinks like hell but I get the full sensory experience that way.

What? You got a FUCKIN' PROBLEM WITH MY HOBBIES?!!!

This game has the usual crew and all the familiar characters you've come to love over the years. Ayumi is her usual chicken self, crying and freaking out while consistently making the worst decisions evar in classic horror flick style. Satoshi is back as generic and boring as ever. In fact, I cracked up at the VA's commentary bonus section when he mentioned that he doesn't think Satoshi is actually the MC. I mean, DUH! And who can forget- NOW LOADING

NOW LOADING
NOW LOADING
NOW LOADING
NOW LOADING

You're going to be staring at this face a LOT

Yes, I know this is the Vita and all and I've complained about it for other games but JESUS, the game has fucking loooooooong load times. Not only does it take forever to do silly things like open the status menu, but it takes FOREVER to boot up the game. Why THE FUCK does it have to process trophies and "initialize" the system every time? The system is already fucking there, I played the game just yesterday! Did you mean "instantiate"? Holy mother of fuck, do something useful like reticulating some splines. Optimize, fuckers!

Maybe 5pb. needs to learn some Japanese cause 初期化 shouldn't run EVERY TIME.

The worst offender was in Chapter 9 because the basement takes forever to load and yes I eventually got good at avoiding the swinging blades but until I got the hang of it, I had to die 5 or 6 times and each time, waiting for the damn thing to load was not fun times. Not to mention the fact that you need to play this chapter at least twice and more likely 3 times for the trophies. I don't know the technical details but it all has to do with the fact that they wanted to take it to the next level with 3D.

Unity engine SUCKS. I know cause I'm a gamer in my mom's basement!

I mean, I'm glad they made the effort and didn't just do another visual novel like the previous two games, though there's so much reading, it still is practically an ADV game. I'm not particularly fixated on the classic 2D indie vibe either but I would have appreciated if it didn't take ages to load. The game crashed on me a couple times too, once right at the end so yeah, technically, this game does not impress.

I don't want to sound racist or anything but maybe back off a bit on the offshoring dev team?

Putting aside the technical aspects, the story is pretty good. If you liked the other games so far, you won't be disappointed by this one. It kind of reminded me of that 3rd Batman movie with Bane. Things just kept escalating to the point where it's obvious that this is meant as the final chapter and there's really nowhere for the story to go any further.

I also liked that new character Magari and her fashion sense. I won't post screenshots of her like all the YT clickbait thumbnails but to give you a hint of what she looks like, she's got a 🌟 shoved in her crotch. Nice.

I lived in a danchi (what we refer to as "projects" in the hood) and well it wasn't that bad.

I don't know if it's because I'm getting desensitized over the years but I definitely think this one is not as scary as the original or even Book of Shadows. It's at about the same level as Hysteric Birthday (but this one is not hysterical) maybe because the whole organic theme really didn't do it for me in terms of scare factor.

I mean it looks gross but scary? Nah.

I did jump every time I ran into a piano wire or some spikes. They added a bunch of new mechanics to the Unity 3D exploring parts and it was whatever. Your health restores every time you save so I didn't feel too much tension over it but then it would have been annoying if it was too hard and required you to restart. All in all, I guess it was friendly enough for the new kids. I wasn't too fond of the fact that the characters have as much stamina as a typical obese American and can barely run a few feet before having to pause for breath especially when climbing those spiral stairs repeatedly.

These things were more annoying than scary

The game did try to get clever with like 2 puzzles at the end which seemed... random. One of them still makes no sense to me and can be solved by guessing.

I don't get it. Oh well, move along.

Score: 2.5 oh those memories, good times, good times out of 5 (23 hours for platinum)

Overall, as I listened to the staff commentary at the end (Seiyu nerd here), I did share a lot of their feelings of nostalgia and bittersweet sadness at it all coming to an end. The VA for Kizami even said it felt like he was graduating. I did reminisce on all the good times like the head that fell off tripping on piano wire and the panties showing as the body swung around by the neck in the toilet stall. Oh, and who can ever forget the death by suffocating via Yui sensei's butt or the swimsuit contest in the freezing rain outside Tenjin elementary?

Gravity defying skirt? See, Unity can't even do basic physics!

Yes, it's sad but all good things must come to an end. This game is pretty good I guess, but it definitely has a lot of issues. Still, it's a Corpse Party game with the signature dummy head 3D sounds and awesome music. The OST was really good except for one very annoying track that had some dubstep (damn kids!). Whomever thought hearing a dubstep drop on loop was a good idea, well, it's not. Idiot.

Good shit as usual

In the end, overall as a series, it was a fun ride and I appreciate Blood Drive for ending it. I will now bid this series adieu and am looking forward to a whole new cast of victims in Corpse Party 2.

God damn it Sony, the light rays need to be covering the whole body to protect the poor children!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely