Oddly enough, this is the most viewed post on this blog and the old link to the game was dead so I updated it. The whole series of games are also now on this one convenient page as well: https://www.gamemaga.jp/tsugunohi/.
I will definitely try the latest Showa kara no Yobigoe so stay tuned!
Original Post
I was trying to play Blood Drive for Halloween but it's obvious I'm not gonna finish it any time soon (probably wasted too much time playing Majin Tensei), so here's a quick look at a dead (ha!) simple game that only takes 15 minutes or so to finish: Tsugu no hi -Tozasareta Mirai-, the latest in a series of freeware games so popular(?), it even spawned a movie.
JK and shoes, what more do you want?
The "gameplay" if you can call it that, consists of moving left until you get to the river. Apparently, things are not going as you'd hoped (you're a JK, isn't that good enough?!) and you decide to redo the day somehow.
Anyways, after repeating the walk a few times, there is a little bit of scary to enjoy especially with headphones. On the phone, it was a bit annoying that I couldn't hide the browser bar but I somehow managed to cope.
The ✋ woman! Worry about the ✋!
Score: 2 JK first world problems, cry me a river out of 5
Not much to say about this one except it's not the worst way to spend 15 or so minutes.
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
This is probably going to be the first and only post I do on a demo but P.T. is pretty special in a couple of unfortunate ways, the primary one being that we'll likely never see the full game. Yeah #FuckKonami and all that.
The assholes of course also completely wiped the demo from PSN. In fact, P.T. is the only reason I bought a first revision console. I normally wait a few models for the various improvements before buying a console. If it wasn't for P.T., I would probably own a PS4 Pro or maybe I'd be waiting for the PS5 since it's supposedly backwards compatible. But when I heard that the game was getting pulled, I went out and bought the damn console that day. It was actually already unavailable in the US region but fortunately, I managed to snag a copy on JP PSN.
Nice looking "free" demo, you just need a $399 console!
So, I had this thing sitting on my PS4 since then, and I played it here and there for brief periods of time over the years because yes, it's scary as fuck.
I guess it's not that bad playing in broad daylight but naw, I played with headphones alone in the dark of course. The sound effects are so good with headphones.
Silent Hill is an English series but I went with the Jhipster subtitles
Hideo Kojima is well known for fucking with you. My first experience was hours wasted trying to kill Psycho Mantis before resorting to looking up the 2nd player trick. My next WTF was the Metal Gear Rising PS3 theme. It had the typical cool wallpaper with Raiden when one day, my PS3 booted up to some moe shit. Ha ha funny Hideo, lucky my wife didn't see it. (That is if I had a wife.)
Anyway, I was playing one day, and paused the game as I was scared as fuck as usual and all of a sudden it started saying some satanic sounding shit from the pause menu! Holy fuck, that freaked me out.
I hate it when my lunch leaks. Nice idea to count how often on the wall!
Anyways, I've been playing P.T. for a while before I finally decided to finish it recently. I didn't get stuck until the part with all the paintings with rolling eyes and shit. Eventually, I had to look up the solution with the bathroom peeping hole. Also, the final bit with the three baby laughs...
I think I see something in the hole but I don't want to know what.
This demo is pretty short once you know what to do and it was definitely less scary on a 2nd playthrough but I took it nice and slow the first time. If anything, it's a great substitute for coffee if you want to stay awake.
Score: 3.5 fuck this game, how the hell am I going to go to sleep now?! out of 4
As a demo, I would rate this one as 5. I mean it was "free" (finger quotes), scary as hell, and really made everybody hyped for a new Silent Hill game. But I don't really have a rating system for demos. As a game, it would give this a solid 3.5 above average score for all the cool things it does even if you're really just roaming the same hallway repeatedly in a loop.
Hey, it's a million times better than roaming a whole house in Gone Home. Seriously, fuck that hipster game.
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
A sound novel is a term trademarked by Chunsoft and is really just a fancy word for what some would call visual novels ironically with no voice acting. The sound here is referring to SFX and a novel doesn't really talk to you at least back before Audible became a big thing for busy Millennials. Anyhoo, I figured it was my Jhipster duty to check out Chunsoft's sound novel series starting with Otogirisou. I played the PS1 remake and the intro gives off a really good vibe.
Oh boy, this looks scary!
Unfortunately, the writing doesn't quite live up to the enhanced graphics. You can finish this game in a few hours and is designed to be replayed many times. According to the manual, you should replay at least 10 times to get to the "truly interesting" parts.
Oh man, this DOES look scary!
I thought the idea behind the game was certainly interesting. There are tons of dialogue options (supposedly over 1,000) and while the basic premise of the events are the same, it's slightly different and feels fresh every time. For example, the first playthrough shows a photo of the inside of your car while the next playthrough might have a little animation with trees whizzing by.
I'm a sucker for these old school photos
Unfortunately, the freshness lasts maybe about 4 or 5 playthroughs and you quickly realize it's the same basic scenarios. You're driving in the car with your girlfriend Nami, some accident happens, you happen upon a mansion in the woods, etc. etc. The dialogue options get sillier and sillier as well with tons of cheesy puns and it's clear they don't really reflect on the following dialogue.
Ketchup on your salad eh?
Since these scenes are designed to be stitched together in semi-random order, after the first few playthrough, it was mostly a tedious exercise of holding down circle. No skip option is just such a time sink. One might say it's amazing that the story still holds up together even when it shifts and changes but to me, it just means that the story is not that involved.
The rain moves in the background. It's like a novel but EVOLVED!!
Score: 2 desperately trying to get with your gf no matter how fucked up things get out of 5 (15 playthroughs)
Some of the endings were good and it was interesting somewhat but overall I was underwhelmed. Sometimes it got a bit too silly for me and I just couldn't tell if the game was trying to be scary or funny. It wasn't particularly good at being either.
Unfortunately, the story is just not as scary as this picture suggests
However, being the obsessive compulsive that I am, I couldn't help but find all 10 endings to get the pink bookmark. Due to how the story changes up, there wasn't a clear guide and it wasn't that easy but I soldiered through it. The manual suggests some ecchi fanservice with the pink bookmark but I mean, don't get your hopes up. You're not going to be seeing Corpse Party style low angle shots of a girl hanging in a toilet stall. (You sicko.)
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
Funny Jhipster story, I was searching for info on this game based on the cover art of the copy that yes I physically own and Google had to autocorrect because I thought 幽 was actually 山. The cover designer thought it would be clever to make little blue ghost lights instead of properly writing out the little 幺 parts. To add insult to injury, that's not even the regular Kanji for a haunted house, it's like geesh, stop trying to be "artistic".
Oh thanks (read as: fuck you) for the furigana
Ok yeah, talking about Kanji isn't exactly like super fun blog post but really that's the most interesting thing I could come up with when talking about this borefest. Maybe I played too many horror games and am jaded. Other Jhipsters might find it scary but personally, this game was perfect for turning off the lights, laying in bed, and just fucking falling dead asleep like a log bored to tree sap tears. The spine card says, "Please don't play by yourself" and they're right. You can seriously injure yourself if you suddenly fall asleep in random places. In fact, they should have added an extra warning to never play when operating heavy machinery. Lawsuit waiting to happen right there, IMO.
It's unfortunately not half as scary as it looks
To sum up the "game", you go through a series of PS1 era CG tour of the haunted house while you hear or read scary stories from the staff. The scary stories are very typical ghost stories like, "I was walking home at night and I saw a ghost! Scary!" For some reason, there were a lot of stories about obasans. Total speculation here but I'm guessing it's because they could reuse various pictures of the same old lady with the scary make-up.
Geesh mom! How many times have I told you to knock first?!
There's was a minor meta story about the owner of the haunted house and I liked the credits as they show where ghosts are hiding in the real life pictures that were used throughout the game. I liked the 90s Japan aesthetics as well.
Hey, that's my apartment working as a coporate salaryman slave back in the day!
Score: 1.5 scariest part is when the obasan opens the door while you're masturbating out of 5
If the idea of an audio book of "scary" campfire stories on the PS1 appeals to you, go right ahead and give this a whirl. (Needless to say, you also need to be fluent in Japanese.) It was a good one for me to go through in a couple of nights because I've been having trouble going to sleep due to stress. Additional bonus, it's a time respecter so it was nice to be able to purge this one and make room for another game in my hoarder closet.
You'll need to play through it twice to read and hear all the stories but you can skip through the repeats pretty quickly which is I why I gave it an extra .5 score for being technically easy to blast through.
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
Continuing the tradition of documenting my gaming history on the internet for posterity (otherwise known as the cesspool annals), I have to say I never really got into Biohazard (Resident Evil for the non-Jhpsters). I was sufficiently hyped enough by a raving review in some gaming magazine to buy a copy on the ol' ebays but never could finish it. I wasn't a fan of the stupid tank controls (and no fuck you, bad controls don't "enhance" tension) and most importantly, the ribbons were torture for an obsessive saver like myself. I think I will enjoy the remake now that I'm more comfortable with the limited resources nature of survival horror but at the time I probably would have enjoyed KOUDELKA far more. It seems like the perfect game made for RPG fans like myself who want to get a little taste of the horror genre. In fact, I really wished Square had made Parasite Eve 2 more like this game instead of the shitty Biohazard clone that it is. Speaking of Parasite Eve, I wonder if the founders of Sacnoth "borrowed" some tech from Square because the CG cutscene at the end really reminded me of Parasite Eve.
Strong female protagonist but was weak as a child 2/10 - SJW Reviews
The one negative part about this game you'll likely hear are the super slow random encounter battles (probably by the same people that rave about the completely pointless and avoidable battle system in Chrono Cross). Personally, the slow battle system didn't bother me that much because you just don't have to fight as often as a regular 40-60 hour long RPG. This is a pretty short game I beat in about 12 hours and the random encounter rate is low enough that you could easily navigate several rooms before running into enemies. I didn't mind the short length because, 1) I got this game super cheap, and 2) I'm a pro gamer that needs my time to be respected. Joking aside, given the story and setting, I felt like 12 hours was about the right length.
"Random encounters like this are why JRPGs died" - some know-it-all blogger
Overall, I found the game balance to be on the easy side as you level up pretty darn quick from just a few battles. All the bosses are pretty easy except of course for the gargoyle. I could not for the life of me figure out how to kill the gargoyle even with the gargoyle killer which requires you to save the game exactly 11:11:11 hours in with a certain number of items. Fortunately, the gargoyle is an optional boss and the final boss wasn't too hard as long as you use reflect even though you're supposed to lose for one of the endings. I also threw away the pendant to make room, which happens to be an item needed to beat the game but you can just get another one from the black cat at the last hidden save point.
One potential barrier to entry for casual gamers is figuring out how to allocate your stats as some of them are quirky. For example, Piety increases max MP but it also makes you more resistant to healing. There's an in-game explanation of each stat that was handy. (Manuals? No thanks, I just ate.)
Oddly, the names are still in English for the reverse weebs
As for the story, I was thoroughly impressed at how good the writing and English VA was for a game made in Japan. I have so many questions about the script and cast for example, who is Vivianne Bateman, the VA for Koudelka and how did she get cast for the role? How did they do motion capture at a Santa Monica studio? Why was the word "gypsy" censored out of only the Japanese version of the game? Yes, in one cutscene, there were a bunch of annoying skips that seemed to be at very specific points during the dialog. Sure enough, looking up the same cutscene on YT, the audio cuts out every time the word "gypsy" is mentioned. Like Japanese people are totally listening to the English dialogue and would get super offended at the racial slur? #MJGA
We don't adhere to that kind of language here. We're equal opportunity killers.
Score: 3.5 the first law of ____ies is to never talk about ____ies out of 5 (12 hours to beat)
Overall, I enjoyed all 12 hours of my time playing this game and it ranks as an above-average game of the PS1 era for me. I'll definitely be keeping this one around in my hoarder collection. The plot is a fun, classic adventure with a motley cast that is both funny and interesting to watch as they learn about each other over the course of extraordinary events. The gameplay while flawed was still fun to play and the music was good. At the very least, I had way more fun than the shit turd Chrono Cross I played previously and I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the series has to offer.
"I like how the music is not in your face" - random YT comment
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
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
Shiin is one of my insta-order games based purely on the cover art. Yeah, I'm still a sucker that way but as a big fan of horror games, how could I resist? I was even stupid enough to pre-order the PS4 version just for the extra goodies. I really should cancel that but then what about that 25 minute voice track CD?
There's one born every minute
As much as I love every horror game, especially on the Vita, I have to say this one was ultimately a disappointment. Given that it's by EXPERIENCE, you might expect this to be some kind of DRPG with horror elements. While I didn't expect quite that much, I was hoping for something at least with some exploration.
Your stats like the cake are a lie
If you've played Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, the gameplay is very similar to that game. There's a few rooms, hallways, and the like but that's about it. You move your flashlight around and investigate stuff. You can also pick an item to use from your backpack. Sometimes you have to make choices called Deadly Choice where you will die if you make too many wrong choices. No biggie because you can pick retry and try again though you may have to skip some text. That was a bit annoying.
Need a hand? Haw haw haw haw!
The one unique part of this game is the boss fight at the end of each chapter. Given the clues that you pick up in your investigation, you have to pick the correct items to use every turn. However, it's nothing more than making educated guesses given the clues and retry if you don't pick the right items.
If this game is not a DRPG at all, it's not even a great ADV game. While Book of Shadows has its flaws, at least it had some character development and voice acting. I liked the fact that this game had characters of every age and gender and no qualms about killing any of them if you make the wrong choices. But there's almost no voice acting and very little dialogue. In fact, the entire game is very short and I beat it in a little over 10 hours while taking my time.
Think of the children!!!!
Thankfully, they released a new chapter that was free for a limited time and also included in the PS4 version. Since I was all up in the latest gaming news, I was able to nab it right away but the free download period is already over for the Vita version. (Sorry, fellow Jhipsters.) With the new chapter, I was able to enjoy the game for a few more hours and frankly it sorely needed that extra content.
Score: 2.5 oh I forgot to mention all those naked women in the game out of 5 (14 hours to beat)
Even ghosts have the decency to cover the important bits
In the end, despite the short length and all its flaws, I enjoyed the game. It has some great art that oozes with atmosphere. The story while minimal, at least had a satisfactory ending. And while the music lacked variety, the songs that it did have were excellent. The game was not that scary either so it might be a good one to try for those easily spooked.
Good music but apparently not in the CD soundtrack (LOL first comment)
The downloadable last chapter also hints at a new aberration so perhaps there's a sequel on the way. I hope EXPERIENCE can use this first entry as a starting point to a more fulfilling series. I appreciate they tried something new but would hope they do a more thorough job the next time around.
Hey, you girls see my wallet? My money vanished like a ghost!
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
Wait, let me explain. In my Jhipster defense, I first found out about Doki Doki Literature Club! in my Jhipster news feed. I wouldn't have even heard about this English-only game if it wasn't for how super Jhipster I am. Um... so yeah... TAKE THAT! (Ego takes 200 points damage! Status: Bruised)
Little known fact: I also know English
I initially scoffed at the idea of playing a visual novel in English. UGH! This looks like some weaboo Japanese wanna-be galge soft porn. However, I was intrigued enough to as least give it a shot. After all, what did I have to lose? The game is FREEEEEEE and the only thing required was some of my time, merely a small chunk of my ever shrinking allotment as time viciously inches forward to my eventual demise. No biggie. So yeah, did I mention this game was totally free? Gratis?
Sad English games require legalese cause lawsuits even for a silly galge
Fortunately, it was not that long and I was able to reach the ending credits in about 3 hours. The art style definitely looks like a game that's desperately trying to look Japanese. I won't go into the story details because don't you hate spoilers?
I ain't writing no poem. Time to uninstall this shit.
Like when you're just trying to look up a song from the game and there's the screenshot for the final boss RIGHT in the suggested videos...
This is a not caption
Sometimes, I wonder, what it would feel like to KILL the spoilers, not like literally but more like feeling the crunch of bone and flesh with some blunt 🔨instrument🔨. In a figurative sense I guess.
Do you guys ever wonder about stuff like that?
Anyways, I thought this game was pretty neat. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of variety in music and routes. Natsuki's route is pretty sparse; would've been cool to see more of her. Even though 英語, I managed to skim through 全く読んでない
どうでもいいだろう
何の意味もないんだよ
何もかも
Score: 4.444444死死死死死死死/#ERROR
Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Who the fuck cares, nobody reads my blog anyway
2 - Worthless, like this blog.
3 - Get Out Of My Head. get out. getoutofmyheadgetoutofmyheadgetoutofmyheadgetout
4 - fuck it
5 -
Corpse Party was kind of my gateway drug to Wolf RPG Horror adventure games. Turns out there's of bunch of these made by creative individuals completely FREE FREE FREE!!! No, not free-to-play microtrans BS but free as in no money needed. I mean REAL indie games without all that kickstarter bags of money and false promises. Mad Father was one that seemed particularly well polished and also not TOO scary like fucking heart attack Akemi-tan.
Personally, being surrounded by bodies is a turn-off but ok
There's really not too much to the story as these things usually go but your father is kind of mad (surprise, surprise!!) You play as his little daughter who decides for some reason to go exploring your guy's giant mansion when you start the game.
I guess since you started the game, now she HAS to explore. JERK.
My first impression of the game was wow, for an indie, the music is pretty damn good! Apparently, the opening song is also used in another indie game called Ib so I don't know who made the music or what the deal is but whatever, as long as it's not RIAJ, it's all cool.
Welp, I guess I have to play Ib next.
The first part of the game has lots of areas to explore and some puzzles that frankly I would never have figured out. For example, who would have guessed to drop the eyeball down a hole in the fireplace so that the girl in the cell can get her eyeball back? Yeah, you hear somebody crying in the study but that's hardly a hint. Aha, but yeah, that's the kind of puzzles you'll be solving. Things get easier as you get down the lower basement levels as the explorable areas shrink significantly.
Hmm... personally I would have just stayed in my room.
Score: 3 and I thought my parents were crazy!! out of 5. (3 hours to beat)
The character illustrations definitely have an indie look but overall, I thought it was a pretty solid game. It's only a little bit scary so it's probably a good title for horror newbs. You certainly won't lose anything by trying it out (FREE GAMES GOOGLE SEARCH BOT!). There's a special cut-scene at the end if you collect all 21 gems scattered throughout the house but I didn't bother.
Women, their choices in men will forever confound
There is an English version for the non-jhipsters though I don't know if it includes the latest changes. I guess the latest version 3 is now for sale on steam but you can download the latest free Japanese version here: http://novice2.web.fc2.com/game/mad/index.html.
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
Well it's been a while, so I was in the mood to dive back into the side-scrolling, horror adv genre. I know it's a very popular genre and even though I had hundreds (nay thousands!!) of games to choose from, I went back to good ol' Human Entertainment and loaded up Clock Tower: The First Fear on the even gooder ol' PSP.
I have to say, for a game that originally came out only 6 months before Twilight Syndrome, the first Clock Tower was pretty darn bare bones. If I wasn't super gamer expert (ie can use google+wikipedia), I would have thought this was a fairly early SFC game, not something that was released after the launch of the PS1 and ported almost 2 years later.
OMG!! Only took 2 years to add this next gen PS1 graphics!
If I had bought the PS1 version day one in my fantasy Japanese childhood, I would have been pretty darn disappointed after Twilight Syndrome. They didn't add any voice acting to the PS1 version, just the typical dated Human CG intro and the ability to save your game. Yes, in the enhanced version, you can actually save your progress.
I mean, if I didn't know any better, I might have thought this game was not bad but the lack of almost any story to speak of, no voice acting, and zero character development makes this game feel way older than it really is.
This is the blonde girl. That's all you need to know about her.
I still have no idea why the girls were brought to the mansion and the game doesn't explain anything about the Barrows family. I didn't look up any further information from fear of spoiling the sequels but taken by itself, this game doesn't explain a single thing.
The other big issue I had was the gameplay. Maybe I should have read the manual, but the game freaked me out because Jennifer's stat goes to red every time she runs. I spent painful hours just watching her meander slowly through the mansion like she was taking a nice stroll in the park.
Also, she never sat down to rest until I realized much later on that you have to press triangle after she starts moving. I had assumed when she walked into another room, she would just sit down after a while so I had no idea how to restore her health. But to make this whole gameplay element even worse, I finally figured out I can beat the entire game while completely in the red. You're supposed to spam the X button when your avatar is flashing and having more health is supposed to help you survive. But I was able to beat down that little scissor guy, the crazy puppet, and every other "tense" moment totally in the red.
As for the puzzles, I just got tired of going from room to room while stuck for hours. The parrot freaked me out early on so I never did find the perfume bottle. I did manage to unlock one ending completely blind. You find a car and the car key conveniently in a box next to the car. Jennifer was like, "But the other girls..." and I was like, fuck that. DRIVE. Needless to say, it did not end well.
Similar to my blind playthrough but way less getting lost and slow walking
Eventually, I followed a guide and unlocked all endings in a matter of a few hours. If you don't get stuck, the game is actually incredibly short and requires repeating the same things but with minor differences in terms of things you may miss or which events you encounter. There's not much difference in the endings either so I can say after unlocking them all, I don't think it was really worth the hassle. There's actually a random event that you have to avoid in order to get the best ending. I don't know how you could have known to reload if you happen to be unlucky without a guide. I thought that was kinda lame.
The music had a bit of that Human charm but there was very little variety and it was ok at best.
This was my favorite track and it was just ok
Score: 2 this is like a poor man's Twilight Syndrome out of 5 (like Lehman Brothers SUPER POOR)
As Jhipster, I think this game got way more attention because the later games were localized and the lack of almost any story made it WAY easier to fan translate than Twilight Syndrome. I'm hoping the later games in the series will step it up a notch... or 10.
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
Anyways, putting the short title aside, let's get right into the heart of things, shall we?
This game is scary alright, but not for the reasons you might think...
16 years since the doujin release of the original venerable Corpse Party on PC98 and this is where 5pb is gonna take the series eh? Those brutal deaths, the tense feeling of dread as you explore the decrepit halls of Tenjin Shougakkou, 16 years since the series inception all culminating into... cross-dressing BL...
......alrighty then.............
Remember when I said Book of Shadows really cut down on scary and upped the fan service? HA! Turns out 5pb was just getting started. Yeah, yeah, we all know this is a spinoff title but really, Book of Shadows was also pretty much a spinoff title EXCEPT for the last hidden chapter. And JUST like Book of Shadows, there is an extra chapter in Hysteric Birthday that is actually part of the main story and even introduces a couple new characters. Characters whom I suspect will show up in Blood Drive (still need to play that one). Interestingly, the new characters just pop up out of nowhere from the beginning making me think I must have missed some comic or other spin-off media. Nope, it was just the weird way they ordered things.
Of course, unlike Book of Shadows, this game doesn't even try to be scary or even serious as it's basically a weird horror-themed comedy filled with the awkward fan service you've come to love from 5pb but powered up. Seriously, like Super Saiyan level 3 power levels. I'm not even exaggerating here.
At least the game lets you know what you're getting into in the very first chapter
Really, this game couldn't be farther than what you'd expect from a Corpse Party game. The developers must have realized how broken the exploration menu system was from Book of Shadows. So instead of fixing it or better yet, going back to the top-down 2D style, they removed it completely, making this a 100% vanilla adventure game (what non-Jhipsters call visual novels). At least it's easier to play than Book of Shadows as it still has all the usual features you'd expect from adventure games such as auto mode, etc without the crappy room navigation.
To be honest, I actually enjoyed playing this game for what it was. It was weird sure, but you can't help but laugh out loud at various parts of the game because it's just so RIDICULOUS. Let me just throw in a phrase to give you a rough idea: "Death by butt suffocation". I'll leave the rest to your imagination for any future Jhipsters that may want to play this game. Frankly, I'm shocked that this game DIDN'T get localized. I'm sure if it came out today, Xseed would have gone for it. After all, they only localize games for gameplay and not fan service, right? YA RIGHT.
I guess sex sells... SHOCKER
Anyways, I had fun with this game. The music isn't as good as even Book of Shadows but it still had some gems, especially this throwback track from the original PC98 version.
16 years later and still just as good
By the way, the part of the game where this music plays was hilarious and was definitely the highlight for me as a wannabe retro hipster. I would say if you have a weird sense of humor and willing to try something different, Hysteric Birthday 2U is definitely not the worst adventure game you can pick. I certainly enjoyed it more than Book of Shadows and of course they did the usual sneaky trick of including the only relevant (canon?) chapter as an "extra" that requires playing through the entire game to unlock.
Score: 3 butt wrestling matches out of 5 (26 hours to complete)
People who are looking for the original Corpse Party experience best just check out Corpse Party 2 Dead Patient for PC. Unfortunately, only Chapter 1 has been released forever ago and I'm still waiting on that one. In the mean time, I can only hope 5pb finally gets down to business in Blood Drive. As much as I enjoyed Hysteric Birthday, I think I'm more than ready for a REAL Corpse Party game next time.
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
