#oneaday Day 778: Corpse Party: A (Spoiler-Free) Scoreless Review

I’m glad this game exists. It’s a pleasing piece of evidence to point to when people start talking about subject matter which would “never get greenlit by a publisher”. It exists. It was greenlit by someone. It’s freely available to download to your PSP or Vita via PSN. It’s horrific. And it’s brilliant.

Corpse Party tells the story of a hapless group of schoolkids who botch an attempt to commune with the spirit world and find themselves trapped in a long-abandoned elementary school populated with rather unfriendly ghosts. It’s then up to the player to help the group (who quickly become separated in true horror movie fashion) to understand the truth behind what’s going on and return them to safety. It all gets very Japanese horror very quickly — if you’ve seen anything like Ju-on: The Grudge or played Fatal Frame you’ll know the sort of thing to expect.

Unfolding like a cross between a visual novel and a top-down 16-bit RPG, Corpse Party manages to keep the player feeling involved in the action while keeping the story flowing at a good pace. Oftentimes the player’s only contribution between important events will be moving the current player character (for there are several) to a new location, but that simple act, along with the ability to examine items in the environment such as creepy notices on the walls and corpses of previous unwitting visitors to Heavenly Host Elementary School, makes the game feel far more interactive than many visual novel titles, which typically involve tapping the “continue” button lots of times. There’s plenty of that, too, sure, but mild exploration and puzzle elements make this feel much more like a “game” to those who care about that sort of thing.

It’s worth noting at this point that far from taking the relatively “straight line to the finish” approach that many visual novels take, Corpse Party gets increasingly easy to balls up completely as you proceed. Rather than simply immediately ending with a “Game Over” screen for making a bad choice, however, sometimes the butterfly effect of actions you take doesn’t become apparent until an hour or two later. This is a double-edged sword; it turns “making a mistake” into an “alternative ending”, even going so far as to credit the player with this ending in the menu screens, but it also means having to replay previous events, figure out what you did wrong and then do something differently. And God help you if you didn’t make full use of the five available save slots per chapter. Fortunately, though, each of the game’s five chapters is relatively short, with the final one being the longest at around three hours, meaning that replaying a whole chapter is not as much of a chore as it could be — though the game could really do with that mainstay of traditional visual novel interfaces: the “skip” button.

While it’s relatively easy to get on to a “bad ending” path, particularly later in the game, this actually isn’t something to get too frustrated about, for some of the most intense, morbidly fascinating and emotional scenes come about as a result of these “Wrong Ends”, as the game calls them. Sometimes these are subtle changes to events in the supposed “true” ending for each chapter that mean hope turns to tragedy. Sometimes these endings result in horrible deaths for one of more of the main characters. Sometimes they result in revelations about the characters that you wouldn’t find out about otherwise. Pretty much all bar a couple of “you were caught by a Bad Thing, you die” incidents are worthwhile and substantial narrative events in their own right, making discovering all of the story’s possible endings — good and bad — something of a metagame in itself.

The game’s story and the emotional power behind it is helped by a fantastic translation from the Japanese coupled with some truly excellent, emotionally charged Japanese-language voice acting. Even if you don’t speak Japanese, you’ll want to let the fully-voiced dialogue run its course, as it’s packed with convincing expressions of emotion. (Oh, and you’ll want to wear headphones while playing. The game features some of the most unsettling use of stereo effects I’ve ever encountered, along with a kickass soundtrack.) Characters laugh, cry, scream in terror and generally act in an incredibly realistic manner given the situation they find themselves in. Certain incidents which occur also show that being in a horrific, seemingly inescapable situation doesn’t make the cast immune to things like your body letting you down at the worst possible moment, or your own feelings towards another person. Despite its supernatural core, Corpse Party’s tale is a very human one, examining the relationships between all the members of its main cast and leaving the player feeling like they know most of them very well by the end of the story.

But that doesn’t mean that the horror side of things is toned down. Far from it. Despite its retro-style presentation, this is likely one of the most disturbing, unsettling games you’ll ever play. It doesn’t hold back. This game puts its characters through some of the most unimaginable suffering possible in the name of evoking an emotional response from players, and it’s all the better for it. Story is conflict, and through conflict people grow and change — sometimes for the better, sometimes worse. The fact that the characters are children drives home the fact that tragedy can happen to anyone, and the way in which we react to horrific situations can make a big difference to what happens to us next. It’s a powerful tale, for sure, and even the most strong-stomached will struggle not to wince at some of the acts described throughout the course of the game’s narrative.

Note that I say “described” and not “seen”, for Corpse Party understands that most fundamental tenet of horror — the most terrifying things are not the most spectacularly gory things presented to the viewer on a plate, but the things in their imagination. As such, many of the game’s strongest, most disturbing scenes are depicted entirely through text, colour flashes and sound effects. The understated manner in which various unpleasant incidents are coolly relayed to the player makes them all the more powerful, for it’s at these moments that the imagination comes into play, filling in the blanks about what is not described as much as picturing what is described. It’s a potent demonstration of the huge difference that having people who know what they are doing work on a game’s script makes.

Corpse Party isn’t a long game, and it won’t take you long to beat all five chapters. There’s plenty of incentive to replay, though, including discovering all the possible endings — good and bad — as well as a series of smaller “extra chapters” that fill in other events which are occurring alongside the main plot. There’s also a bunch of student ID tags to collect throughout the course of the game, providing details on previous visitors to Heavenly Host who weren’t so lucky, including how they died. It’s a diverting little side mission which is integrated nicely into the theme of the game rather than feeling like a gratuitous addition. Since the PSP doesn’t have a Trophy system, it’s clear that these tags haven’t just been added to fill out the Trophy list; they’re instead present to provide context and atmosphere to an already creepy and impactful game.

So should you play Corpse Party? If you’re a fan of story-based games and Japanese horror, then yes, you most certainly should. There’s more than enough content to get your £11.99 worth in this game, and despite a couple of niggling flaws (the lack of a “skip” button when replaying scenes being the most disappointing oversight) it’s a memorable, emotional experience that will stay with you long after it’s finished.

#oneaday Day 775: Having a Corpse Party

Looking for something terrifying? Own a PSP? Then quit whatever you’re doing and go download Corpse Party from PSN for a very reasonable £11.99.

I’ve mentioned this briefly a couple of times over the last few days but it’s worthy of some more in-depth enthusing, so here goes.

Corpse Party is a horror adventure game that uses a combination of Chrono Trigger-style top-down visuals and beautifully-drawn anime-style stills to tell its tale. And what a gruesome, horrifying tale it is.

Following a botched attempt to cast a friendship charm as one of a group of friends is set to leave her school, eight Japanese high schoolers and their teacher find themselves trapped in an unpleasant situation: a ruined, abandoned, creepy old school that is not their own, populated by malevolent ghosts and a wide variety of mutilated dead bodies — obviously previous victims of whatever curse brought them there. It’s up to the player to get to the bottom of what’s going on, and attempt to get the kids home. I haven’t finished it yet, so I don’t know if they’re successful.

Corpse Party initially puts across the impression of being just another light-hearted anime adventure. But things quickly take a turn for the dark as the corpses start piling up and the numerous mysteries surrounding the ruined school start to reveal themselves. Gameplay is limited to wandering around, exploring and making occasional choices, so the game is perhaps best compared to a visual novel rather than an adventure game or survival horror, but it manages to be one of the most affecting, evocative games I’ve ever played using the bare minimum of tricks and gimmicks.

It achieves this in a variety of ways. First up is the excellent writing and localisation. Not only is the tale told one filled with unexpected twists and turns, but it’s also one populated with believable, “human” characters who are far from being “video game heroic”. They’re kids. They talk like kids, they swear like kids, they make inappropriate comments like kids and they react like kids would in horrific situations like the ones in the game — by screaming, crying and running away.

The game doesn’t hold back in its writing, preferring instead to depict its characters’ behaviour in a realistic manner rather than the sanitised view of life we get in many other video games. For example, in one flashback scene depicting one of the characters’ lives before the events of the game, we see a big sister (one of the main cast) and her little brother in the bathroom together. Both are nude. Big sister, who is somewhat outspoken and borderline brash at times, teases her little brother for being ashamed of his nakedness and hiding his penis from her, tackles him to the ground and tickles him, behaving as siblings do. There’s no inappropriate eroticism in the scene despite the characters’ nudity, just a believable depiction of two very “human” characters enjoying a mundane moment together.

A lot of the power of Corpse Party’s writing comes from this clash between the mundane and the uncanny. Chapters will often open with a flashback of the “good old days” before the botched charm made everything go wrong for these kids, and it makes the anguish and terror they go through all the more profoundly affecting having seen what they’re like in situations that they’re comfortable with.

The writing is wonderfully descriptive without being overly explicit, either. Some of the most toe-curling, unpleasant scenes in the game come from a blank screen accompanied only by text and minimal sound effects. And yet somehow the manage to be far more horrific than anything I’ve seen on a next-gen console. The imagination is truly a powerful thing.

Imagination is all very well, but it can be helped along in a few ways. Firstly, there’s the visual side of things, which is kept relatively simple for the most part — old-school pixel art RPG-style graphics punctuated with occasional hand-drawn closeups to emphasise particular scenes.

Star of the show is the game’s sound design, though. Best experienced on headphones, Corpse Party’s soundtrack combines a variety of atmospheric, dramatic and memorable musical themes with subtle use of sound effects and some truly fantastic Japanese-language voice acting. The delivery is packed with emotion, making the kids’ screams of terror all the more harrowing as you find yourself really believing what’s going on. And the use of stereo makes for an impressively unnerving experience.

While some may object to a game which features quite so much violence against children, I for one have so far found the mature treatment of the player to be refreshing. The game doesn’t pull any punches at any point, meaning that you’re just as likely to meet an agonising and drawn-out demise when playing as a little girl as you are when playing the “tough” guy. Far from feeling “wrong”, however, the knowledge that the game’s characters are in very real danger throughout provides a strong emotional impetus for the player to get to the bottom of what’s going on and try to save them.

The only criticism of the game I have is the fact that if you find yourself down one of the “bad ending” paths and meeting a sticky end, you can sometimes lose a bit of progress if you haven’t been saving fastidiously at the game’s sparsely-scattered save points. With no means to quickly skip through scenes you’ve already seen once, this can be a little frustrating for the impatient (or those who can’t work out what they’re doing wrong — though it’s usually obvious).

This little issue far from ruins the experience, however. In fact, those who want to “100%” the game will actually need to see all of these unpleasant endings as well as the “proper” ends to each of the game’s five chapters, meaning that an unpleasant death for one of the cast isn’t necessarily wasted play time.

Above all, Corpse Party is a rewarding, affecting, remarkable experience that treats the player as an adult throughout. It’s refreshing to play through something which doesn’t feel sanitised or dumbed down in the slightest, and I’m both surprised and delighted that a game like this made it on to the Western PSN store.

I’m certainly not complaining, though. In fact, I’d like to see a lot more titles like this in the future.

#oneaday, Day 184: Dark World

[The following is part dream I had, part daydream, part complete fiction and part external influences. You may make of it what you will. Up to and including a fetching hat.]

The fog was out of season, and even thicker than it would have been at the right time of year for it. And it was cold. Very cold. Colder than he remembered it being for a long time. He wasn’t sure how long it had been cold and foggy, but it had certainly been for the whole day. And that seemed to mean that everyone was staying inside, since there was not a soul on the street.

He reached the shop and walked in. All was silent inside. The lights flickered slightly, and the buzzing of the fluorescent tubes suddenly seemed very loud. There was no-one here either; no sign of the usual student rabble laughing, joking and buying beer. No sign of the shop staff behind the counter. Nothing. Yet apart from this, the neatly-stacked shelves looked just as they always did. But there was something wrong, something sinister about the whole thing.

He walked over to the coffee machine, pulled out a cup and placed it under the nozzle before jamming his thumb onto the “large latté” button. The machine whirred, ground and made that curious sucking noise as the milk and coffee poured into the cup. It seemed very loud amidst the silence in the rest of the shop. Then it was quiet, and the cup was full. He pulled out one of the flimsy plastic lids from the dispensers and set it atop the cup.

He fumbled in his pocket for some loose change and left it on the counter. Just because there was no-one here was no reason to take advantage. He wasn’t that sort of person.

Something was wrong. The lights were flickering more, and the buzzing was getting louder. Suddenly, they went off entirely, and the shop was plunged into darkness. Loud, metallic scraping sounds filled his ears and he didn’t know what was happening. It shouldn’t be dark; it was still light outside, despite the fog. He tripped and fell in the darkness, somehow managing to hold on to his coffee cup. The ground began to shake, and he fell again trying to get back on his feet. This time, he dropped the cup. The tremors became stronger and stronger; it felt like the ground was somehow shifting beneath him, changing, becoming… metallic?

A small light flicked on above the counter.

The floor was cold, and where there once were simple tiles was now covered in metallic grates, darkness beneath them.

He scrambled to his feet, not wanting to stay here any longer than necessary. Outside, the fog was gone, but it was dark now. There was little light by which to see, so he pulled out his phone and used the bright light from the screen to see his way. The street seemed to be covered with the same curious gratings, the soles of his shoes clanging on them as he walked.

In the distance, in the darkness, he could see his building. He needed to get there, to be home, to be safe, to be inside. He didn’t like the feeling that this strange new environment was giving him. He quicked his pace to a light jog and headed towards the building, up the stairs to the front door. He punched in the door code and opened the door.

Inside, like outside, all was darkness. The small pool of light from his phone was just enough to see by, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He opened the door leading into the corridor that held his apartment and stepped into the blackness. He walked forward down the corridor, stopping and turning where he thought his door should be, but there was nothing there, and the corridor continued into the darkness. He couldn’t see the end of it.

He turned to face the corridor, stretching into the distance, took a deep breath, swallowed, and continued to walk down it. As he continued down the seemingly endless passageway, the only sound were his footsteps echoing on the metallic floor.

He wasn’t sure how long he walked for, but he was starting to get out of breath after a while. That’s when he heard the sounds. A mechanical sound of some sort, though he couldn’t tell what. He walked towards it and it slowly, gradually, got louder.

A voice whispered in his ear and he gave a start, almost falling over with the shock. He didn’t hear what the voice said, but it sounded familiar. Then the other ear, again, something said, not meant to be heard. The machinery growing louder and louder, the whispering voices growing more urgent. And now it felt like the corridor was sloping downwards. Just a little at first, but the further he went and the closer the sound became, the more it sloped and sloped until he thought he was going to slide down it and then—

The corridor came to an abrupt end along with the sounds, and he almost walked into his neighbour’s door in the darkness. He turned to face his own apartment, drew out his key from his pocket and hesitantly slid it into the lock. Pushing open the door slowly, cautiously, he shone the light from his phone into the black hallway, a sense of dread gripping him from inside, tightening every organ in his body, making him feel coiled like a spring.

The light bounced off a metallic object that was sitting on the side in the hallway. He walked over to it to see what it was.

A cook’s knife. Clean, shining in the light and sharp as a razor. He picked it up, not certain what he’d use it for. And he walked slowly towards the bedroom, figuring that if the world was going to do a passable impression of night-time, he might as well try and get some sleep.

The door creaked open as he pushed it, but suddenly he was wrenched through it, the wind knocked out of him as he fell to the ground, still gripping the knife in his hand, his phone skittering across the floor, face up, its light shining around the small room.

Then the sound. That terrible sound. Like a scream, but not of pain or terror. It sounded like rage. It was formidable and terrible, and it was somewhere in this room.

He looked up at the pool of light on the ceiling. That’s when he saw it. Its skin glistening as the light reflected off it, it screamed again as it knew it had been spotted.

He gasped, and his breathing quickened. This was—

The thing let out a horrifying screech again and something glass shattered. A window? A mirror? He couldn’t tell, because he couldn’t see. But he knew what had to be done. Brandishing the knife in a shaking hand, he walked towards where he had seen it hanging and looked up again. A tendril, like a thick piece of rope, hung from the ceiling. He raised the knife over his head and brought it down in a smooth arc, slashing through the tendril and slicing it clean in two. The part which had been stuck to the ceiling fell to the ground with a wet slapping noise, and there was another terrible scream.

His head hurt. His vision, what little he could see, felt hazy. This was difficult. It wasn’t as easy as he thought. But he had to—

The thing roared and lunged at him, but he staggered to one side at just the right moment, placing him right beneath another hanging tendril. Gritting his teeth and raising the knife, he cut through this one too. This time, images flashed across his eyes. Memories? He wasn’t sure, because they were gone as soon as he could focus on them. And still it was there, howling in pain now, writhing, yet still trapped. It lunged again and pushed him to the floor, knocking the wind out of him and the knife clattering across the floor. He dove towards where he thought it fell, gasping to recover his breath, and fumbled around until he felt its handle. Unsteadily, he picked himself up and got to his feet. His head was hurting now, like a migraine but worse. Instead of flashing lights across his vision, there were images, but they were still too elusive to grasp hold of. He recognised them, loved them and feared them at the same time, and he knew that there was only one way to—

With a yell, he leapt at the thing, knife raised aloft and slashed through the fourth and final tendril. With an awful screech, it fell to the ground, helpless against what was to come.

He stood above it, looking down at this pitiful thing that could engender such fear, hatred and anger. There was only one thing left, and that would be it. That would be the end. That would be—

He knelt before it, glowering at it, eyes narrowed, teeth grinding. He looked at the knife in his hand, now stained with blood and ichor, and then back to the thing again. This would be the last—

He plunged the knife deep into it and the horrific noise that ensued made the ground shake. But he pulled out the knife and plunged it in again, the tremors becoming more and more forceful, the screech becoming more and more deafening. He could hear walls cracking, collapsing, falling around him. He hoped it would be enough time to—

With the final thrust of the knife, there was a blinding white light, a sense of sudden, incredible, release like every trace of tension leaving his body; and there was a sound, a sound like a rising wind, louder and louder and stronger and filling his ears with noise and sound and it was too much and—

Then sudden, awful, total silence. Nothingness. The white light enveloped everything. Made it impossible to see. But it was—

She stood by the door to the apartment, not sure whether or not to go in. She stared at that number on the door, the number which for so long had meant “home” but was now just another meaningless digit. She looked at the lock, and at the key in her hand.

The key slid smoothly into the lock and she pushed open the door. Inside, all was quiet. The lights were off, the curtains were open and there were no signs of life. She walked ahead into the bedroom. Bare. Nothing but a bed. No sheets, no pillows, nothing. Back into the corridor; nothing here. The closets: empty. The study: nothing to see.

Panicking now, her heart racing, she ran to the living room. Nothing here besides the table, the sofa and the chairs. The things that had always been here, but nothing that meant—

Then she saw it. A folded piece of paper on the table, sitting by itself, alone.

She took it, unfolded it, read it.

Then she stuffed it into her pocket, turned and fled.