Corpse Party review-summary-thing Part 1

~Sea of Twilight~

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, hime-chan♥ Sorry, I have to split up this review because I still haven't finished the Alternative Ending of chapter 5. I will add the second part during this week or so, for now I am pretty sure you'd have enough to read now xD


HAJIMASHOU!

Aiya, so I am doing something akin to a review/summary/ranting thingie about Corpse Party for my husbando hime-chan~~ (And why is this no proper review? Because I put my own thoughts and judgments into every part already, not just the conclusion/whatever.)

Also, this is a game that uses the Dummy Head Mic technique, I think. Meaning that you should use headphones to get maximum effect of the sound effects. IT IS CREEPY BUT REALLY, DUMMY HEAD MIC IS LOVE!

First and foremost, the premise of this PSP horror game:

After the cultural festival and a few horror stories told, a group of teenagers perform a Sachiko Ever After charm to make sure they will be friends forever. …instead they are subsequently trapped in a school that should no longer exist: Tenjin Shougakkou (or Heavenly Host Elementary School if you go for the USA release). There the group is split up and they each have to survive a bloody, creepy set of adventure that will test their nerves and their friendship. It is said they will never be able to leave this school since many before them have not managed to do so, either. Besides, why does such a cursed place exist?

Let's start with the main characters:

Mochida Satoshi

Technically apparently the main character. 17 years old. He is easily scared and that makes him victim to the class representative's horror stories. In serious situations (as seen when playing as him in the games) he gets quite courageous. That makes him a somewhat generic boring main character but oh well. He also has a little sister, who is, unfortunately, also part of this wonderful horror trip… By the way, his seiyuu is Shimono Hiro, which I think is UtaPri's Shou?

Mochida Yuka

Sweet cute little Yuka is Satoshi's younger sister. She is really cute, be careful not to get cavity. No, really, she is cute. Except…sometimes really annoying. Especially when you realize she is 14 and acts like 6. AND is terribly in love with her onii-chan. (Which really I wouldn't mind if she didn't act like a tiny 6 years old!)

Nakashima Naomi

Our second protagonist, I think? A tsundere girl, type B. Meaning she is usually kind and nice but when it comes to her love interest she is quite tsun. She is also easily provoked, doesn't easily admit things…yeah, a tsundere. Her love interest? Satoshi of course. They are childhood friends. And he doesn't know she is crushing in him. In my opinion a bit generic and boring tsundere, sorry.

Shinohara Seiko

Ah, our perverted Seiko, best friend of Naomi and big sis promoted to mom in her household. She is…really perverted sometimes (the manga puts much emphasis on it) and really likes Naomi's big boobs. Comes from being in love with her best friend. …but she actively tries to matchmake Satoshi and Naomi so yeah. Hide your lesbians? Poor girl. But she really tries to cheer up the mood as much as she can. I really grew to like her when I at first didn't like her because of her seiyuu. Nothing against the seiyuu herself but I just didn't like the sound. But…Seiko is one of the cooler characters~

Shinozaki Ayumi

Class representative and avid horror stories and occult lover – while really being a scared cat. She is also the one with the highest spiritual awareness which makes her quite valuable in warnings like not doing this and that…but also making her prone to being possessed. She likes to tease Satoshi – a sign of her affection to him. Yes, she is also in love with our hero. I am not sure why but I like Ayumi the most. She is a scared cat, can be bitchy and yandere at some point, can be stupid and inconsiderate, but she is no boring character and has character development and…well, I like her.

Kishinuma Yoshiki

Most important thing: His seiyuu is Nakamura Yuuichi. (What, I am seiyuu biased, okay?!) He is somewhat of a thug or at least looks a bit like the rebel next door. Poor guy is in love with Ayumi (who doesn't realize his feelings save for one…WRONG ending). Poor guy is really actually quite nice and tries his best to protect Ayumi. Poor guy has the best omake Drama CD single, I swear! I like him, okay?

Suzumoto Mayu

A girl who was supposed to transfer out of the school one day after cultural festival. Instead she got wrapped up in this. She is essential for Sakutarou, with whom she has a brother-sister-relationship of the platonic kind. The bad news is, she dies early on because she is too much of a kind, cheerful soul and trusted the vengeful spirits.

Morishige Sakutarou

Somewhat of a generic guy at first, he is a megane who absolutely cannot see without his glasses (as one epic extra chapter revealed) and gets mostly little screen time. Revealed to have some actor skills but never really exploring them because he isn't popular. Later you get to see that he is rather creepy (the manga is much better at showing it, though), or is at least kind of disturbing, needing the suffering of others to keep himself sane (in form of passively taking pictures of the corpses). That and Mayu's presence was what kept him mentally stable all this time. He does not take it well when he finds out Mayu died. Also, his seiyuu is Kakihara Tetsuya, who is originally from Germany 8D

Shishido Yui

The teacher of the class, a young woman who is damn awesome! (Not to mention she has awesome Sawashiro Miyuki as seiyuu~) Cat-lover, single (I felt the need to mention this because it was topic in one extra chapter xD) and very brave. Let's just say when a ghost is pressing a shelf with blades down on your back asking you to beg for your life and she instead dares the ghost to hurt her students…yes. Yes, she is a fine teacher.

Prologue:

The prologue starts with the group minus Yuka and Shishido gathered around candles in the classroom, horror stories and then a creepy authentic imitation of the horror story just told, courtesy to Shishido, who wanted to give them a good scare. Yuka joins to bring her brother an umbrella because it is storming outside like mad and the group wants to finish cleaning up the classroom. Because it is Mayu's last day, Ayumi gets the brilliant idea to perform the Sachiko Ever After that would fail if you don't chant the spell correctly. And after they chant the spell, an earthquake hits them, the ground opens up and they fall to their demise.

Chapter 1:

You start with Naomi's party. She is with Seiko and the two have their ups and downs, naturally, when you find yourself in a creepy, old, rotting but closed off school. They do some exploring (and find a creepy ghost in a red dress – oh fucking god I was so scared in that dark classroom TAT) but because Naomi sprained her ankle at some point they end up in the infirmary. The infirmary, I tell you, is not a safe place. Really not. So, after some quality time Seiko has with Naomi (not the way she surely would have wanted, poor girl, but close enough) they hear a wailing Yuka calling for her brother and Seiko leaves Naomi in favor of searching for the younger girl.

I will forever hate this part of the first chapter because Naomi then will be locked in the infirmary and some black ghost-apparition-thing will appear and chase her…while pats of the floor will break away. In that time you have to find matches, light the door (that is locked by black hair, eww), realize it won't work, run through half of the room to get alcohol, run back and light the hair again. (I failed so many times because I suck at moving the characters when I am panicking.) Go out and see Naomi acting quite like a bitch (because she is tsuntsun and still shocked and at wit's end and afraid to hell, so I understand her, I really do, but I still don't find her sympathetic) towards Seiko who tries to cheer her up. You have the option to try apologizing when Naomi finally calms down a bit but they still split up afterwards. Which usually is really a bad idea in such places, geez…

The next time Naomi finds Seiko is when Seiko is hanging herself in one of the girl's toilet stalls. You have the option to try holding her up (Seiko is still alive at that point, barely) or run out and find something she can stand on (there was a bucket outside). I remember that I once peeked at the manga and saw that Naomi ran out to get the bucket. So I did. Return with Naomi into the girl's lavatory and find Naomi lifelessly dangling from the wooden beam. Uh, yeah. Actually, no matter what you do, Seiko dies. This apparently is especially true in the game's sequel Book Of Shadows. Seiko, poor girl, is destined to die there. Naomi understandably breaks down.

Okay, this chapter has two Wrong Ends. One is when you fail to escape that fucking infirmary apparition and another is when you fail to read something important… There is one classroom you can and have to unlock and Naomi will say she has a bad feeling. Go inside and there is a ghost (peaceful) saying they should NOT read the newspaper in there. If you do, it will lead to the True End that unlocks the next chapter. If you don't, after the infirmary episode you won't meet up with Seiko and instead find her in the lavatory hanged, with the same scene as the True End BUT with a twist…after Naomi fails to save Seiko, the blue, vengeful children's spirits will appear and make her swallow a scissor. Byebye Naomi.

There are a few things you learn from this chapter. First is, this school they find themselves in is Heavenly Host Elementary School from twenty(or thirty, I forgot)-and-something years prior…which was a school riddled with tragedies (kidnappings, murders, suicide – they are connected but more about that later) before It was closed and torn down. In present time Kisaragi Gakuen (the protagonists' school) was built upon the same grounds.

You also learn that the entire group is in the school, they just cannot meet yet as they are separated into different dimensions.

And they also learn that there were many more before them and they all died in that school from less gruesome to totally brutal means. Those who die a horrifying manner will always relive the pain before their death. How…nice, right?

Also, there is one especially gruesome corpse…when you approach it, you will hear flies…ugh, flies TAT. And then you see a smashed corpse, blood everywhere, the body totally bloody and pulverized against a wall. Yes, this will be important later.

Chapter 2:

From the First Chapter Naomi's agonizing scream carries over. Ayumi, Yoshiki and Shishido hear her and the worried Shishido wants to search for her student. Ayumi however is in no state to move since she is panicking and hyperventilating. For a short while you control the teacher. It's either move on to the only available space which is another classroom or find some sort of crystal and give it to Yoshiki (which can but must not be helpful later when you play Yoshiki and Ayumi – do you think I knew that when I started this chapter?!). Anyway, Shishido meets a suffering soul in that other classroom, who tells her it is useless to search and stuff and when Shishido awesomely makes the ghost step aside, he gets angry and pushes a shelf/cupboard filled with edged blades onto the woman's back, ranting about how teachers are unreliable and stuff and Shishido throws it back into his face that she cares for her students and that he does not dare to hurt them instead of begging for her life as the ghost asks for. It looks like Shishido dies there if the pool of blood around her afterwards is any indication.

You take control of Yoshiki and Mayu afterwards, who are worried after a significant amount of time and they go exploring.

This is by far the coolest and creepiest chapter, I think.

Let's go by order: Ayumi is often possessed and gets quite crazy (two times that you as Yoshiki have to try getting her back to her senses). That possession can lead to two bad ends. One in which you leave Ayumi by herself the first time she gets possessed, switch two switches that need to be switched to open up a new area. Ayumi would at some point regain consciousness and search for Yoshiki…and end up sliced up by a piano thread that got activated via switch. Yoshiki finds her, is horrified and is promptly sliced up as well. Yeeeeah…that's a clear message that you do NOT just leave your possessed friend to herself (you can only clear the chapter if you indeed snap Ayumi out of her possession). Then the second time Ayumi gets possessed. This one has a twist. To obtain the true Ending you have to leave Ayumi to herself for a while after failing to snap Ayumi out of her possession, and then after a cutscene of how Yoshiki and Ayumi met he will make up his mind and try cooling Ayumi down. The twist is, where do you leave? Ayumi gets crazy in front of the lavatory. Now, you have the option to go to the girls' lavatory or the staircase. Ayumi will push you the next time you meet her. So if you are in the staircase, Yoshiki will be pushed down the stairs before he can proceed to calm Ayumi down and break his neck. Wrong End.

This chapter is very tricky because you have to do many key factors to trigger the True End. There is this one ghost boy who is missing his tongue. You first meet him in the room with one of the switches and there he is just sitting on the ground. You may NOT look into his eyes directly or it will result in a wrong end where Yoshiki will find himself being suffocated to death by being buried alive. A good portion of the chapter the boy will stalk you and you have to avoid him. ARGH HE WAS SO SCARY DAMNIT >_< (Here the crystal comes into play. With the crystal you can get caught by the ghost once and do not get the Wrong End. Since I panic easily and suck at guiding the characters, I clearly needed that crystal so I had to replay Shishido's part after the first bad end I got…)

Okay, after that you will walk past the infirmary (I will forever fear that place) and hear children laugh…and a familiar voice: Mayu's. The two find Mayu talking and interacting fearlessly with two other blue ghosts, one girl with a missing eye and the other with half of her head (and I mean everything starting from her upper jaw) missing. Basically from the second girl you only see a with blood filled…uh…bowel and rudiments of her tongue…her tongue is missing, too. Ayumi, whose senses are screaming of course, tries with Yoshiki to convince Mayu that those ghosts are really dangerous. She refuses (idiot). The two run out and meet another ghost, but not a vengeful one, one that ain't glowing blue. She, Naho, looks pretty normal, cute even, expect that she introduces herself as dead. 

That ghost girl, Naho.

She tells them she has been looking into the school's curse beforehand and tells them that they should save their friend by finding the killer of these ghosts and making him express his regret. So off Yoshiki and Ayumi are to find some creepy doll that talks in a very mechanic voice, apologizing all over. They try to appease the children that way but instead the two ghosts take Mayu, crash through the door…

…and smash Mayu with supernatural speed against the wall, pulverizing her body into pieces of meat, fat, gore and blood. Remember that gruesome corpse I mentioned in the first chapter. That, my dear reader, is Mayu, or was.

Ayumi freaks out and runs away and before Yoshiki can follow her he is knocked down by some very creepy zombie-like something with a big hammer and dragged away. End of Chapter Two, Proceed to Chapter Three.

There are several things you find out. Heavenly Host Elementary was famous for a very gory incident in the past, namely 4 missing children. Three of them wound up mutilated and dead with the teacher as culprit. And according to the descriptions of the children it's exactly those three blue ghosts.

Oh wait, I forgot one awesome Wrong End. It is disturbing and fascinating in my opinion! So in that chapter there were 5 notes. 'Memoirs' they were called and were written by a boy who had to eat his best friend. Since in the school there is neither food nor water, if you don't die via trap, ghost, idiocy, suicide or madness, you will starve. The two boys played jankenpon to decide. The winner would be eaten by the loser. And the loser decided to write down his experience to keep himself sane (it has a reversing effect, actually). The notes will only appear if you read the previous one, it's optional to read them. But as you proceed to read, you will find out that the boy got crazy over time and actively ate the remains of his friend, opposed to the beginning where he forced himself to eat to survive a while longer.

If Yoshiki reads all five notes, the next thing you will see is Yoshiki spitting out something that looks like a piece of flesh. And then you see Ayumi dead and sliced up in the front of him. And Yoshiki, just regaining his consciousness is visibly shaken. He finds a note Ayumi is holding, saying that she is chased around by her classmate who lost his mind…Yoshiki. It's when Yoshiki totally loses it, I think. AND THEN A SEQUENCE OF GORY SOUNDING EATING SOUNDS FOLLOW AND YOU JUST KNOW YOSHIKI IS EATING AYUMI. Truly the most twisted Wrong End.

Chapter 3

It's that Satoshi and his sister! Let's see, the main plot point in this chapter is that dear Yuka has to pee and absolutely needs a toilet for that. Since the building reconstructs and changes with every dimension, it's just their luck that the lavatory for boys and girls are constructed as such that they cannot go to the stalls. Aside from surviving a nap in the infirmary (really, nothing happened, I was on edge all the time!) they go and search for another place for Yuka to pee. They meet Morishige surprisingly, who was just taking pictures of Mayu's pulverized self (without knowing it was Mayu, mind you) but he goes off his own way. Then there is one moment where the ghost boy is present again! But if you don't look at him everything is fine. Or if you took some protective beads from Yuka. If you did not, you will be drawn towards the ghost boy and he will make Satoshi crash down the hole and die. And before Satoshi dies, he would realize Yuka is jumping willingly after him, dying as well. Uh… well, first Wrong End. Onwards to the proper path.

Oh look, there is an entire new hallway after an earthquake. It leads to a second building connected by a small roofed wooden walkway. Yuka and Satoshi go and explore (one bad end here is a hallway littered with something like green… slime(?) on the ground and if you walk on it, you will lose HP and eventually die), find the lavatories there either sealed off or inaccessible, even run into another LIVING student (not from their school, though) but that girl is too panicked to react (later you find her dead in the next room). So Satoshi decided that Yuka shall go pee outside around the roofed walkway. Yuka complies, is about to do that – and then almost runs into the one-eyed ghost. If you as Yuka get caught by that ghost in that moment (or when you run back and hide in the accessible lavatory) you get a horrifying bad end where the ghost girl (Yuki) stabs Yuka's eye out… (horrifying sound effects and a heartwrenching good job by the seiyuu).

If you do not aim for that bad end, you run back with Yuka and don't find Satoshi anywhere. Panicking she searched for him of course while running from the Yuki-ghost as well. She runs into Morishige who takes pictures of the dead girl from before and is disturbingly delighted by that sight. I don't quite get it but Morishige then offers to accompany Yuka, makes his creepy face with shining scary glasses and Yuka automatically refuses and he kind of follows her around when in the same room, asking why she is running away when he catches up with Yuka but not really keeping her in place. IT'S CREEPY NEVERTHELESS. (AND THE MANGA MAKES IT REALLY, REALLY CREEPY, Morishige, you have my respect as a really creepy passively creepy character!)

See what I mean? Yeah, is crazy!Morishige from the manga.

And then she runs into a tall bishie she mistakes for her brother for a moment.

Kizami Yuuya

Voiced by Tomokazu Seki (hello Kanata with a deeper voice and less tsundere-ish 8D), he is from the same high school that other living and now dead girl was. Is quite the bishie (and walks around with his shirt half-unbuttoned *drools*). Is very strong (example: Satoshi makes beelines around the fallen cupboards because he cannot lift them/those paths are inaccessible because they are in the way; When you have Yuuya with you, he simply lifts them off and a new path opened!), is somewhat of a replacement onii-chan to Yuka while Satoshi is absent. Unfortunately he has some…questionable tendencies.

The first appearance of this bishie in the manga left me drooling and I was really cursing him for his bishieness. I mean, he even has lashes, sorta.

"Boku wa Byakudan Koukou 2 nen Kizami Yuuya da" I am so ridiculously happy I understand this sentence without problem. It's just introduction, but whatever. And see that? He has lashes.

Yuuya is then who you'll guide for a while, as he tells Yuka he is searching for his little sister like she is searching for her big brother, but it is interesting to note that usually when you take over a party and there are two or more members, they kind of merge with the lead member and you basically only move one person. Here you move Yuuya but Yuka is trailing behind him, not merging with him. Take it as you will. With Yuuya several more paths get accessible. Eventually you will unseal the boys' lavatory and Yuuya lets Yuka go. While Yuka is in there we see a cutscene with Yuuya meeting his childhood friend and classmate outside. The lad's name is Kurosaki Kensuke, a cheerful, nice boy and he trusts Yuuya. Unfortunately for him (and me, who fucking likes Yuuya, whyyyyyyy?!, and everyone else) Yuuya is a knife-nut and stabs Kurosaki out of the blue, kicking him down the hole that is conveniently …everywhere you go. From there on you see Yuuya is losing his mind (or he was like that for a long time already but is only now showing his true face). So his problem is that he has very oppressing older siblings and always wanted a younger sibling himself he could dote on and…tease. His definition of tease is not safe for work, though. Just think of the knife in his hand. And that's another problem. He said he has a little sister and you come to realize he never had a little sister. (Oh wait, that’s only shown in chapter 4. Well, nevermind.)

Switching back to Satoshi who wakes up in a room previously inaccessible he finds records of someone who has been investigating this cursed elementary school. He meets that girl Naho who mocks him and kind of puts a spell on him (I have NO idea what that spell did since it was never mentioned again or did anything aside from giving Satoshi headaches) when another earthquake strikes. I think that was the chapter end, then.

One thing you start to realize is when an earthquake strikes, something will change, may it be the ground construction or maybe the merging of a dimension with another or…something. Well, and open up paths.

This chapter also has 5 memoirs, though nowhere near disturbing as the one in Chapter 2. Make Satoshi read all of them will result in his will's destruction and he will be wandering the halls with no will of his own or something. Pretty lame. I think it is akin to the 'darkening' that is mentioned later, where you give up on everything and allow the dark, twisted forces of the school to devour you. Or something.

Does this chapter reveal anything else…? Meh, gotta rewatch the chapter videos, then. I am NOT GOING TO REPLAY THESE, I am scared by only writing this, thank you very much /shot

But I think I remember Naomi being shown shortly getting a visit by Naho, who is all but nice telling her she is the only living person and something along the lines of having fun being alone. Devastated Naomi gets a phone call of her mother afterwards but no matter what she says, her mother doesn't seem to be able to hear her. And then a creepy 'tasukete kure' echoes through that call… Naomi is clearly at her wit's end.

And I think it is also sometime in this chapter you see a cutscene of an alive Yoshiki with throbbing head…somewhere….with the blue ghost kids suddenly surrounding him, then disappearing when the zombie-like monster appears with the hammer and raising it over his head to hit Yoshiki. Cue fading/blackening screen. Corpse Party, you troll.

(TBC)