I decided to write a detailed, very spoilery review along to me playing the game... that way my memory will still be fresh and I'll be less angsty about playing on... XD
Sorry for the varying quality of the images - as it's not possible to make screenshots of PSP games (at least not this one) with the Vita I have to make do with screenshots from youtube videos and whatever I can find via google. ;>
Sorry for the varying quality of the images - as it's not possible to make screenshots of PSP games (at least not this one) with the Vita I have to make do with screenshots from youtube videos and whatever I can find via google. ;>
I finally started playing it yesterday and I can tell you, running from ghosts is no fun! I'm not really good with running away from things or reacting quickly. You should see me playing rhythm games or platformers. I suck at them. Very badly. I still wonder how I was able to finish both Tetris AND Super Mario on the Gameboy back then... My theory is, that I had no other choice but mastering them since I simply had no other games. I don't think I'd be able to pull that off nowadays. I don't want to anyways. I'll stick to my relaxing turn-based games, be it RPGs or development-sims like Civilization. Or adventure games. Or visual novels. Or brainy puzzle games like Layton, yup. That's the stuff I'm comfortable with.
Corpse Party falls into that category half of the time. The other half is running from ghosts that will kill you if they touch you.
Characters
Satoshi Mochida
17 y/o, average but popular. Both kind and cowardly but a natural leader due to being open and sensitive towards others. Naomi is kind of his rival.
Naomi Nakashima
16 y/o, Satoshi's classmate since junior high, has lost her father a few years ago but she has still remained optimistic and cheerful, she wants to become a nurse. She's got a secret crush on Satoshi.
Seiko Shinohara
16 y/o, Naomi's best friend, has a good nature but often says weird stuff, her mother disappeared 3 years ago and she takes care of her three younger siblings while her father is working.
Ayumi Shinozaki
17 y/o, The Class Rep for class 2-9, she always carries her ghost story props around, in case an opportunity presents itself to use them. While it seems she likes ghost stories, she is actually just trying to hide her fear of the unknown.
Yoshiki Kishinuma
17 y/o, often regarded as sarcastic and cynical tho he just thinks of himself as honest. He rarely get himself involved with the others, tho he tends to tag along when his friends Ayuma and Satoshi are there as well. He lives by himself due to intense drama at his home.
Mayu Suzumoto
16 y/o, has a big heart and bright personality, since she treats everyone the same she is pretty popular among her fellow students, unfortunately it's her last day at Kisaragi High since she has to move due to familial circumstances.
Sakutarou Morishige
16 y/o, he's been in the theater club with Mayu since middle school and very close to her but rather indifferent to everyone else du to his antisocial nature.
Yuka Mochida
14 y/o, Satoshi's cute little sister, she looks and acts much younger than her age, she's a bit of a spiled child but yearns to grow up so she often attempts to act older and braver than she is, which sometimes gets her into trouble.
Yui Shishido
23 y/o, Class 2-9's English teacher, she's not a perfect but very enthusiastic teacher and well liked by her students.
Chapter 01 - Prologue
The game starts off in Kisaragi High's classroom 2-9, the classroom of our heroes (except for Yuka of course). Ayumi is telling a ghost story to everyone (but Yuka & Yui) and suddenly there is a black out. The ghost story seems to turn into reality, but it's actually just Ayumi and Yui playing a prank on everyone which succeeds very much and ends up with a scared Satoshi grabbing Naomi's breasts... she doesn't seem to mind too much tho. ;>
Yuka enters the classroom and joins everyone.
We find out that it's Mayu's last day at Kisaragi High and Ayumi suggests a ritual called "Sachiko Ever Afer" she'd found on the internet. It involves everyone standing in a circle and repeating the phrase "Sachiko, we beg of you." nine times. XSeed have posted the blog entry Ayumi found online on the official CP page as well: http://www.corpsepartypsp.com/secret.html
After everyone has ripped off their piece of the doll and put it away something goes wrong. What seems to be an earthquake at first turns out to be something far worth...
Chapter 01
You start off with Naomi and Seiko first. Naomi wakes up in the classroom and sees the unconscious Seiko at the other end of the room. Naomi makes her way to the other side of the room (which isn't that easy, as half of the floor has been torn down) and sprains her ankle. After she successfully woke up Seiko, they decide to explore the weird school they ended up in.
They make some gruesome discoveries pretty fast. Corpses are placed everywhere, some of them with creepy notes left besides them and there's also notes and newspaper articles all around the school about some kidnapping / murder cases of multiple students of Heavenly Host Elementary School - a school that had been torn down in 1973, after the murders. A teacher of that school had been found with multiple cruelly tortured dead bodies of the missing students, in his hands a pair of scissors dripping with blood. It seems that this very school is the place they ended up in.
There's also ghosts roaming around. Quite a few of them. Most of them being simple flames, either blue (good) or red (bad) ones. Blue ghosts with real bodies aren't good tho, as I've learned.
Both Naomi and Seiko try to stay cheerful even tho they realise quickly that there seems to be no way out of this place. One of the good ghosts explains to them that even tho their friends appear to be there as well, that they are in different closed spaces and that there is probably no way to reach the other spaces. And there's no exit to this ghost school as well. The sad ghost tells them that they should be lucky to be able to die together.
They make their way to the infirmary where Seiko puts a bandange on Naomi's sprained ankle and they relax a little on the beds in there. Seiko also makes some comment about how cute Naomi's butt is. She seems to be very fond of Naomi's butt in general. And while she is all weird and pervy, she does totally hit the nail when she tells Naomi that Naomi probably is hoping that Satoshi didn't end up in this scary place as well.
Seiko tells Naomi to rest a little while she goes off exploring some more (yeaaaah, splitting up is always SUCH A GREAT IDEA in horror stories...... orz) but after a while Naomi decides to go look for Seiko. But for some weird reason the infirmary door won't budge. And after walking around the room a little this suddenly happens to the door:
And as if that wasn't creepy enough already a female voice suddenly can be heard: "Sacchan... have you come to find me?" an then the shadowy ghost appears, going after poor Naomi. But with some alcohol and matches, both found in the infirmary, the creepy hair is no longer a problem and Naomi can escape!
Outside we meet seiko again, who is all chipper and trying to cheer Naomi up. But Naomi is suddenly being a total bitch to Seiko suggesting they should split up and telling her that they won't get out anyway while thinking how stupid she is for saying such stuff to her best friend..
Then you can chose to tell her to leave you alone or apologise to her, it doesn't matter what you chose tho, as they will split up anyways (Why the hell add the choice at all then? God I hate it when games give you pseudo choices that do not make any difference at all.... pfff....). Naomi is filled with regret and starts searching for Seiko. But when she finally finds her, it's too late already:
Seiko appears to have hung herself in the toilet stall that was previously locked and while Naomi is all freaked out and sad by her friend's death she at least also notices how weird it is that she was able to enter the locked toilet stall. And that's the good end of chapter one. Yeah, seriously. One of the bad endings has you get suffocated by the shadowy ghost in the infirmary instead:
I haven't seen the other bad end yet, I'll probably skip as many bad endings as I can and make an extra post for just them after finishing the game... XD
Chapter 2
There's a prologue that can be skipped again, which continues with Naomi in the toilet, remembering a cute scene with Seiko from the past (which shows Seiko's obsession with Naomi's ass again) and afterwards we hear her cry and scream again.
Then the scene switches to Miss Yui, Yoshiki and Ayumi. Ayumi is totally stressed out and scared by everything that's happening and hyperventilating. Yui tries to calm her down and then decides to find out where Naomi is, since she's sure to have heard her.
But before that she picks up a crytal that's lying around in the classroom and gives it to Yoshiki (and it's very important to give it to them, as otherwise the good ending won't be available)
She then continues onwards and ends up in a class room where a blue ghost is. She talks to him and tells him she wants to save her students and is looking for one of them. He tells her basically the same stuff that Seiko and Naomi heard from the other ghost already, that there's no way to get to the other closed spaces.
She tells the ghost to let her through anyway and pushes it away to move on. When she tries to exit the room she gets pushed back by a force and the ghost tells her she's just like all teachers, thinking about herself and only for that reason wanting to help her students, but not wanting to get involved with them too much. She denies it but the ghost as all raging and bad (turning red and all) and he pushed a heavy shelf onto her, seemingly crushing her to death:
The scene switches back to the classroom with Yoshiki and Ayumi in it and another earthquake occurs.. there was one in the first chapter with Naomi and Seiko as well and afterwards the layout of the school had changes, so of course this time the same thing happened and the door to the classroom where Yui was in has vanished.
So Yoshiki and Ayumi look around everywhere else and discover 4 corpses and get freaked out just like the others. They also find this strange room with a ghost boy inside.
Well yeah, looking into his eyes results in your crystal shattering. And then dying. WHO SAID BLUE GHOSTS ARE GOOD!? .__. Anyways, at the back of the room you find a nail puller and take it with you to the classroom you first found yourself in. But ghost boy is suddenly following you and you absolutely can't run into him or otherwise Yoshiki gets apparently buried alive. A death I'd rather not like to experience.... D:
After arriving safely in the classroom you use the nail puller on a door behind a shelf, that's tightly locked with nails. You enter a small room with some sort of device with a lever, pulling it results in the floor of ghost boy's room shifting and another lever becoming accessible. So back to ghost boy's room it is! But he is still following you around so it's not that easy to get there and especially to get out of his room as it's pretty tiny and hard to avoid running into him in there... I was somehow able to pull it off tho and the new lever opens up a new way to the east.
Whatever awaits me there, I don't think I'm ready to find out yet... so I'll continue playing and reviewing tomorrow! <3
