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[Dusk Golem]

Ikenie no Yoru aka Night of Sacrifice was a 2011 Wii horror game that was released in Japan, and never saw any sort of international release. It was developed by Marvelous Entertainment, the people most famous for the Harvest Moon & Half-Minute Hero games. One of the most curious traits of the game was that it was developed for use with the Wii Balance board, but you can also just use a stand-alone Wii Remote to play it.

Here's a couple of trailers to paint out a bit what these games are:
Trailer 1
Trailer 2

Night of Sacrifice (translated title I will now refer to the game as from this point forward, or NoS) is part of a small wave of J-Horror games that released on Nintendo platforms at around 2009-2011, composed of Nanashi no Geemu (aka Nameless Game), Nanashi no Geemu 2: Eye, The Calling, Ju-On: The Grudge, & Night of Sacrifice. I consider these a style of horror game known as "Casual Horror," as they often have simple control schemes and mechanics and play out almost a bit like horror experiences or haunted houses (they have gameplay, chasers, and the like, but often the gameplay is a bit light). However, they make up for it in other areas, and are probably some of the horror games out there that play the most similar to actual J-Horror films in game form.

I've now played all of them but Ju-On: The Grudge, and I can say that Night of Sacrifice is my favorite of the bunch, for a number of reasons. Now, I had put off playing it for some time in the hopes that one day there would be a translation. And there is now... Sort of. A girl named Chelsea who helped translate Fatal Frame 4 translated most of the text in NoS, but couldn't get a programmer to put it in the game. Alas... But I was able to get the scripts in text format from her, and honestly it wasn't that bad playing it since the game is surprisingly light on text (you can't observe many things in the environment), you don't observe very many things in the game, and many of the cutscenes even don't have text. That, added with the script being in an easy to follow chronological order, made it an actually pretty easy to follow game. I would recommend reading the translation as you play, as the story is a bit interesting even if not text heavy, and you may find the word file scripts for the game's scenes here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/dp574snf0jfe2py/Ikenie+no+Yoru+Translations.zip

I had always been interested in this game as a horror ethusiast, partially because the trailers show off a lot of odd to see together horror elements together; ghosts, person with a chainsaw, mannequins, cursed objects, moon imagery, blood soaked walls... And a strange contrast in style the main characters have to their world, being straight-color cel shaded, while the rest of the world has a more traditional style to it.

...And I actually enjoyed it. I actually REALLY enjoyed it, a lot more than I was expecting. I liked the other games of the 'casual horror' style as well, with their heavy J-Horror themes, but I think this game both had the best gameplay, variety, scenes, and story of the bunch. It wasn't a very long game, I took my time and I think it took me 7-8 hours to beat (meaning it'd probably be about 5-7 hours for most people), but they spiced it up a lot throughout.

I'm going to explain my experience with this game in detail over a few posts, but first let me explain something about this game: It has a weird chapter system. Partially because I couldn't read the menu (translation has all the in-game stuff, but not the menu) but also due to it being highly unusual. The start game option plays the tutorial chapter of the game, and when you finish that, you go back to the main menu, and clicking that button again that's on the top like new game is just the tutorial again. Instead, a new option appears on the main menu after the tutorial I thought was options at first with some photos, but the photos are different chapters that take place after the main game, but completing the chapters unlocks the first chapters of three different campaigns (Blue, Yellow, & Black... The characters are color-coded, there's also a Red & Pink, but they're not playable). You then can play through the three campaigns in any order, each campaign has 5 chapters. And when you beat all three chapters, you unlock the final chapter. Completing that unlocks the final "After" chapter, but beating that unlocks the true ending if you replay the final chapter (and includes a lot more gameplay).

With that explanation out of the way, let me start in describing my experience with this game. This is probably going to be quite a read, but I hope to make it interesting with all of this explanation out of the way. I'll be starting in the next post, as I have a lot to say.

 

[Hero of Legend]

You say it was developed by Marvelous but they hardly ever do games internally, other than Story of Seasons I guess.

Like Neverland did Rune Factory (and began Lord of Magna)
Tamsoft do the Senran Kagura games.
VanillaWare did Muramasa.
Matrix Software did Avalon Code.
Climax Entertainment did Steel Princess.
Imageepoch did Luminous Arc and Arc Rise Fantasia.
K2 do the Valhalla Knights series (still do I think including VK3).
Grasshopper did No More Heroes and Contact.
AQ did Zoo Resort 3D (just before the merger no less)
Comcept and Sony's Japan Studio do the Soul Sacrifice series
Epics did Return to PoPoLoCrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale on 3DS
Felistella did Luminous Arc Infinity on Vita (they're former Flight-Plan folks IIRC)

So my question is who did this specifically? I certainly don't see this being by the Story of Seasons team.

 

[Tizoc]

In case i miased it; is there no fan translation of the game?

 

[Dusk Golem]

We meet our main cast! Night of Sacrifice opens up with a screen letting you rename all of the characters. Their Japanese names represent the colors they are, so I just renamed them in English to their colors names as well (except for Yellow, who was only allowed 5 characters, so became Yello). And the game wastes no time to get you right into it.

We get introduced to our cast through Red & Black. Red is fiddling around on a Nintendo DS, and quickly establishes that he's a prick. Even though you all just got here, he quickly calls you out as being a good for nothing, and being a buzzkill to him. Hell, if you talk with him again, he'll even treat you like an idiot and tell you how to control the game while belittling you.

What a jerk.

Black is a bit more cool-headed. He's the mysterious one, and establishes that this cabin we're in was owned and made by his father, who was a reporter who went missing. He seems interested in learning what happened to his father, and if visiting this cabin will provide the answers to that mystery. Acts tragic a lot, basically.

Then there's Pink.

She basically is trying to act her cutest or something since she's the only girl currently here and is spending a weekend together with a bunch of dudes, and tries to make sure to let you know when talking to her how embarrassed she is that you're staring at her or something. "Teehee, don't look at me, you silly boys," is basically what she says and demotes herself to.

If you can't tell yet, we're playing as Blue during this tutorial, and it seems Yello hasn't arrived yet and they're all waiting on her.

The scene ends when you talk to all of them and get the basic idea of how to move between them and interact with all of them. Simple, and no on-screen instructions, controls are given to you if you talk to Red again (which you don't need to move to do), so kind of intuitive.

And the game quickly reminds us that all 5 of these characters vanished in these mountains, and haven't been seen since.

The game then kicks us back to the main menu, but with a new options, and when you select it, you can select a chapter to play. These chapters are all taking place after the 5 main characters have vanished, and you play as an unknown character (named "You", as it's dorkingly supposed to be YOU looking into what happened to them as the player). You can play them in any order, and beating them the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th one unlocks Blue's, Yello's, and Black's story, respectively. The 6th after chapter isn't unlocked until much later.

I went through all 5 "After/Later" chapters first before delving into the character's stories, and it does a great job at making you learn that this game is filled to the brim with surprising variety to how simple the game's mechanics are.

We start with "After 1"...

We play as "You" as we establish that we, the player, are horror-loving idiots. We apparently came to this isolated Japanese mountain village, known as Tsukuyomi Valley, to investigate these 5 friends going missing. The story tells us it began to rain, so we run into this run-down house to take shelter for the rain, but there's a blood trail right at the front entrance. Instead of noping the hell out of there, we decide it's a good idea to follow the trail of blood and see what happens.

Basically, You're an idiot.

So we get to following the trail, and the game actually has a very good sound design. A few minor things can be spotted, like a ghostly hand through the wall that vanishes, some weird text messages from someone by some garbled name, but ISO stands out, so we'll call the person sending messages ISO.

ISO basically tells us weird cryptic things about "dragging dragging plop plop plop" (I'm not making that up, that's what it basically says), which isn't really useful to anyone. We also find a peculiar caution sign, which warns residents to be wary of spirits and to not disturb them because they're restless... Apparently people just lived in this house, fully aware of spirits, and tried to go about their normal day lives while dealing with a haunting problem. That's apparently an in-universe thing, and we'll get more into that later.

We follow the blood trail, and end up finding out it was a toilet all along.

Okay, but actually there's a pretty creepy scene I should of saw coming but didn't, where when you approach the door, it slowly opens. It's so cliche, but it was actually executed super well here, I for some reason wasn't expecting it, and it actually spooked me a little. I'll talk about this more in time, but this game is actually surprisingly scary.

Anyways, when we try to head back, a strange little girl runs by the door, and now a doll is looking at us on the floor.

We follow this little girl, then suddenly out of nowhere, we hear a Chainsaw rev up, and suddenly see someone with a chainsaw run at us from around a corner, tumble and fall over, and then land standing completely still on the floor before us.

To say the least, I was caught off-guard.

Interacting with them, they mumble nonsense about the ocean. Not wanting to stick around, we get a move on. And soon all spirit hell breaks loose as we start having to do what horror protagonist do, and avoid ghosts coming at us in narrow corridors.

The game is also tricky that getting caught is an instant game over, it can be surprisingly challenging in areas, though the checkpoints are reliant.

We eventually get out of their business and arrive in an extremely bloody bathroom.

It's like a bath massacre.

We get more texts from ISO, telling us her sister is bathing in the large Japanese bathhouse-styled room. The room has stalls, and you have to go around corners. The music begins getting creepier as you go around, and see a large bath.

As you approach it, the music grows even more intense.

You look inside...

...

And there's nothing. Nothing but a stain, at least.

You turn on back, but then suddenly hear voices. You peek around the corner, and see the ghost girl from earlier talking to someone mysterious you can't see. Telling them to be careful, and the mystery person saying they'll take care of it all.

They both vanish without you ever seeing the other person's identity,

You head out of the bathroom on your way, but find the way you came from is locked. And you head back and... Oh, hello!

The chapter ends as you approach, and we're reminded of the mysterious vanishings in this mountain.

---

I was finding myself intrigued by these first two chapters, but not sold yet. But alas, these two ended up being the weakest chapters in the game. It only got better from here, and much more surprising.

Yes, I'm going to tackle my time with this game like this. Hopefully, some of you enjoy, my thoughts are still fresh.

You say it was developed by Marvelous but they hardly ever do games internally, other than Story of Seasons I guess.

Like Neverland did Rune Factory (and began Lord of Magna)
Tamsoft do the Senran Kagura games.
VanillaWare did Muramasa.
Matrix Software did Avalon Code.
Climax Entertainment did Steel Princess.
Imageepoch did Luminous Arc and Arc Rise Fantasia.
K2 do the Valhalla Knights series (still do I think including VK3).
Grasshopper did No More Heroes and Contact.
AQ did Zoo Resort 3D (just before the merger no less)
Comcept and Sony's Japan Studio do the Soul Sacrifice series
Epics did Return to PoPoLoCrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale on 3DS
Felistella did Luminous Arc Infinity on Vita (they're former Flight-Plan folks IIRC)

So my question is who did this specifically? I certainly don't see this being by the Story of Seasons team.

It was actually developed by them as opposed to published by them. Most of their development credits are on the things you mentioned, but this was an in-house project of theirs since I guess they wanted to make a Wii horror game. The credits play at the end of the game (and I'll get to that eventually, they're actually very original credits), but this was an internal project of theirs, but I don't have the exact details off hand of who exactly was involved, but I do have screencaps of the credits.

In case i miased it; is there no fan translation of the game?

I linked it in my post, there's this translation: http://www.mediafire.com/download/dp574snf0jfe2py/Ikenie+no+Yoru+Translations.zip

But it's not in-game, it's a translated series of word files that translate the game's script into English, but it's easy to follow and in chronological order; the game actually doesn't have that much text. Each chapter (of which there are 25 of) each only have a few sentences of text in them each.

 

[Schlomo]

Sounds very interesting. I wonder how the Balance Board is used in the game.

Btw, where did you buy it? It seems to be very expensive unfortunately on Amazon Marketplace.

 

[Hero of Legend]

It was actually developed by them as opposed to published by them. Most of their development credits are on the things you mentioned, but this was an in-house project of theirs since I guess they wanted to make a Wii horror game. The credits play at the end of the game (and I'll get to that eventually, they're actually very original credits), but this was an internal project of theirs, but I don't have the exact details off hand of who exactly was involved, but I do have screencaps of the credits.

Wow, thanks for clarifying!

Finding out who directed it would be great when you're able to let us know.

 

[Jim_Cacher]

Very interesting. I am currently learning Japanese, and a light-in-text game is exactly what I need. I will import the game when I go to Japan.

BTW, do you like Nanashi no Geemu? I heard many good things about this game. Is it worth playing? Do you think that the horror is good?

Sounds very interesting. I wonder how the Balance Board is used in the game.

Btw, where did you buy it? It seems to be very expensive unfortunately on Amazon Marketplace.

Looking at Amazon Japan and eBay, the price is cheaper on Amazon Japan, but it is still quite expensive for a 2011 game. I need to think about it.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Im not so much surprised that it wasent localized, but moreso I had no idea about it, especially in 2011 where us wii gamers were especially sensitive to unlocalized games that we werent getting.

 

[Dusk Golem]

With curiosity high but not really wholly sold on the title yet, I went into Later 2 to see if the game had more to offer. Maybe the game was going to become repetitive or rely on the same few tricks and thus be ineffective and dull.

Later 2's description mentioned going into a basement though, so that sounded promising.

It opens up with a lovely foreboding shot, not technically impressive, but with the drone sounds and angle, a bit effective.

The basement we enter is more of a hall that twists and turns to descend even further down.

There's also a curious sign at the foot of this all.

I mentioned in the last chapter there was a sign that warned residents about wandering spirits. Well, this sign is a callout to construction workers to be careful of the 'Sacrifices', and reminding to run if they see one, to always be with another person. Not only do we learn that these spirits are 'Sacrifices', which has unfortunate implications by such a name, but also that apparently before this place became a ghost town, people were just living with these spirits and trying to go about their daily lives. A sort of odd set-up, and one I don't see that often in horror. Wonder why they all just accepted such a lifestyle, though?

Anyway, we quickly learn these villagers had some interesting ideas for decor design.

Some wandering spirits make sure I don't dwaddle here for too long, so I rush in and go down another flight of stairs... Into a small, maze-like room that's pitch-dark, and roaming with spirits in closed-off spaces.

The game compared to other 'casual horror' games I've played is actually fairly challenging, and this is one of the first scenes in the game that really pushes the player early on. The place is small, but dark, and there's a few ghosts you have to narrowly avoid. I died a couple times myself, but thankfully the checkpointing was nice to be right before this room, and it did teach without words the basic of avoiding ghosts.

We escape, but not to easier shores... Instead we get to a very interesting room full of curtains.

Now this room was interesting! Basically, the room's layout is continually changing based on your position. It's a room with a few spirits and curtains, but the curtains shift as you move around, opening, closing, moving around, making it basically a shifting maze, but also pretty spooky as a spirit might be behind a curtain that opens up, or you might be able to cut off a ghost from getting you by moving to get a curtain to close. Was rather tense, and had never quite played a scene like that before.

It got me a bit panicky a few times, but I eventually find my way out, to a room with three doors. One is locked, and another... Had a cell with something strange in it.

I moved around trying to determine what it was. It has no arms or head, and was making weird noises. I eventually called it a 'Sack Ghost', and I'll learn to fear these fuckers later.

I make my way out, and go a bit ahead to something almost like a caged-off boiler room.

There's ghosts hanging out outside the walls, but what's stranger is a very fast flame that's moving around in a pattern.

I watch it for a bit, then decide to try and run past it. Only for when it touches me this ghost pops out of nowhere, startles the shit out of me, and kills me instantly.

I die here a few times, trying things like standing still while the flame passes, trying to time running by... But I eventually figure it out.

With the flashlight on, the ghost is invisible, and moves 4x the speed he usually does, making him too fast to run by. You can't see him with the flashlight on, but you can see a candle he's holding. Turn off the light, and not only can you then see him, but also he moves much slower, and makes him easy to pass.

Heh, clever.

Anyway, you get past the room, descend another flight of stairs, but as you go down to a long hallway with doors in-front of you, the lights suddenly go off for a second, then come back on and suddenly a ghost is at the foot of the stairs, its back is turned and slowly walking away. You have to slowly follow her, without making a sound, but she'll eventually stop and turn around, and will spot you if you don't hide in one of the rooms.

The rooms have their own creepiness with them, including one of the sack ghosts earlier just uselessly limp (unless you touch it, as I found out). But you have to use sound to determine if the ghost in the hallway outside has passed or not, then go out and head forward to the next door.

Eventually, you end up in a room with lockers with a ghost cuddled in a corner with its back turned.

You explore the lockers, and eventually find a phone in one of them. When you find it though, you'll hear a noise, and the ghost in the corner is gone, and when you turn around, she's suddenly coming down the hall at you. Find a locker without any shelves in it, and hide inside... And the ghost peers by and passes through... But you get a text from her. She's Pink from the main game, and she asks you to please take you with her, she's scared, but to not kill her this time.

You finish the Later 2 chapter, and by completing this chapter, you unlock the first chapter of Blue's Story.

---

A much more interesting chapter than the previous two, and I started to get into the game. But I was worried the game was showing all of its tricks this chapter maybe, and that it couldn't keep up the fun variety and pacing of this chapter.

I'm glad to have been wrong.

Sounds very interesting. I wonder how the Balance Board is used in the game.

Btw, where did you buy it? It seems to be very expensive unfortunately on Amazon Marketplace.

I imagine the Wii Board would be interesting. On Wii Remote, how you play is you look around and can move in a 360 area in-place with the pointer, press A to interact with things (And when not with something to interact it, it'll turn your flashlight on and off), press B to move forward in the way you're facing (and mash B to run), shake the Wii Remote to 180 turn, and press down on the D-Pad to take a step backwards (or mash D-Pad down to run backwards). Only other button used is the minus - button for answering and putting away your cellphone for calls and texts.

I ordered it about a year after it released in Japan from Ebay since it seemed an English release was never going to happen, but held off playing it in hopes maybe a fan translation popped up. One did a year ago, but not in-game. Held onto hope, and decided to finally just play it. No regrets! What's the current running prices? I'm a horror collector, and the game was a bit spendy at the time (it was only $40 or so back then when I got it, but had $25 or something shipping), but I don't know how common or rare it is these days. I will mention I played this via emulation though, and it worked perfectly fine through Dolphin.

BUT if you play through Dolphin like I did, you need to download a save file or else the game won't run and make sure to unplug the nunchuck, as the game won't start with it plugged in.

Save file for anyone who has to scourage the internet for one like I did:
https://www.mediafire.com/?4dudmb3muxi03bw

Wow, thanks for clarifying!

Finding out who directed it would be great when you're able to let us know.

I'll look into shortly. I am curious myself.

Very interesting. I am currently learning Japanese, and a light-in-text game is exactly what I need. I will import the game when I go to Japan.

BTW, do you like Nanashi no Geemu? I heard many good things about this game. Is it worth playing? Do you think that the horror is good?

It will probably work well, the text is a bit sparse.

I have played both Nanashi no Geemu & Nanashi no Geemu 2. Both have English fan translation patches I should mention that are in-game. The controls are a bit weird, but I liked both of them. And they, this game, and The Calling all feel very similar to each other, so chances are if you liked one of them, you'd like all of them. Where it is now, I'd personally rank them Ikenie no Yoru > Nanashi no Geemu 2 > Nanashi no Geemu 1 > The Calling, but I liked all of them, and Nanashi no Geemu 1 & 2 were close, but 2 won me over for improved retro RPG moments, a better story (imo), and some scenes in it.

I say if you're interested in a handheld J-horror story with some light gameplay, to give them a shot. If you don't mind commentary, I actually already have a blind LP of the first game recorded and uploaded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DwLm67Nx-M

My overall thoughts: Controls are a bit finicky, but outside of that, a fun J-Horror romp with some good creepy moments, and an interesting brief retro-styled 'adventure' game styled like an old RPG inside the game. Sequel saw improvements all around, and liked it a bit more, but both are worth playing if the sort of 'gameplay light casual exploration/J-Horror Story with an occasional chaser' sounds good to you.

Im not so much surprised that it wasent localized, but moreso I had no idea about it, especially in 2011 where us wii gamers were especially sensitive to unlocalized games that we werent getting.

This one went under many people's radars. It barely ever gets talked about, there's even barely any videos on it, or any topics on it, or any walkthroughs for it. It unfortunately has kept niche, which is bad, since I would of loved a sequel having played it now, but alas.

 

[hughesta]

Welp, spending $100 to get this after I get paid on Friday. Thanks, OP :/

Spoiler

seriously thanks this looks awesome

 

[MrT-Tar]

I'm honestly really surprised I've never heard of this game before as I was predominately a Wii gamer at the time of released and have always enjoyed survival horror games. It's a real shame this was never localised.

I know Nintendo had Project Zero/Fatal Frame to satisfy the horror gap in their library, but I do wish NoE localised this. They were localising some pretty niche 3rd party games at the time and I feel that if NoS had a European release in mid-2012, it would have got exposure by simply being a 1st party release at that time.

 

[kitsuneyo]

Game looks and sounds really interesting. I like the art style, and balance board controls sound fun, if probably tiring. Thanks for sharing this OP. Weird to a see a high quality Wii game that most people never heard of.

 

[Jim_Cacher]

Great reply

Wow, thank you very much for your reply. The retro RPG session of Nanashi no Geemu series intrigues me a lot. I will import Ikenie no Yoru first then all the remaining games you recommend once I feel confident towards my Japanese as I like sticking with original text instead of translations.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Now with Blue's Story Chapter 1 unlocked, I had the option to start playing that or continue with the Later Chapters. I decided to finish one thing and go onto the next, and I also had a feeling beating the upcoming chapters may also unlock other campaigns, so I continued forward with Later 3.

Later 3 was a change in setting. Instead of tight interior corridors, we start off on a mountain path leading upward with some trees.

There's an introduction telling us about a curse of a tunnel in the mountains, faces appearing in the shapes of the walls, telling us to never look behind us and hurry out quickly through the tunnel.

And as we climb the path up, we find it; the tunnel.

Being foolish horror game protagonist, we of course decide it's a perfectly good idea to enter into this tunnel that is said to be cursed. So in we wander...

I walk forward for a bit, the hall is lined with wires (some of which have corroded and fallen off the walls) and a few grates along the side, but nothing too startling. I remember the introduction to this chapter briefly mentioning the curse, and sort of giggle and curiously turn around not expecting anything actually.

But when I turned around I was greeted to this right behind me.

I admit, a little spooked.

I turn around to put the mannequin out of sight, but then see this running right towards me.

Comes a bit faster than you might expect, but it's the little girl again from a couple chapters ago. Right when you turn your cellphone buzzer also goes off and you get a text, from ISO again. This time, it asks the question, "Are you dead?".

Anyways, you walk forward, and figures start appearing from the darkness in the distance.

To make this worse, turning around reveals the Mannequin is following you, and will get closer when you're not looking at it.

*quickly does a 180, waits a moment, then turns around again*

So we go ahead in the tunnel and reach the end, which has a note at the end of it.

"You're Dead."

Then when you turn around again, there's a shit ton of ghosts, but all of them are... walking away from you?

I begin to follow the ghosts, but not move too fast or get too close to set them off. Just sort of waddle with them for a bit. Some disappear, and when we waddle forward, we begin to approach some that are walking TOWARDS us. I wait until there's appropriate spacing between all the ghosts, then narrowly dart my way between them.

We move back towards the entrance of the tunnel, but the entrance is gone. Now, there's a platform and a ladder, and at the top of the platform is Yello, facing away from us.

We climb the ladder up to her, and get to the top.

Except now, she's one platform above us.

We climb up to meet her, only to find she's turned to someone less than pleasant.

We dart away and pass by the little girl ghost again. We begin to go higher and higher, and through a ruin/valley type area.

We go on a high-rise, and ahead of us we see Yello again.

We approach her a bit cautiously, but then a scene triggers.

She looks down at the phone she has left by her feet, spreads her arms. A actually rather sad piano melody begins to play, and then she lets herself fall off the edge.

The screen fades, and text simply appears saying, "When the girl jumped, she was smiling peacefully."

And then the chapter ends and you unlock the first chapter of Yello's story.

I was curious, the piano melody was actually quite effective and the slow atmosphere of the scene made her jumping a bit more impacting than I expected. But I treaded forward not to play her campaign yet, as I had held off playing Blue's first chapter, and instead started up Later 4.

Later 4 would prove to be a very intense chapter compared to Later 3's sort of slow and somber atmospheric one.

The Chapter opens up with an introduction about how people who are sacrificed in the valley village are stored with their souls in bronze statues...

And we open up with this shot.

The ghost is blocking the way and slowly moving around, but never too far. On the opposite end of him, however, is a creepy ass skeleton.

There's a radio on the ground, which we pick up, and it begins to go off, and gets louder when we get closer to the skeleton.

Approaching it has an odd effect, however.

Approaching the skeleton with the radio makes everything turn Red, and suddenly the movement of all the ghosts in the areas just stop, mid-animation of whatever they were doing. Like frozen in time. I quickly figured out these skeletons were supposed to be the bronze statues, which has interesting suggestions on how these statues are made.

But nevermind that. With the ghost frozen, we pass on by him, and getting a certain distance away from the radio makes the red stop and the ghosts resume whatever it is they were doing.

We go down some stairs and do this a few more times with some ghosts, but with trickier placements and positions, but make it out.

We enter a room full of torture devices, and from a hole in the middle a ghost slowly pulls herself out.

She's no kidder though, she's fast as fuck, and we have to go around and quickly get to a statue in the room to freeze then get out before her.

We go forward a bit, and find a note by a reporter who talks about the place, and apologizes to his son. Evidently, this is a note from Black's dad who the house belonged too, but outside of that, the details are slim outside of him feeling sorry.

We enter a storage room, but as going through, a ghost suddenly falls from the ceiling.

The area is too narrow to bypass him, so we have to run back, and then find in a cave area a sign telling workers to hide in a protected enshrined tunnel, as the Sacrifices can't get them in there. Another instance of workers here seeming fully aware there are spirits around...

We hide as the ghost runs by, then go back to the storage room and use bronze statues to bypass more ghosts and not get swarmed.

We then go through a door, and meet an approaching skeleton of the spookiest kind.

The screen fades out, and the chapter is done.

Only one more Later chapter to do and then we can move onto the campaigns.

---

Welp, spending $100 to get this after I get paid on Friday. Thanks, OP :/

Spoiler

seriously thanks this looks awesome

I know the woe as a collector. XD; Part of me wishes I had played this earlier to recommend it earlier when it was cheaper, but alas, is what it is. Hope you enjoy it, see if it seems like something up your alley.

I'm honestly really surprised I've never heard of this game before as I was predominately a Wii gamer at the time of released and have always enjoyed survival horror games. It's a real shame this was never localised.

I know Nintendo had Project Zero/Fatal Frame to satisfy the horror gap in their library, but I do wish NoE localised this. They were localising some pretty niche 3rd party games at the time and I feel that if NoS had a European release in mid-2012, it would have got exposure by simply being a 1st party release at that time.

I know I heard of it back in the day and followed it, and hoped for a US release, but never happened. However, it didn't get much media attention, and being Japanese only, I guess never really caught on. Shame, it's a pretty good casual horror game.

The studio that made it is still around, so who knows, but it seems unlikely at this point.

Game looks and sounds really interesting. I like the art style, and balance board controls sound fun, if probably tiring. Thanks for sharing this OP. Weird to a see a high quality Wii game that most people never heard of.

Can't comment on balance board controls, but I do like the art style even if some of the textures leave something to be desired. Can say it was much better than I was expecting.

 

[-shadow-]

I've managed to track down a copy of this game a while ago and tried to play it but the disc drive on both my Wii's died. So tried USB loading, got a message once and never have I been able to boot the game up since. It's really weird. Tried Dolphin and same thing happened there, I got a message at boot once and never again. Any idea how this is supposed to work? I've actually Googled it and it seems many others have the same problem with the game. It's just weird.

 

[maxcriden]

Seems like an unusual game, and your write-up is exceptionally well-written. I think it's a bit dark for me, though. Have you played any really tame horror games that are JP only on Wii or other systems? Stuff more in the psychological thriller genre perhaps, or at least no more horror-heavy than something like Fragile Dreams.

 

[Dusk Golem]

We boot up and start the final Later chapter we can play, Later 5. Notably again, there is a 6th Later Chapter, but it won't be available until much later and is locked off for now. So we begin...

...Trapped in a cage.

The cage is rather empty, there's only three notable things about it; a broken down toilet, a note, and the closed door that leads out of there.

I go over to the note, and pick it up. The note talks about life with some girl being fun, but the girl never forgot about her sister, and it'd be painful to go through nights where she would silently cry to herself and the writer would be able to do nothing to comfort her.

The toilet ends up useless, and as I investigate, the little girl ghost from earlier returns.

She talks to me like I'm her older sister, and tells me not to leave her again. She also says I must be hungry, and that's she's brought me something to eat.

I try the cage door, only for her to turn back to me and tell me to try and not leave, or she may have to do something drastic.

I look down at my feet and see what she's brought me to eat.

Delectable eyeballs.

She comes by two more times, telling me that she's brought delicious treats, and asking when coming by again why I'm not eating, am I not hungry?

End up with a dinner palette that looks like this.

On the third time she leaves, I notice she has left the door open. I contemplate leaving right now, but maybe it's not a good idea.

I missed my chance.

She returns once more and then says I'm not her sister, her sister would of eaten the food she put her time to prepare for her, and suddenly an army of spirits appear, bang on the cage's bars, and burst through the door and come and get me.

I reload a checkpoint in the middle of this, and as she leaves the third time after delivering the final dish, I silently follow out the door and escape.

I descend downward and sneak behind the back of a ghost...

...Only to find the little girl walking away around the corner. And to make matters worse, the ghost who had its back turned begins to slowly approach me, making me the dangerous middle man in a spiritual congo line.

I try to silently walk between them and judge how close the ghost behind me is by its breathing and walking noises, but I end up getting too close to the girl, and she catches me.

Going back to the checkpoint in the cage, I do it again, and this time successfully congo my way through the corridor.

We get through and go up a staircase to find an area above this room in the ceiling support beams, and the little girl on one of the beams.

On the beams, you need to balance well to not fall off, so I carefully try to play a balancing act and not fall off, while also making my way to the spirit of the girl...

Bad idea.

When I approach the girl, she turns into a malicious ghost that's actually pretty darned fast, and what occurs is what can best be described as a rapidly walking and balancing beam act as I try to get around the ghost as she cuts off my paths, and hilariously edging from one side to the other, but somehow not getting caught, and eventually actually making it past her and out to the next room.

But the fun isn't over. I end up in a room with ghosts patrolling the area. I silently sneak behind them, walking slowly and don't get spotted. I then see the door and make a run for it, but on a platform above the ghost girl spots me and summons all the ghosts in the area to spot me and begin chasing me. I run rapidly through the door, and then find the girl in front of a phone and a note.

She curses her uncle with the phone and disappears, and our character picks it up and the chapter ends, as "You" puts together some of the clues and wonders what all happened here.

This also unlocks Black's Chapter 1, meaning we've now unlocked Blue's, Yello's, and Black's campaigns, and have done all the Leave Chapters we can do. We've played 6 chapters in the game thus far, but there's still the three campaigns to do which are 5 chapters each.

I liked the variety the game was presenting, but I was worried since these Leave Chapters unlocked the other campaigns, maybe they showed off all the mechanics and tricks the game had and the campaigns would just be retreads of what was introduced here.

Thankfully, again, I was wrong. We went to start Blue's campaign chapter 1...

I've managed to track down a copy of this game a while ago and tried to play it but the disc drive on both my Wii's died. So tried USB loading, got a message once and never have I been able to boot the game up since. It's really weird. Tried Dolphin and same thing happened there, I got a message at boot once and never again. Any idea how this is supposed to work? I've actually Googled it and it seems many others have the same problem with the game. It's just weird.

The message is telling you to disconnect the Nunchuck. XD; I was confused at first, but if the game senses a nunchuck it won't boot and displays the message.

Seems like an unusual game, and your write-up is exceptionally well-written. I think it's a bit dark for me, though. Have you played any really tame horror games that are JP only on Wii or other systems? Stuff more in the psychological thriller genre perhaps, or at least no more horror-heavy than something like Fragile Dreams.

The Wii selection of horror games is limited, I think the overall collection is less than 20-25 games, and that includes ports like Resident Evil 4/0/REmake and ObsCure Aftermath.

There are three games that come to mind. Firstly, these first two are not Japanese exclusive but do come to mind. If you haven't played Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for some reason, I would recommend it. The Wii version is also by far the best looking version, and the Wii controls work nicely. Then a game that's kind of like Night of the Sacrifice, but less scary (and also rated T as opposed to M) would be The Calling, which was made by the Mario Party people, and did have an English release. It has its moments, but is a lot less scary and more manageable.

Now this final one I don't know how scary it is as I haven't played it, and if you don't know Japanese I can't recommend it since it's text-heavy, but I've heard good things about Imabikisou: Kaimei Hen. It came out for the PS3 also, and is a play novel that mixed some live-action scenes and still scenes. I've heard it has a good story, though.

 

[ASIS]

A new Wii game! I never knew about this before, i need to try it.

 

[Tizoc]

Thanks DG, sorry was reading it thru mobile so I was mostly skimming through what you wrote ^^;

 

[cj_iwakura]

I know a programmer who may be able to help with a fan translation, Esper does Wii stuff.

 

[-shadow-]

I know a programmer who may be able to help with a fan translation, Esper does Wii stuff.

I've been looking into doing this myself, but honestly I have absolutely zero clue on how this works. Shame because I'd love to be able to do this.

The message is telling you to disconnect the Nunchuck. XD; I was confused at first, but if the game senses a nunchuck it won't boot and displays the message.

Yeah the thing is. After I booted the game up for the first time through homebrew I got this message and never again. After trying to boot it again the Wii just displays a black screen and my wiimote disconnects. It's a shame, been trying to fix it for months now but so far no luck.

 

[Anbec7]

Oh god, I got hooked into reading all these story posts.
OP please continue lol

 

[foxuzamaki]

Oh god, I got hooked into reading all these story posts.
OP please continue lol

This

 

[Dusk Golem]

(I took on some challenges, so some delay, but no worries, I do plan to finish this tale eventually.)

After going through the five Later chapters available (there is a sixth one, but it is locked off for the moment), I have ended up with Blue's, Yello's, and Black's stories unlocked. Each pop up on another option on the Menu screen together, and from this screen I can see there's five chapters in each of their campaigns, as well as a fourth campaign with one chapter titled Final. Now, since we went through the tutorial and the 5 Later chapters firsts, we've played through 6 of the game's chapters, but there is still a good 17 chapters left according to these screens. I was curious if the Later chapters had shown the game's hand; each of the Later chapters had some different trick/element, so maybe it had shown the game's hand for what to expect from the campaigns and would just build off what it already introduced?

So we leap right into Blue's Chapter 1.

The chapter starts immediately after the end of the Tutorial chapters, with Blue, Red, and Pink in the living room of Black's father's home. Black went off to look for evidence of maybe where his father went missing it seemed, but Red and Pink were about and being their usual selves.

In particular, Red is being a real douche.

He is still fiddling with his Nintendo DS, and then calls me out for being a wuss. He eggs me on and talks about how many legends surround these mountains, and dares me to go to the second floor of the house (where electricity is currently not being routed), and even to my face suggests to leave him alone for some quality time with Pink. Trying to say no, and Red threatens to not defy him.

What a jerk.

Pink seems to think the idea sounds fun and daring and we don't get chances often to explore places like this, and cheers me on.

Blue decides he has no choice, and seems concerned what Red and Pink will think of him if he wusses out. So we go to the door leading to the main hall of the house, and immediately we can already tell this is a bad idea.

Something is behind the corner, a ghost it looks like. This is bad, this is bad!

I flick on my light to see the area to run by, and-

-The ghost vanishes. I try flicking my light on and off to see if it was one of the fast moving ghosts, but it seems it was just a trick.

The game does something beautiful I can't believe more horror games don't do when I think about it. It completely messes with the player. The game has very specific sounds for its enemies, and rules the game has taught you from playing the Later chapters. To unlock Blue's first chapter means you have to have played at least Later 2, which teaches you a lot of the fundamentals of ghost encounters and is sometimes relentless with how it throws ghosts at you.

Now as you go, the game is playing tricks on you so you're not sure if what's going on is just a trick or something you actually have to be alert for. You hear one of the ghost whispering sounds usually meaning one is near as you enter the main hall, and if you turn to look towards the stairs, you hear some ghost footstep sounds and the door by the stairs swings open.

I prepared to run... But nothing came. I approached the closet, the sounds got closer, I turn to look inside... and it all just stops. A bit spooky, actually.

I go upstairs and receive a text from Red. He tries imitating me saying, "Oh, I thought I heard a ghost voice for real!", and tells me to not wuss out, go upstairs already.

I do go upstairs... And see a ghost lying down right on the top of the stairs.

From one of the Later chapters, I know ghosts laying down can get up and attack if you get too close. I approach slowly and...

The feet get dragged away. Huh.

I move forward through the door, and enter a room that looks like it's suffered heavy water damage. Suddenly, the cellphone goes off. A call from pink. Answering has a girl's voice (presumingly Pink's, this is actually the first bit of voice acting in the game) asking you to help her, getting more panicked, and then suddenly gets cut off in the middle of her begging.

I try to turn back to see if I can help her pleas, but alas.

A ghost barricades the way out and stares me down creepily. I guess forward we march!

I enter a room full of bookshelves, curtains, and some damaged walls. As I walk between the shelves, I hear a little girl's voice asking to come this way. I turn towards the curtains and almost fall for a trap of ghost hands behind them.

Turning around to move away from the ghost behind the curtain doesn't make me feel much better.

I try to rush and avoid anything else around the shelves, but get a sudden text message from Black, who seems to be worried about the current predicament.

He warns me this is going to sound insane, not knowing what I'm going through, and says he thinks the legend of the valley his father had looked into might be true. He warns me to avoid any ghosts I see, and gives me the sound advice, "If it see's you... Run like hell!"

Sound advice.

I finish reading the text, close my phone, take two steps forward, and then get jump scared good by a ghost coming barging through a busted door.

I run around the shelves, almost get cornered, but manage to break free. I see two spirits coming at me, the other from the curtains, but that means it's away from there, so I run behind them and go into a room hidden behind the curtain themselves.

In there, I find a closet, open it, and see a familiar face.

The little girl spirit from the Later chapters. Getting a read on her has been difficult as she sometimes seem's like she's tried to aid me, and other times like she's tried to hurt me.

However, she disappears and I immediately get a text message again from ISO, confirming an earlier suspicion of mine that ISO was the little girl spirit sending messages to our cellphones. She tells me to run away and follow her.

Not like I have much choice.

The area with the curtains we backtrack too now has dolls sitting in it. Cute.

She leads me past the bookshelves, and through a broken area to a bloody door and disappears.

Enter?

I mean, it looks so inviting.

As we go through the super narrow hallway, we see above us a ghost hanging from a thread... Or more appropriately, a noose.

As we approach, the ghost falls, and before it hits the ground my flashlight goes off and won't come back on.

I move forward in darkness.

Sounds begin to occur around me. Whispers to help them. The sounds of ghosts coming closer and closer. I continue to walk forward and things whisper me to look behind me. I do not. I continue forward, and then before me in the distance a ghost appears, and it begins to slowly get up.

Voices tell me to not go, don't go, and as I approach slowly, the ghost vanishes.

I walk forward for a while more as the whispers begin to murmer and then disappear. Soon, I see another, different figure in the distance.

I slowly approach her, and then recognize it as the figure of the little girl ghost, but all white. Suddenly she skips ahead, closer to me, then again, but a bright white and almost as if on fast forward approaches me and engulfs the whole hallway with a blinding light.

She suddenly gets in slow motion when close to me, then suddenly the whole place turns dark again, and fiddling with the controls, I find my flashlight works again, but I'm right back outside where the girl lead, outside the bloody door I just entered.

When I turn on my flashlight, my phone goes off, and I also begin to hear a piano being played.

I check my text, and it's from Red. He messages me saying I must of gotten away safely, but there's no hope for him. He asks me why? Why is he the one to be cursed, and I'm the one who gets away? Why him?

I close my phone turn off my phone and move down a collapsing and water damaged hallway to follow the sound of the piano.

Through the bloody door I go again, but this time I find a painting of the hall I was in rather than the hall itself.

I follow the piano sounds and find the noose ghost again.

This time, when I approach, he doesn't fall but the chandelier next to him does, and he vanishes.

I go forward, past some curtains, and find a piano... And for a second, the girl playing. But then, no one.

I then receive a phone call, from Pink, and she tells me to hurry back, that something terrible has has... But then gets cut off.

And that's the end of Blue's first chapter. when we complete it, we unlock his second chapter. And at this point, I'm colored impressed. They got me a few times in this chapter, and didn't rely on the same tricks or even design stuff they had in the Later chapters. Could they possibly keep this up, is it going to get less inspired now, will it get better?

We go onto chapter 2...

---

Thanks DG, sorry was reading it thru mobile so I was mostly skimming through what you wrote ^^;

It's all good, happens to the best of us.

I know a programmer who may be able to help with a fan translation, Esper does Wii stuff.

Oh my, if they'd be able to, I'm sure many would be happy. I can say from playing the game there's not much text in it, and most of it is translated as is.

I've been looking into doing this myself, but honestly I have absolutely zero clue on how this works. Shame because I'd love to be able to do this.


Yeah the thing is. After I booted the game up for the first time through homebrew I got this message and never again. After trying to boot it again the Wii just displays a black screen and my wiimote disconnects. It's a shame, been trying to fix it for months now but so far no luck.

Here's what I did to make it work on Dolphin:

-I imported a save data.
-I made sure the nunchuck was disconnected and the setting for it being connected was turned off on emulation controller settings.
-I made sure to set the emulation to Japanese region and language.

And it worked for me, but to get past all three things was surprisingly a bit tedious and took me a bit to figure all out.

Hope I can help in some way.

Oh god, I got hooked into reading all these story posts.
OP please continue lol

Happy you're enjoying them, no worries, I will. Just got caught up the last few days.

 

[OniBaka]

Sounds like a great party game to scare everyone.

Thanks for the write up, really enjoy reading them.

 

[SixMachine]

This is very interesting reading up on this. It made me look up the game on youtube, since I doubt I would ever have a chance to play this game (with not having a japanese wii and any knowledge of the language), I watched a playthrough a woman did and she added subs on the video. It has her talking and reading the lines as she goes along, so it might ruin the mood for people who wanted silent LPs. I'm still interested in reading whatever you write, since the game is vague at points, which seems intentional to leave things open to your interpretation.

 

[ASIS]

This is very interesting reading up on this. It made me look up the game on youtube, since I doubt I would ever have a chance to play this game (with not having a japanese wii and any knowledge of the language), I watched a playthrough a woman did and she added subs on the video. It has her talking and reading the lines as she goes along, so it might ruin the mood for people who wanted silent LPs. I'm still interested in reading whatever you write, since the game is vague at points, which seems intentional to leave things open to your interpretation.

I actually did the same thing. I ended up loving the LP and the game. I wish I had a way to try it for myself legally without spending too much cash but oh well.

The game needs a bit more content but what is there seemed so good. It seems like such a refreshing take on the horror genre. PT before PT if you will.

 

[Endesu]

This was definitely a cool little game. The balance board controls work pretty well; you use the Wii remote to turn and then walk on the BB to move forward.

Your pace naturally determines how fast you go, so if you're getting chased, better start running! Made for a nice little workout and definitely amped up the intensity of the game. It ultimately gets a bit repetitive because there isn't much more to the game but it's still worth a go if you can snag a copy.

 

[takoyaki]

I blind-bought this game when it came out because I love horror games and went in expecting something closer to the Kamaitachi no Yoru games (both horror games, similar names, the screenshots with the stylized characters looked similar).

Only played the first chapter or so and left a bit disappointed that it was another one of those Wii horror games like Ju-On and The Calling, but your impressions makes it sound really interesting and more varied than those games. I'll give the game another shot, thanks for the thread!