The dark edgy "Spiderman 3" sequel of Twilight Syndrome franchise is what I would describe this game with.

This is purely written by Suda from what I read and yeah it's evident that it's a different product entirely from what come before.

Forget the old cute cliche taste of let's go on a ghost hunting adventureee!! And put the new feeling of murders, serial killings, psychos and suicides. While the old series touched a bit of these subjects they never went that deep and often hold it with in the respectable boundaries, but this game does not give a f.

Incest? Here. Yandere psychos? Here. Child suicides and deaths? Here. Rape? Here. Body horror? Here. Garbage adults that use children? Here. Deaths? Here and More.

To the point I think just only 3-4 people just leave this game alive.

What I am getting at is I think Suda used every no no no subject ever and filled in this game. Does this make it a good game? Certainly a shocking one and probably scarier than any what come before. The uneasiness it gives is on entirely an another level than any other syndrome game. But it does this with taking away the unique style from what came before and that's a damn shame.

Story is on the other hand about two sides and Also with bunch of other filler cases.

One is about some student named Ryo that lost his sister a short while ago to a suicide?(game doesn't make it clear) and also gets bullied everyday, one day sees Mika and realizes her similarity to his own sister and stalks her throughout in the journey.

Other is rumor addicted Mika and her search to save herself from a powerful evil ghost that tries to torment and haunt her.

Story structure looks fine enough at first glance but when you play the game, you realize that only first and last couple of the chapters tries to progress the story and middle parts are just about Mika's variety of troubles or cases a bit like the older games.

Is this a bad thing? Not exactly. I would say filler cases feels full of content and dark stories to interact with and long ones(half of the chapter count to be exact) is full of thoughtful and philosophical ideas in it. Be it about the struggles of kids or be it bad teachers that torment students from behind the scenes and more. Also easily the best part of this game.

It looks like I am happy with the game right? Not exactly actually.

I said filler parts are the best parts right? Because When it comes to overarching narrative, game drops the ball at the last chapter so hard that not even the any bad case from old games can get that level. I really really don't know what happened at there but finale chapter feels really rushed and poorly written to the point makes you wonder all the build up was worthless?

Was it all for the edginess sake to the point it feels like Suda's revenge for getting forced onto this franchise or just a state of rushing the game out? I don't know but unfortunately that case really really soured my enjoyment on this game. Funny enough it's a really short case too! So that makes me wonder if it really rushed? I don't know and probably never will.

Also my other reason of not liking that much is like I said, it butchers the style from what came before in my opinion.

For example new sprites for characters suck and less detailed from what came before. Also old game's characters Yukari and Chisato looks unrecognizable. Also 3d scenes didn't aged good and I wish they use 2d cgs like the old games. Lastly compared to what came before, environment looks uninspired and lifeless even, probably because again it uses 3d objects more rather than 2d.

So yeah, it's a polarizing game for me. I enjoyed the shock, surprise and the uneasiness it gave me with nonstop forbidden subjects. Also enjoyed the filler cases that delves into a lot of different variety of dark subjects. But also it's ending disappointed me so I really didn't left this game happy also it's style wasn't to my tastes too.

Still it's just a beginning and I heard this case will connect to silver case somehow... So see you later at there hopefully. And let's hope that it does have a less rushed narrative progression then this one.

(I played while syncing up my gameplay with the translations. First half with izzeybee's text translation, second half with paradise hotel 51's video translation)

A wonderful (and much needed) breath of fresh air from the franchise.

The new cast are all incredibly likeable. The gameplay is vastly improved from Y6 as the Dragon Engine feels a lot more polished and there are all new techniques you can pull off with Yagami that helps his combat stand out and the new detective features, while not the most fleshed out, do it's job good enough.

Don't really have much to complain about here besides the first chapter being a bit too long. Just a fantastic game all around.

This definitely is not the worst Grasshopper game I've played, I'll say that much.

This game like epitome of 2012 era culture where it was like nonstop pop culture references and random humor. Every joke that they try to land in this game is either not funny or just weird creepy and gross. Juliet I think as a character is really good and she's got some great moments but the game is just fucking weird about her all the time it just comes of as uncomfortable to me, the constant gooner jokes being made towards her when the game takes place the very day of her 18th birthday, so it's like "heh... dude she's just barely legal!" I'm not a fan personally I just think that's weird. Other than that though in the mindset of a 2012 landscape she is a pretty good and strong protagonist so there's that. But none of that really matters because this game kinda just isn't fun to play. Every zombie takes 3 business days to kill and you start off with no moves at all, so it's just a constant grind for money so you can actually do damage to them. Late game when you do get more moves it is a much more enjoyable time, but not by much, this game felt like a slog from start to finish to play. Doesn't help that every single bossfight sucks and isn't that interesting, aesthetics and music aside, which that part I think the game excels at.

From Grasshoppers 7th gen output I think this is easily the weakest, only reason people know of this game is because it's that "wacky japanese game where you play as a cheerleader killing zombies with a chainsaw." It's cool to look at from a pov of how Grasshopper did things back then, but even then I still can't wrap my head around the fact this game was made by some of the same core developers and writers as 25th Ward and Killer7, fuck even No More Heroes 1. This game baffles me honestly.

As my friend Frank put it, "This was Dark Souls before Dark Souls!" He was saying it to help cheer me up, as this game completely whooped my ass. I was able to get to the final boss before it killed me quicker than I could think, sending me instantly back to 6-1 rather than the stage right before the boss (6-3), which is almost always the common courtesy. This could be fine, if 6-2 wasn't genuinely one of the most difficult levels in a video game I've played ever! The fact they punish you like that for not beating the boss (in his 3 forms!) is insanely cruel, especially with how 6-2 relies more on luck than skill after a certain point.

Ninja Gaiden is hard, no one argues that! I definitely knew I was in for a treat when it became practically impossible to find any modern strategy guides that didn't involve save-stating (though they do exist!), but I was pretty proud of myself for not needing to rely on it... until the final boss that is. Oh, how I wish I had a Game Genie! But even then, would I feel satisified beating it by cheating? My other friend, Cat, answered perfectly for me: Hell no.

I got as far as I could on my NES before I got to the point where I wanted to genuinely throw it out the window. I made it to the final boss, though! Au naturel. That's pretty impressive, right? Eh, maybe not. But I'm happy with my progress. After beating Bloody Malth, I had to go to work, and even had to leave my NES on so I didn't lose my spot, that's how invested I got into finishing this. I didn't finish Ninja Gaiden, but I got pretty darn-tooting close, and honestly - that's way further than I thought I could ever get, so I'm pretty happy! The game doesn't have much to fault it, minus that darn level 6-2, as the controls are very tight, and the enemies are not too hard to master (minus those FUCKING jetpack ninjas). The bosses feel awesome to master, though it can be hard to do as they send you back so far if you lose to them, but soon you learn to master both their level and the boss itself! Bloody Malth was bloody difficult until I realized I could just smash his face in super fast, and I could kill him before he kills me! The Kelbeross was also difficult until I found a safe spot under the stools they like to hop around on. 6-2 to me was too much though, and took away the fun I was having... after being sent back, I decided to spare my little sanity I still have and turn off the NES, which had been chugging along with my bullshit for the past 48 hours.

Who knows, maybe one day, many years from now, I'll lose the last of my sanity and will try to beat it once again.

3.5/5

Having these games on the Switch is nice. Well, it would be nice if these games were the games I wanted to be on the Switch. But not only are these not quite the games I wanted Battlefront on the Switch, they're barely even these games at all.

Conmanese to English translation: The experience of playing this is too kneecapped to say this is anywhere close to being Classic.™

Edited for clarity.

This game as I continued playing quickly grew more and more to becoming one of my favorite games ever.
Part immaculate crime drama, thriller, and also just a game that's just insane and is probably what it feels like to get an ice pick lodged in your skull.

Basically every single thing has been improved upon from the first TSC game and FSR. Pacing is much better and all the stories are much more interesting all with insights on how everyone perceives the 25th Ward showing how much worse it's gotten compared to the 24th. Music is fantastic aswell and the visuals are some of the best ever in a game especially for a visual novel.

This game is dictionary definition of kino, I could not fucking tell you what it's about though.

Nothing says “Gameboy” quite like a kitchen sink aesthetic and slightly melancholic music. Ok and slowdown, flickering, ghosting, compromised platforming, short game length…

I’ve actually played through this on og hardware a few times in the last couple of years, but today I played the whole game while Conbaby was napping. Sweet Prince… u would have loved Mario Land. I think this is a remarkable and charming game even though it’s basically an early tech demo for Mario Land 2.

But don’t let the HATERS bury the REAL STORY: the koopa sprite in Mario Land 1 is the CREAM of the crop. Conbaby core. The itsy bitsy teenie weenie… sprites are WONDERFUL.