Sachijo's Birthday is the Corpse Party's "dream match" where every character in the series is put in the same spot for some good ol fanservice. If you only care about the regular/canon side of Corpse Party, you can skip to Blood Drive with no problem as it has no substance nor importance.
For the rest of you: Sachiko's Birthday starts strong with the shitpost levels off the roof but it quickly loses steam to the point where the majority of chapters are pretty uneventful nor fun. It briefly picks up towards the end but by then the damage has been done.
- The Prologue and Chapter 1 are the best as it's where Sachiko's Birthday is having the most fun with its characters and poking fun at Corpse Party's dumb idiosyncrasies. Lots of shitpost but in a good way.
- Chapter 2 has good intentions and a couple of good moments but it lasts way more than it has any right to.
- Chapter 3 is the most dynamic chapter with a quiz show gimmick but it's unfortunately tarnished by the presence of one character that's one step away from getting a restraining order and another one that should be in jail.
- Chapter 4 is a harem subplot. Has a couple of moments but overall it's very bottom of the barrell.
- Chapter 5 is the worst chapter by far because nothing, absolutely nothing happens. It's the characters fucking around trying to find ways to stall time and grope some boobs. It's so lazy I'm amazed this is part of a commercial product.
- Chapter 6 picks up a bit with a cooking contest and it's... not bad. It has a couple of good moments but the pacing feels overly stretched out.
- Chapter 7 finally does something creative and it's a whole "anything goes" chapter with a ton of references to oldschool horror. Pacing still feels too stretched out but it's the most creative chapter by far.
- Chapter 8 is the closer episode and it's well paced, well written, gets in, does its thing, and then ends. It's the only chapter written by Kedouin, I honestly wish he was more involved in the project because even if he isn't a great writer, he knows how to properly pace a VN segment.
- The Extra Chapter... I'm not even gonna pretend like I care about anything that's going on, it's the only "serious" chapter of the whole experience and it's quite a mess when it comes to character writing. Not a fan.
Overall the impression I get from all of this is that it was gonna be some kind of Drama CD or fandisc that somehow got the VN treatment using (mostly) assets from Book of Shadows. Even with the low bar of this being a fandisc in disguise I think it's still meh at best, I don't think I will go back to it. And not because this is on a radical different tone, I think when the game finally decides to do some whacky shit it's entertaining, but most of the time it's just filler character interactions.
For the rest of you: Sachiko's Birthday starts strong with the shitpost levels off the roof but it quickly loses steam to the point where the majority of chapters are pretty uneventful nor fun. It briefly picks up towards the end but by then the damage has been done.
- The Prologue and Chapter 1 are the best as it's where Sachiko's Birthday is having the most fun with its characters and poking fun at Corpse Party's dumb idiosyncrasies. Lots of shitpost but in a good way.
- Chapter 2 has good intentions and a couple of good moments but it lasts way more than it has any right to.
- Chapter 3 is the most dynamic chapter with a quiz show gimmick but it's unfortunately tarnished by the presence of one character that's one step away from getting a restraining order and another one that should be in jail.
- Chapter 4 is a harem subplot. Has a couple of moments but overall it's very bottom of the barrell.
- Chapter 5 is the worst chapter by far because nothing, absolutely nothing happens. It's the characters fucking around trying to find ways to stall time and grope some boobs. It's so lazy I'm amazed this is part of a commercial product.
- Chapter 6 picks up a bit with a cooking contest and it's... not bad. It has a couple of good moments but the pacing feels overly stretched out.
- Chapter 7 finally does something creative and it's a whole "anything goes" chapter with a ton of references to oldschool horror. Pacing still feels too stretched out but it's the most creative chapter by far.
- Chapter 8 is the closer episode and it's well paced, well written, gets in, does its thing, and then ends. It's the only chapter written by Kedouin, I honestly wish he was more involved in the project because even if he isn't a great writer, he knows how to properly pace a VN segment.
- The Extra Chapter... I'm not even gonna pretend like I care about anything that's going on, it's the only "serious" chapter of the whole experience and it's quite a mess when it comes to character writing. Not a fan.
Overall the impression I get from all of this is that it was gonna be some kind of Drama CD or fandisc that somehow got the VN treatment using (mostly) assets from Book of Shadows. Even with the low bar of this being a fandisc in disguise I think it's still meh at best, I don't think I will go back to it. And not because this is on a radical different tone, I think when the game finally decides to do some whacky shit it's entertaining, but most of the time it's just filler character interactions.