Corpse Party is responsible for introducing so many people to the world of RPG Maker and how it can be utilized in the creation of horror games. I can only imagine the amount of creators inspired, directly and indirectly, by this game to create their own horror games in the engine, and I think that’s a great thing. That is where Corpse Party’s merit as a game and a work of art ends.
For a survival horror game, Corpse Party has absolutely nothing to fear. While the abandoned, falling apart school might create a decent enough atmosphere, and the sound design is pretty effective, the vast majority of the game’s horror relies on shock and the repulsive: the corpses of dead children littered throughout hallways, buckets of maggots, literal piles of gore, but the threats that are actually within the school are comparatively pathetic. The few chase scenes here are genuinely hilarious, with virtually every enemy crawling at a snail’s pace while just yelling the character’s name. Actually, a lot of the horror is outright hilarious. There’s a scene in chapter 4 of a man throwing himself off of a roof repeatedly in the goofiest way possible, which had me cackling. Nothing to actually fear though, and the unintentional comedy isn’t frequent or good enough to turn this into “so bad it’s good”.
Any gameplay is an absolute chore. Most of the game is spent wandering aimlessly around the school’s hallways, with (again) no threats to speak of, and little direction to go off of. The school itself is far too big to warrant this directionless feeling, so it’s hard not to just rely on a guide while playing, just to get through these sections as quickly as possible. I’ve already spoken about the pathetic chase scenes, but there are also “puzzles” I haven’t mentioned yet, the highlights of which include following a ghost’s movements Simon Says style, saving someone from drowning by going to the exact tile the game tells you to go to, or picking up a teleporting item by having one character go to one half of the classroom, while another character goes to the other half, something the creators were so proud of that they repeated it like three or four times. Nothing here involves any sort of thinking beyond memorization, and it, again, leads to a lack of any horror, as the game just feels like an aimless haunted house.
Plot and characterization are just a big pile of nothing as well. The plot isn’t offensively bad, but pretty much any other Japanese curse story you can think of does everything here, except probably better. At least you can count on those stories having more interesting characters. I love video game stories featuring revolving protagonists, so I was initially excited to see where things would go, but all of these characters feel like they were just pulled from a mediocre Weekly Shonen Jump manga. As of my writing of this review, I’ve reached the final save point of the game, but haven’t actually finished it, so I will update things if the ending changes my mind (update: it didn’t), but for all of the mediocre gameplay I’ve experienced in so many RPG Maker games, at least those have interesting set ups, characters, and/or theming. Corpse Party is nothing.
To be honest, this is probably the type of game I would’ve loved if I played it as a teenager (I still have a soft spot for Misao, for example, which is basically a bootleg version of this game), but I can’t help but feel like Corpse Party is worthless in 2023. With the tropey characters featuring nothing to make them stand out, the unintentional comedy of the horror, and little details like the panty shots within otherwise serious scenes, Corpse Party’s standout feature is that it feels like a parody of itself. If you want a great Japanese survival horror game revolving around ghosts and a curse, check out Fatal Frame II. Actually, just check out Ao Oni, The Witch’s House, Utaho no Tatari, or even Misao, as these games are stronger indicators of the originality that comes out of RPG Maker (they’re also free, unlike this one). For all of the talk around Corpse Party, including its legacy and its being milked by larger companies over the years, I don’t see this game get recommended anymore as an actual video game, while I still see so many other RPG Maker horror games getting praise to this day. Playing it, it’s easy to see why, and while it might be interesting for those who like these games to go back to it, to see where things figuratively got started, I honestly think it’s better if we just let Corpse Party remain in the past, and let its legacy live on.
For a survival horror game, Corpse Party has absolutely nothing to fear. While the abandoned, falling apart school might create a decent enough atmosphere, and the sound design is pretty effective, the vast majority of the game’s horror relies on shock and the repulsive: the corpses of dead children littered throughout hallways, buckets of maggots, literal piles of gore, but the threats that are actually within the school are comparatively pathetic. The few chase scenes here are genuinely hilarious, with virtually every enemy crawling at a snail’s pace while just yelling the character’s name. Actually, a lot of the horror is outright hilarious. There’s a scene in chapter 4 of a man throwing himself off of a roof repeatedly in the goofiest way possible, which had me cackling. Nothing to actually fear though, and the unintentional comedy isn’t frequent or good enough to turn this into “so bad it’s good”.
Any gameplay is an absolute chore. Most of the game is spent wandering aimlessly around the school’s hallways, with (again) no threats to speak of, and little direction to go off of. The school itself is far too big to warrant this directionless feeling, so it’s hard not to just rely on a guide while playing, just to get through these sections as quickly as possible. I’ve already spoken about the pathetic chase scenes, but there are also “puzzles” I haven’t mentioned yet, the highlights of which include following a ghost’s movements Simon Says style, saving someone from drowning by going to the exact tile the game tells you to go to, or picking up a teleporting item by having one character go to one half of the classroom, while another character goes to the other half, something the creators were so proud of that they repeated it like three or four times. Nothing here involves any sort of thinking beyond memorization, and it, again, leads to a lack of any horror, as the game just feels like an aimless haunted house.
Plot and characterization are just a big pile of nothing as well. The plot isn’t offensively bad, but pretty much any other Japanese curse story you can think of does everything here, except probably better. At least you can count on those stories having more interesting characters. I love video game stories featuring revolving protagonists, so I was initially excited to see where things would go, but all of these characters feel like they were just pulled from a mediocre Weekly Shonen Jump manga. As of my writing of this review, I’ve reached the final save point of the game, but haven’t actually finished it, so I will update things if the ending changes my mind (update: it didn’t), but for all of the mediocre gameplay I’ve experienced in so many RPG Maker games, at least those have interesting set ups, characters, and/or theming. Corpse Party is nothing.
To be honest, this is probably the type of game I would’ve loved if I played it as a teenager (I still have a soft spot for Misao, for example, which is basically a bootleg version of this game), but I can’t help but feel like Corpse Party is worthless in 2023. With the tropey characters featuring nothing to make them stand out, the unintentional comedy of the horror, and little details like the panty shots within otherwise serious scenes, Corpse Party’s standout feature is that it feels like a parody of itself. If you want a great Japanese survival horror game revolving around ghosts and a curse, check out Fatal Frame II. Actually, just check out Ao Oni, The Witch’s House, Utaho no Tatari, or even Misao, as these games are stronger indicators of the originality that comes out of RPG Maker (they’re also free, unlike this one). For all of the talk around Corpse Party, including its legacy and its being milked by larger companies over the years, I don’t see this game get recommended anymore as an actual video game, while I still see so many other RPG Maker horror games getting praise to this day. Playing it, it’s easy to see why, and while it might be interesting for those who like these games to go back to it, to see where things figuratively got started, I honestly think it’s better if we just let Corpse Party remain in the past, and let its legacy live on.