Title: Otogirisou
Release Date: 3/07/1992
Developer: Chunsoft
Publisher: Chunsoft
One of the reasons I love this blog is because of the chance to experience little known titles, especially when it comes to games only released in Japan. This is one of those cases, though, where a game is rather impenetrable. There doesn't seem to be a working English translation of the game, so it seems like this is going to be one where research and Youtube videos save the day.
Background
This game is a really weird one: it is a visual novel (known here as a sound novel) that apparently became a bit of a cult classic in Japan. Now storybook/adventure/visual novel style games were already a well known genre in Japan dating back to the days of the Famicom. Usually they gave the character a bit more control, in that they can explore an environment, solve simple clue puzzles, etc. A great example of this is another Chunsoft game, Portopia: Renzoku Satsujin Jiken, which centers around a murder mystery (and also actually has an English translation). This genre still exists and is thriving to this day, and would probably be best exemplified by titles such as Phoenix Wright or Doki Doki Literature Club or Danganronpa (also made by Chunsoft).
Chunsoft, known now as Spike Chunsoft, has been one of those developers who has maintained a steady stream of content from the 80s on up to present day. What is even more fascinating is that they make content that is, for the most part, strictly for Japanese audiences. Initially an offshoot of Enix, Chunsoft was founded by Koichi Nakamura. Their first game was the aforementioned Portopia, but they then exploded onto the video game scene with Dragon Quest. Yeah most people, nowadays, attribute the Dragon Quest series to Enix, but the first five games in this series were actually only published by Enix and developed by Chunsoft. Some other franchises of theirs then include Jump Force, Danganronpa, and the Mystery Dungeon series (highly recommend the very underrated Shiren the Wanderer series too).
Now another tradition of Chunsoft seems to be the interactive or visual novel genre, which started with Portopia. Otogirisou seems to continue this tradition, but this "game" seems to really embrace the novel aspect of the genre. In this case, you don't really control a playable character, but instead each screen literally relays the next page in the story, with a lightly animated or static image in the background to add some depth to the story. Aesthetically, I would compare this game to the "1000 Years of Memories" segments from the criminally underrated XBox 360 RPG Lost Odyssey. These were segments of written text played with light music and colorful flowing background that told the backstory of the main character. In Otogirisou, the only player agency comes in the form of some branching story paths where the player is able to choose in what direction their story will flow.
So what is the story? Otogirisou (which is the Japanese name for the herb St. John's Wort) focuses on the story of a Japanese couple named Kohei and Nami who are left stranded after their car is struck by a falling branch. They end up spending the night in a spooooooooky Victorian style mansion which has a garden filled with St John's Wort, which apparently is a symbol of revenge in Japanese culture. Craziness begins to ensue, with rooms full of porcelain dolls, paintings that seem to represent members of the couples' families, etc. etc. Will our hapless teens survive the evening? Play to find out!
Weirdly enough, this game ended up gathering a good bit of popularity, and was ported to a variety of systems and virtual consoles, most interestingly getting an updated remake for the PS1. Even more interesting, there was a 2001 movie made in Japan based off of the game. It never really received much acclaim, and didn't really extend outside of Japan.
*Full Disclosure: my experience with this game moving forward is going to be based off of youtube playthroughs, and a brief perusing of the 2001 movie.
Chunsoft, known now as Spike Chunsoft, has been one of those developers who has maintained a steady stream of content from the 80s on up to present day. What is even more fascinating is that they make content that is, for the most part, strictly for Japanese audiences. Initially an offshoot of Enix, Chunsoft was founded by Koichi Nakamura. Their first game was the aforementioned Portopia, but they then exploded onto the video game scene with Dragon Quest. Yeah most people, nowadays, attribute the Dragon Quest series to Enix, but the first five games in this series were actually only published by Enix and developed by Chunsoft. Some other franchises of theirs then include Jump Force, Danganronpa, and the Mystery Dungeon series (highly recommend the very underrated Shiren the Wanderer series too).
Now another tradition of Chunsoft seems to be the interactive or visual novel genre, which started with Portopia. Otogirisou seems to continue this tradition, but this "game" seems to really embrace the novel aspect of the genre. In this case, you don't really control a playable character, but instead each screen literally relays the next page in the story, with a lightly animated or static image in the background to add some depth to the story. Aesthetically, I would compare this game to the "1000 Years of Memories" segments from the criminally underrated XBox 360 RPG Lost Odyssey. These were segments of written text played with light music and colorful flowing background that told the backstory of the main character. In Otogirisou, the only player agency comes in the form of some branching story paths where the player is able to choose in what direction their story will flow.
So what is the story? Otogirisou (which is the Japanese name for the herb St. John's Wort) focuses on the story of a Japanese couple named Kohei and Nami who are left stranded after their car is struck by a falling branch. They end up spending the night in a spooooooooky Victorian style mansion which has a garden filled with St John's Wort, which apparently is a symbol of revenge in Japanese culture. Craziness begins to ensue, with rooms full of porcelain dolls, paintings that seem to represent members of the couples' families, etc. etc. Will our hapless teens survive the evening? Play to find out!
Weirdly enough, this game ended up gathering a good bit of popularity, and was ported to a variety of systems and virtual consoles, most interestingly getting an updated remake for the PS1. Even more interesting, there was a 2001 movie made in Japan based off of the game. It never really received much acclaim, and didn't really extend outside of Japan.*Full Disclosure: my experience with this game moving forward is going to be based off of youtube playthroughs, and a brief perusing of the 2001 movie.
Okay so a complete playthrough of this game lasts about an hour or two, and the idea mirrors that like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story. You have to guide your two protagonists through the mansion, and based on your choices, they might meet a grisly end. Your characters might fall into a fish tank, start a lethal fire, or fall into the curse of the house in some other way. This is definitely a ghost story, and leans heavily on Japanese horror tropes.
There are some issues: the game is just a series of static images with text on the screen and simple animation, making the game very, very boring. The most graphic or disturbing an image gets is seeing a zombie/ghost face at one point which, for a horror story, is quite blasé. The atmosphere of the game isn't bad, and plays like a slow burn, but other than that it is really quite bland. This game feels like a rush job, and even watching this game and the "scares" that happen was super boring.
Music
Movie?!?
Here are some pictures/posters from the movie.
Final Verdict
Aside from the provenance of the game and the interesting story behind it, it really is best left to the annals of gaming history. Skip this one folks!
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