Corpse Party

Corpse Party (コープスパーティー, Kōpusu Pātī) is a survival horror, adventure, and dōjin soft video game series originally created by Makoto Kedōin^[1][2] and developed by Team GrisGris.^[3] The first game in the series was developed using the RPG Maker software and released in 1996 for the PC-9801. It was followed by two remakes: Corpse Party BloodCovered, which was released for Microsoft Windows on March 8, 2008; and Corpse Party BloodCovered: ...Repeated Fear, which was released for the PlayStation Portable on August 12, 2010, and iOS on February 9, 2012. The game was released in North America and Europe by Marvelous USA under the title Corpse Party.^[4] Marvelous USA will release a localized version Corpse Party BloodCovered for PC in North America in 2015.^[5] A 3DS version of the game, titled "Corpse Party: Blood Covered ...Repeated Fear." was released in Japan on July 30, 2015, and contains a new extra chapter not present in the PSP and iOS version.^[6]

The PSP game was followed by a sequel, Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, which was released for the PSP on September 1, 2011 in Japan, and on January 15, 2013 in North America.^[7] A spin-off game, Corpse Party the Anthology: Sachiko no Ren’ai Yūgi ♥ Hysteric Birthday 2U (コープスパーティー -THE ANTHOLOGY- サチコの恋愛遊戯♥Hysteric Birthday 2U, lit. "Corpse Party the Anthology: Sachiko's Game of Love ♥ Hysteric Birthday 2U"), was released for the PSP in Japan on August 2, 2012.^[8] A direct sequel of Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, called Corpse Party: Blood Drive, was released in Japan on July 24, 2014 on PlayStation Vita,^[9][10] and was released in North America by XSeed Games on October 13, 2015, and on October 20, 2015 in Europe.^[11]

Another sequel titled Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient was created for the PC by GrindHouse, a dōjin circle founded by members affiliated with Team GrisGris.^[12] It is released episodically, with the first chapter released on May 29, 2013.

The series has spawned several manga works, an anime OVA series, drama CDs, theme park attractions, and a 2015 live action film.

Gameplay

Corpse Party is a linear horror monster adventure game with some role-playing elements. It is played in a third-person view, top-down perspective. Players are tasked with exploring the haunted school grounds for a means of escape. To fulfill this task, characters must interact with the environment and surroundings such as picking up objects, talking to other characters, and inspecting documents while avoiding enemy-like entities.

The game's story is split into five chapters, each focusing on different characters and featuring multiple endings that are achieved based on the player's in-game decisions: a "True Ending" required for the game's progression; and several "Wrong Endings" that are unlocked when the player performs events irrelevant to the main storyline. Characters also possess hit points (HP), which measure how much damage they can take before dying, in some instances leading to a wrong ending. As players progress through the game, they will unlock ten optional "Extra Chapters", vignettes that focus on the game's side characters and expand the storyline.

Setting and plot

Corpse Party is set in an alternate history, with events taking place primarily in Tokyo, Japan, and at Heavenly Host Elementary School (天神小学校, Tenjin Shōgakkō), an elementary school that was torn down following the murders and disappearances of several of its staff and students. In modern-day Japan, a high school called Kisaragi Academy (如月学園, Kisaragi Gakuen) has been built over the elementary school site. One rainy night, after celebrating their school's culture festival, a group of students are telling ghost stories when their class representative decides to perform a charm called Sachiko Ever After (幸せのサチコさん, Shiawase no Sachiko-san), which would supposedly allow them to remain friends for eternity. A sudden earthquake transports them to an alternate dimension—Nirvana— where Heavenly Host still exists and is haunted by the ghosts of the school's murdered children. The students try to figure out the truth behind the mystery of the cursed school, in order to find their way home and try to survive the shadowy forces that haunt the school.

The main character is Satoshi Mochida, a timid yet kindhearted high school student who is teased by his classmates for his cowardly nature. Three of the other characters are students from Satoshi's class: Naomi Nakashima, Satoshi's childhood friend; Yoshiki Kishinuma, an intimidating yet good-natured student; and Ayumi Shinozaki, the class representative. Rounding out the group is Yuka Mochida, Satoshi's younger sister. The game's antagonist is Sachiko Shinozaki, the red ghost of a young girl who kills the students in Heavenly Host in anger over her and her mother's murder.

Blood Covered and BloodCovered: ...Repeated Fear

Blood Covered, released in 2008, is an enhanced remake and port of Corpse Party (1996). It includes more characters, larger maps, updated graphics, and professional voice actors. It was soon followed by another enhanced remake, Blood Covered: ...Repeated Fear, which was released internationally as Corpse Party. Blood Covered remake introduces four protagonists into the original cast: Seiko Shinohara, Naomi's best friend; Mayu Suzumoto, a popular student due to transfer out of Kisaragi; Sakutaro Morishige, Mayu's best friend; and Yui Shishido, the class's assistant homeroom teacher. Blood Covered also introduces several characters from other schools who are also trapped inside Heavenly Host and affect the story. The notable two are Yuuya Kizami, a sadistic student from Byakudan Senior High School (白壇高等学校, Byakudan Kōtōgakkō) who accompanies Yuka as she is separated from her brother; and Naho Saenoki, a selfish but helpful paranormalist from Paulownia Academy (桐章学園, Kirishō Gakuen) who discovered the Sachiko Ever After charm and came to investigate Heavenly Host.

Book of Shadows

A series of nonlinear chapters that add new twists and backgrounds for the characters who were barely touched upon in Corpse Party (such as Mayu, Moshige, and Ms.Yui who are a few of the first to be killed in the game play and anime OVAs) and details important to the storyline. The game mostly takes place during the same time the first game did, continuing from Wrong END 6 ★8 in Corpse Party, where Sachiko sends the Kisaragi Academy students back in time. For this purpose, she erases their memories except for Satoshi's. He tries in a desperate attempt to dissuade his classmates from performing the charm, but he joins them, since he doesn't want to let them go alone, sending them on alternative course of actions and encountering several supporting victims in Heavenly Host.

The game's prologue, Blood Drive, serves as the set up to the eponymous sequel. Two weeks after escaping Heavenly Host, Ayumi and Naomi went to investigate the Shinozaki estate, Sachiko's birthplace, believing there's hope in reviving their dead friends since Naho and Kou Kibiki's existence were not erased like the other victims. At the estate, Ayumi discovered that she is of the same lineage as Sachiko. Hearing an eerie voice, Ayumi uncovers a magical tome known as the Book of Shadows. Ayumi and Naomi performed a resurrection spell for Mayu, but failed. As compensation for using black magic, the book unleashed its rage upon Ayumi until her older sister Hinoe Shinozaki rushed in and saved Ayumi, at the cost of her own life.

Corpse Party the Anthology: Sachiko's Game of Love - Hysteric Birthday 2U

On the day of Sachiko's birth and death, the curse on her weakens and she gets 24 hours to celebrate her birthday as someone closer to the girl she was before her death. She uses the timeloops as established in Corpse Party: Book of Shadows to force all survivors at that point to participate in activities she has set up. Given it's either that or die horribly again, something all are aware that they've already experienced but can't remember in full, they go along with her demands. The game features almost all characters from the previous games and some new ones. While a pseudo-horror spin-off at best, it is part of the storyline, setting up a few details to prepare for Corpse Party: Blood Drive.

As with Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, there is only one extra chapter. This extra chapter takes place during the previous game and is more conventional horror. It tells of Yoshiki's and Ayumi's encounter with four students from Sugatani Senior High School, notably Azusa Takai.

Blood Drive

Corpse Party: Blood Drive is the direct sequel to Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, and is the first game featuring settings and characters rendered in 3D. The game was released for the PlayStation Vita in Japan in July 2014 by 5pb. The characters are depicted in 3D chibi style, however traditional CG artwork appears during cutscenes, illustrated by Sakuya Kamishiro.^[13]

Continuing from the prologue, Naomi manages to save Ayumi and takes her to a hospital. The Shinozaki estate and tome subsequently vanish without a trace. Ayumi had been severely ill for her misuse of the Book of Shadows' black magic. In the hospital, a woman claiming to be a spiritual associate of Hinoe's visits Ayumi. This woman belongs to the Wiccan Institute, an organization that worships spirits. She tells her Hinoe's last wish, which is to regain the Book of Shadows or the world will fall into the abyss. This is partially a lie, as the woman is under threat of other organizations to get Ayumi to find the book, which they wish to use for their own gain.

After being discharged from the hospital; two months later, Ayumi returns to Kisaragi Academy where Satoshi Mochida and friends give her a warm welcome. However, the absence of their dead friends is a constant reminder of their inevitable reality. Now a new teacher's assistant, Kuon Niwa, supervises their homeroom. Later, on her way home, a black hooded boy approaches Ayumi and tells her, "If you reclaim the Book of Shadows and use it at Heavenly Host, those who have died there will be revived." Ayumi pledges that she will once more take back the Book of Shadows. The trail now leads into the previous residence of Makina Shinozaki. To make matters worse, Heavenly Host's curse seems to have expand by the "new Sachiko"—later named Sachi. For Ayumi, it is the responsibility of Shinozaki's bloodline.^[13]

Development

Dummy head mics were utilized for Blood Covered, Book of Shadows, and Blood Drive to provide perceived three dimensional sound.^[14]

Media listing

Corpse Party: Another Child

A spin-off manga that takes place during the events of Corpse Party. With their school, Satsukiyama Academy (皐月山学園, Satsukiyama Gakuen), shutting down for good, the students of a small town were heading for different directions in life, not until they decide to perform the "Sachiko Ever After" charm swallowing the entire class to Heavenly Host Elementary, along with a mysterious girl's spirit.

Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient

The series takes place five years after the events of Corpse Party Heavenly Host Arc, implied to be the consequences of the Book of Shadows' powers starting to bring about the end of the world by allowing the spirit realm and real world to start to converge together. The setting takes place at Amare Patriarcha Crucis Hospital (文月大付属・慈愛十字（パトリアーカル）病院, Fumizuki Daifuzoku Patoriākaru Byōin, "July University Patriarchal Hospital") fallen into a dark abyss. Patient records and clinical charts are scattered all over the hospital, with zombies and a bizarre SWAT team roaming through the hallways. An amnesiac girl, Ayame Itou, wakes up on an operating table and encounters the dark happenings around her.

Music

The opening for Corpse Party: Blood Covered Repeated Fear is "Shangri-La" by Asami Imai, and the ending for Blood Covered is "Confutatis no Inori", by ARTERY VEIN (Imai & Eri Kitamura). An insert song, "Yami ni Nureta Catastrophe", also sung by ARTERY VEIN, plays at Naomi's flashback in the final scene where she realised she was the one who killed Seiko, and darkens; however, Seiko's spirit reliefs her.

The opening theme for Corpse Party: Book of Shadows is "Hana no Saku Basho" by Imai, and the ending is "Pandora no Yoru", by ARTERY VEIN.

The opening theme for Corpse Party: 2U is called "Limited Love" by Imai, and the ending theme is "Tsukigen" by ARTERY VEIN. An insert song, "Hanabi", sung by Yumi Hara, plays at the final scene where Sachiko's birthday has ended and she seemed to have only a brief memory of it, before screaming in agony and reverting to her malicious self.

In Corpse Party: BloodDrive, there are two openings; the first one being "In the Rain", by Hara, and the second being "Keshin" by Imai, which plays at Chapter 7 after Ayumi's retrieval of the Book of Shadows. The ending is "Translucent Days" by ARTERY VEIN.

Reception

Although the series has received mixed to positive reviews as a whole, it is regarded as a "cult favorite" in Japan with a dedicated fan following.^[24][25] Famitsu gave Corpse Party: Blood Drive a score of 29/40.^[26]

Adaptations

The video game has been adapted into four manga series: Corpse Party: Blood Covered, published by Square Enix; Corpse Party: Musume and Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, published by Media Factory; and Corpse Party: Another Child, published by Mag Garden. One original video animation (OVA), Corpse Party: Missing Footage, was released on August 2, 2012.^[8] Another OVA consisting of four episodes titled Corpse Party: Tortured Souls (コープスパーティー Tortured Souls ―暴虐された魂の呪叫―, Kōpusu Pātī Tortured Souls: Bōgyaku Sareta Tamashii no Jukyō), was released July 24, 2013,^[27] and later licensed by Section23 Films.

Notes

References

External links

• Team GrisGris official website (Japanese)
• Official Corpse Party: Blood Covered website (PC Doujin) (Japanese)
• Official Corpse Party: Blood Covered Repeated Fear website (PSP) (Japanese)
• Official website (manga) (Japanese)
• Official Corpse Party English website
• Official XSEED Games website
• CORPSE PARTY (PC-98) (Japanese)
• CORPSE PARTY REBUILT, a faithful remake of the original PC-98 game that has now received an English Translation