Celebrating All Things Spooky: Corpse Party

I’ve long intended to get into the Corpse Party series, but I was never quite sure where to start due to the number of different versions of the original game.

But this year, I finally got my answer with the release of a new Corpse Party remake. Since it’s pretty much a definitive version as near as I can tell, I picked up a Switch copy and finally played.

It begins with a group of students performing a charm intended to make sure they’re friends forever… but something goes terribly wrong, and they suddenly find themselves in another school, where a tragedy occurred many years earlier and vengeful ghosts stalk the halls.

They’re separated from one another, because the school exists on many different planes of existence. This means that while they’re all in the same location, they aren’t in exactly the same time or place. Corpse Party makes use of this in some interesting ways as you switch between groups of characters.

Although it might resemble an RPG visually in some ways, Corpse Party is essentially an adventure game. Much of your time will be spent figuring out how to get from one place to another, finding keys, etc.

And occasionally, being chased by ghosts and avoiding other dire situations that lead to the game’s numerous bad endings.

It’s fun, if a bit too reliant on checking and re-checking areas to see if something has changed when you have no specific indication that you should return.

It is split into chapters, with each chapter having its own save menu (which confused me a bit at first, especially since the “resume” option only loads temporary saves). Each chapter has its own set of possible endings, a true ending that unlocks the next chapter and several bad endings. Numerous “extra” chapters can be unlocked as well.

The story is dark and disturbing. It doesn’t shy away from gruesome details at all, whether it’s in the main story or in the history that led to this situation.

Now, while I often criticize games that immediately introduce you to a large cast of characters, I didn’t have a problem with that here. Although you meet many characters right away, its chapter-based structure gives you time to get to know them in smaller groups.

I do wish it had a way to skip read text, though, for the times when you get a bad ending and then need to go through a lot of dialogue before you catch up (although the option to make a temporary save helps). On the other hand, the collectible name tags you find are saved even if you get a bad ending, which is very convenient. It’s certainly a story-driven game, and the plot and characters are well worth sticking around for.

Corpse Party is a wonderfully creepy ghost story, and I’m happy this remake gave me the push to finally check this series out. I still have some extra chapters to finish up, but then I look forward to moving on to the sequels in the future!