Three years ago, we discussed the Corpse Party remake.
Last year, we moved on to Book of Shadows.
And so for this October, I played the next game in the series. Which, as I mentioned near the end of my Book of Shadows review, is not Blood Drive but rather the comedy midquel Corpse Party: Sweet Sachiko’s Hysteric Birthday Bash.
The usual Corpse Party horrors are temporarily put on hold as the cast is gathered together in one place to celebrate Sachiko’s birthday (whether they want to or not)! Now they have to put on a cultural festival, with a variety of strange and sometimes deadly activities on the schedule.
While Book of Shadows combined adventure game elements with a visual novel presentation, this one is a pure visual novel. Occasional choices will determine if you clear a given chapter or get one of its numerous, often hilarious bad endings, but most of your time will be spent reading.
It’s definitely a dramatic change in tone, albeit still with a Corpse Party flair. You might get a bad ending where a character gets a kidney cut out, for example, except it’s played for laughs. Or maybe a character will go insane and fall into despair, but for ridiculous reasons.
Oh, and the lighter tone means the fanservice is also cranked up way past its usual levels, with some very awkward moments.
I found it to be a pretty funny game. I wasn’t sure about it when I started, but I ended up being happy I played it, even if it’s not quite the usual Corpse Party fare.
The only thing that bugged me was that there didn’t always seem to be a natural narrative flow from one chapter to the next, but that can probably be excused as Corpse Party weirdness.
A bonus chapter at the end takes on a more serious atmosphere, potentially setting up more things for Blood Drive. I remember reading that the reason this entry is important is because it introduces characters who appear in later games, although I’d also add that there’s also just something nice about seeing these characters together in a less intense situation.
At the end of the game, you also unlock messages from the voice actors again, and I love hearing their thoughts on the script, the series, the recording sessions, etc. I wish more games did that.
Overall, Corpse Party: Sweet Sachiko’s Hysteric Birthday Bash is not a scary game, and it doesn’t really advance the Corpse Party storyline, but it fits the bill for spooky comedy. So if you’re just here for the horror, this probably isn’t the game for you. But if you like the characters, enjoy (or at least don’t mind) the fanservice, and want to see some wacky comedy antics, it’s worth taking a look.
Meanwhile, the upcoming Corpse Party II: Darkness Distortion has been delayed to 2025. I’d been wondering why we didn’t have a release date yet, and now we know. At least this will give me more time to catch up on the series with Blood Drive before it comes out!
Ahh now that I have a better gaming laptop, I can finally play Corpse Party with it hopefully not crashing my computer! Then I can click on those tempting, tempting spoilers blocks…
Yes!
To be honest, this whole post probably implies spoilers for the first game since it’s a midquel…
Eh I don’t know the first game well enough to know or really register any of these character names so as long as I don’t read the blog post too closely I am probably fine 😛
Fair. XD In that case, I won’t say anything more about that.
Not knowing anything about the Corpse Party series, I must say, the artwork in the image provided is pretty darn cute! Does it always look like that, or only for this change-of-tone midquel?
I’d say it always has somewhat of a cute appearance, though not as much. The screenshots on the Steam page for the first game’s remake should give a good idea of that: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1273260/Corpse_Party_2021/
Do not be fooled! and yeah the screenshots of the other steam games are definitely not as cute.
It’s not as deceptive as the Yomawari games, which are absolutely adorable chibi games… and very much horror at the same time.
:O A TRUE Corpse Party? Hilarious. I love when series get fun and have a weird little spin off.
I really dig the Special Features vibe you mentioned with the voice actors leaving commentary that’s really cool. And still why I like owning movies for all their extra content.
Yes, it’s great! It’s always fun hearing them give impressions on their character, or some might admit that they’re afraid of horror games and couldn’t sleep after doing their lines, all sorts of fun details.
We need this for every Yakuza game now that I think about it.
Make it happen RGG
OH, that would be so much fun. Imagine beating a Yakuza game and unlocking a message from Takaya Kuroda about what he thought of the script. Or Hidenari Ugaki; I feel like he’d talk in-character as Majima for his message.