Operation Backlog Completion 2026

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Novel Game ZENO

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video Games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Oct 192026
 

Yes, it’s ZENO time again already.

After our out-of-season look at ZENO: Daily Life, I moved on to the other translated sequel/spin-off, which depending on which translation you look at might be referred to as ZENO Novel, ZENO Novel Game, or Novel Game ZENO.

This one is only available on a site called plicy, and as far as I can tell it’s only playable in-browser, which adds some frustrations that probably wouldn’t be there otherwise, because at least for me, it was slightly slow to respond. Sometimes I had to click something multiple times before it actually went through.

Anyway, Novel Game ZENO begins with a young woman getting a new job where she quickly meets a few of the main ZENO characters. Each day, you pick someone to talk to and help them come up with ideas to express their friendship. On the final day, you pick one to see their story conclusion and get an ending.

At first it felt like this one also wouldn’t fit the horror theme, but I was suspicious since the game begins with a warning about the game’s content that really doesn’t apply to those lighthearted routes.

Yes, there is a secret route and ending that brings horror back to the forefront, and I’m glad I looked up how to get it, because I never would have figured it out on my own… especially because of my problem with the game’s responsiveness. You need to click a specific spot on a specific day, and the guide said to click it 3 times but I definitely clicked more times than that.

This true route is the best part of the game, and it does a good job building the tension and raising questions about what’s happening, with both typical horror content and meta horror content like glitchy effects.

Sadly, it’s over too soon, because this is the shortest of the ZENO games by far. It look me less than half an hour to see all four endings, even with the issues I mentioned, but that short slice of horror left me wishing for a full-length ZENO visual novel.

So if you’re interested in seeing more of the universe, do check out Novel Game ZENO. This is the last of the games translated into English, so our ZENO adventures will end here until someone translates one of the other sequels. Maybe next year…?

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Helping Your Boyfriend

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video Games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: , ,
Oct 122026
 

Over the weekend, I saw a post about a free horror romance visual novel called Helping Your Boyfriend, so I decided to give it a try.

You live with your boyfriend, a doctor named Adrian, who takes care of you due to a condition that left you unable to walk. You also take apart old dolls for him.

(With this premise and the knowledge that it’s horror, you might already have an idea of where this is going.)

The first thing I did was turn off the voices, because the voice acting came in the form of little laughs and things to accompany the lines, and it felt more distracting to me than anything else. I also puzzled over the difficulty settings for a while, because I couldn’t see what they affected…

…until I encountered a QTE where I had to hit buttons on a timer, and then I understood why there were difficulty options.

Yes, it’s not just a visual novel. There are minor adventure game elements in certain scenes, but also sections where you need to get past rapid QTEs or die. It adds a definite sense of urgency to those scenes, although a generous auto-save means dying doesn’t force you to repeat too much content.

Helping Your Boyfriend is pretty short, under two hours to get all four endings, but it manages its time well to build up a tense atmosphere. It also got me good with a jumpscare at one point.

My biggest criticism is that on subsequent playthroughs to get the other endings, I felt like I kept needing to hit the skip text button again (partly because of the number of dialogue options, but there were also times when I couldn’t tell if it wasn’t skipping or if the text was just slow regardless) instead of just skipping through smoothly.

Overall, however, Helping Your Boyfriend is a nice, creepy visual novel with some great moments. I’d recommend it if you like horror disguised as something cute or if your brain starts vibrating at the phrase “serial killer doctor.”

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Higurashi When They Cry – Rei

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video Games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Oct 072026
 

Last year, I finished Higurashi When They Cry after a 70-hour journey and mentioned that there were still some bonus arcs left.

Well, I kicked off October by playing through the first of those bonus stories, Higurashi When They Cry Hou – Rei.

Rei consists of three stories. The first is Saikoroshi, which serves as an epilogue to the main game. Having reached a happy ending in the previous chapter, Rika now ends up in a different world where everything is different from the world she knows.

I mentioned last year that the horror label no longer quite fit the later parts of Higurashi, and the same applies here, to an extent. Saikoroshi lacks the “spooky” sort of horror that best fits October and instead features a much more somber mood that could still be seen as a type of horror. Although I liked the happy ending of the main story, I appreciate what this epilogue does and the questions it raises about what makes one world happier than another.

The second part is Hirukowashi, in which two ancient magatama are accidentally released. The holder of one will fall in love with whoever picks up the second, so when Rena accidentally swallows the first one, comedy antics ensue. It’s ridiculous and entertaining, but it also includes something truly terrifying: mahjong.

Yes, when the final section of Hirukowashi featured an extended look at a mahjong match, with characters talking about who had various hands and when to call riichi and various mahjong strategies, it was like reading another torture scene.

I’m kidding. Mostly.

The third and shortest part is Batsukoishi, which is basically just the characters discussing detailed fanservice scenarios they’d like to put other characters into as part of the punishment games. I assume this would have felt more ecchi if it had the CGs from the console version, but I never modded Higurashi, so it was just reading stuff like “imagine her cleaning the window with her butt.” Maybe I shouldn’t have played this game for spooky month…

Anyway, Higurashi When They Cry Hou – Rei was a nice capstone to the Higurashi experience, albeit not much of a horror game. You know, except for the mahjong.

If you’ve played Rei, what did you think of it?

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