Sega to bring a new wave of horror to the PS3
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, Japan, News, Sony PlayStation 3, Video.
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Sega are set to bring a new kind of horror game to the PS3, in the form of a ’Sound Novel’. Developed by Chunsoft, and to be published by Sega, Imabikisou (the name of the game), is not your usual style horror game.
The game sounds rather like Myst or Riven, crosed with D, but with much more reading involved. From the description, by the guys at Kotaku, you are presented with some freaky images, spooky sound effects and scores of text from which you must read. So yeah, basically like reading a book, but having moving images and sound to help support the story, (sounds like something from Harry Potter to me).
Though I do say, “new kind of horror”, that is not quite true. The style of game, the ‘Sound Novel’ has been done before, by Chunsoft, starting with Otogirisou (SNES), Kamaitachi No Yoru (SNES, PlayStation) and then later with Machi (Sega Saturn).
The story behind the game has been revealed, and it sounds … interesting.
The main character of the game, Hiroki Makimura and his girlfriend Aimi, along with a few of his friends are out having fun with a drug called Vision. The horror begins as all Hikori’s friends later die mysteriously of severe burns. Hiroki and Aimi decide to head to the possible source to escape the curse, an old mansion surrounded by mysterious flowers called Imabikisou, which gives the title of the game.
I’m not going to lie, that to me sounds rather like the story behind the classic Japanese horror movie, Ring, but with flowers instead of a video tape. And watching the video makes me thing even more of Ring, with the close up eyeball shots.
Kotaku certainly don’t seem to enthusiastic about the game, and neither do I to be honest.  I’d much rather, read a book or play a game, not do a weird mixture of the two. I have played games before which have a vast amount of text on them, and I honestly find it tiring, so I doubt I’d like to play a game, the main premise of which, is the use of text.
That said, apparently this genre of game has been popular with the Japanese market in the past, which is no doubt why they have decided to make another in the series.
[Source: Kotaku]
Comments on this article
There have been 6 responses to this article.
Well not like its going to be directed at us Westerns, SEGA already have a answer for that, its called Condemned!
Aki-at
Posted August 9th, 2007 at 12:13 pm.
Release in Japan: 25.10.07
Ali
Posted August 9th, 2007 at 12:41 pm.
I wouldn’t mind playing this game, the plot doesn’t seem like the ring to me, i don’t know what G is talking about.
George
Posted August 9th, 2007 at 1:39 pm.
Ok George- The general plot of Ring, is about a group of kids who watch this ‘cursed’ video tape. The story behind the tape is that if you watch it, you will receive a phone call and then die 2 weeks (I think) later.
After the kids die, two people investigating the mysterious death of one of the kids, finds out about the video. After watching it - they then try and solve what happened to the girl in the tape and try to get to the original source of the curse and try to prevent their own deaths.
Replace the Video tape with Drugs and the story seems pretty similar to me. An Urban Legend, come true, that causes strange deaths (note: when the bodies are found in Ring, they look burned), then trying to go to the source of it all…
I’m also going to go out on a limb here and say that the flowers are the source of the drug- but that’s just a guess.
Graham
Posted August 9th, 2007 at 1:49 pm.
the thing has no mystery girl death, searching the past, or video tape (even if you replace it with drugs, its not the same). I saw ring (pretty shit movie) i saw the USA ver not the JP ver.
George
Posted August 9th, 2007 at 5:16 pm.
No mystery girl death… just ALL their friends mysteriously die (in the game here). More than one person died in Ring, from watching the video tape- it’s just that the story for us is focused at the start of that girl dying and then the two people trying to solve the mystery. They do however speak of others that died.
And I’d image that in order to get to the bottom of the drugs in this game, the characters will have to dig up the past.
I think even the US version of Ring is good. It’s certainly better than any other horror movie the states has made in the last 20 years. I’m not a fan of US horror movies- because I don’t find them scary - which is really their job, so it’s like “What’s the point?”
The original is much better.
-But that’s just my opinion in horror movies… back to the game.
-I still think the games plot sounds similar (not identical) to Ring. But I doubt I’ll ever play it, as I can’t read a word of Japanese- and I doubt the game will get a port to the west.
Graham
Posted August 10th, 2007 at 3:10 pm.