Pure Japanese terror
The genre of ” survival horror ” has been offering games with different styles and mechanics from JRPG games like “Sweet Home” to action titles like
“Resident Evil” through variants such as the psychological terror of “Silent Hill”, the have to flee from a character who pursues tirelessly the protagonist as the saga “Clock Tower” or who resorts to unexpected jumpscares as the saga “Five Nights at Freddy’s”.
In this case it is the turn of the Japanese studio Nippon Ichi Software to demonstrate how it works in this genre along with its most recent title: “Yomawari Night Alone”.
The plotof the game starts showing a girl, with no name and protagonist of the game, who walks her dog, Poro, entering the night. At the entrance of a
tunnel the girl hesitates and decides to return home accompanied by her pet. However, something unexpected happens and the girl ends up going home alone. Her older sister, also without a name, when she sees this situation decides to go and look for the dog,
telling the little girl that she will soon return.
The hours pass and the older sister does not appear, so the little one, in a city that seems not to be the same as the one she knows and inhabited by all kinds of monsters and ghostly creatures, decides to venture on her own to find her sister and your dog.
We are facing a game that is a pure “survival horror” in which the protagonist of the game has no way to defend against the attacks of the ghosts of the game so you must use different skills to escape their clutches to avoid a fatal end. Among these skills is to run
(pressing the trigger R) that allows fleeing at high speed but which has as a hindrance that the resistance of the character will decrease gradually
over time and even more so if you are being chased by a ghost or monster which will accelerate your heart rate and you will tire more quickly.
The second ability is to go on tiptoe and without making noise (with the trigger L). This will cause certain spirits sensitive to sound not to notice the presence of the character and can pass without many impediments at his side. The third ability is to be able to
collect objectsthat there are on the floors of the different streets, which are coins or stones, which will serve to offer the statues of Jizou on the one
hand and on the other to draw the attention of certain specters with a sound so that they leave the path clear to advance or mislead them. Finally, there is the ability to hide in hedges or signs that are in the locations, although not all have.
When using this skill the screen goes on to show the character in his hiding place while listening to the rhythm of the heart and the spirits / monsters that are nearby
will be denoted by two reddish signals that will move gradually. The closer they are to the protagonist the pulse of this will accelerate while if they are at a considerable distance it will be normalized.
As the game progresses, a flashlight can be found to illuminate the road through the different streets and locations of the game city in order to catch a
glimpse of the spirits that are on the lookout and avoid them or, in certain cases, react to the light and be more aggressive. It will also be of great help to be able to find important objects during the game and that will serve to advance in it.
The structure of the game is divided into 7 chapters in which the small protagonist will have to go through the city and its desolate streets while finding all
kinds of spirits that will seek to put an awful end to their journey in solitude. In principle there will be inaccessible areas but with the progress in each chapter of the game you can access them.
To move forward in the game you have to look for different clues in the locations, in certain cases on boards that bring information of events, and look for objects such as keys to open doors or special objects that will serve to confront certain spirits that will
tirelessly persecute the protagonist. These are aggressive spirits that will seek to attack the character, as the rest, with the exception that they can not avoid
or mislead like the rest but will have to advance through the locations to find the key to exorcise their body with a specific object that will grant them eternal rest.
