Corpse Party – Book of Shadow

Finally I have finished this horror game that made me scream (despite I like playing horror game). Book of Shadow is kinda like an alternative version of Blood Covered – Repeated Fear. If you played the Blood Drive, you will remember one of the ending where Ayumi, Yoshiki, Naomi and Satoshi make a prayer to Sachiko to return home. When Satoshi wakes up and goes to school, he finds that Mayu, Morishige, Yui-sensei, and Seiko are still alive. Basically they are sent back to the time before they play the Sachiko Ever After Charm. This time only Satoshi who remembers the whole ordeal while he was in Heavenly Host Elementary School. When the gang perform the ritual again, Satoshi tries to prevent it but unfortunately he fails, resulting them to experience the horror for the 2nd time.

Book of Shadow has a different system from the prequel, which is now more like a Visual Novel rather than adventure game (I kinda miss the tag game though).

Text Reading Style: Basically you only need to read the text and this time there is a R function to fast forward the texts.

Search Mode: Point and Click system to find the items or read the notes, etc. And you can move your character using map (press L).

Mental Bar / Darkening System: If your mentality bar has reached 100% then you will get a hallucination and automatically gets the wrong end.

Characters:

Kisaragi Academy

• Tsukasa Mikuni (Yui’s friend and only appears in the flashback story)
• Yui Shishido (the teacher)
• Satoshi Mochida
• Yoshiki Kishinuma
• Ayumi Shinozaki
• Sakutaro Morishige
• Naomi Nakashima
• Seiko Shinohara
• Mayu Suzumoto
• Yuka Mochida

Byakudan Senior High School

• Yuuya Kizami
• Kai Shimada
• Tohko Kirisaki
• Mitsuki Yamamoto
• Masato Fukuroi
• Kensuke Kurosaki
• Ryosuke Katayama
• Tomohiro Ohkawa
• Emi Urabe

Musashigawa Girls’ School

• Nana Ogasawara
• Nari Amatoya
• Chihaya Yamase

Paulownia Academy

• Sayaka Ooue
• Saenoki Naho

Others:

• Shougo Taguchi
• Kou Kibiki
• Hinoe Shinozaki

Book of Shadow consists of 7 chapters, plus extra chapter and in each chapter you play as a different character.

Chapter 1 : Seal

You play as Naomi, the story is pretty the same in the first game and this time you can save Seiko from her first terrible fate (strangled in the bathroom). But later Sachiko will reveal that someone who already died in the first game will have the same fate in BoS, and if you try to alter their fate, later on this person will die in a more brutal way. In this chapter Saeko’s head is chopped off by the wire.

Chapter 2 : Demise

This story is about Suzumoto Mayu who searches around the school to find her friends, and finally she meets with Nana Ogasawara and also Yoshiki and Ayumi. She and Nana bear the same mark, Nana is on her thigh meanwhile she is on her abdomen (I totally realize what that marks are when playing the game orz).

Nana meets her terrible fate when Yoshikazu finds her. He chopped off her thighs and drags her to the bloody room (you can see how she dies in chapter 4). And for Mayu, in Repeated Fear she dies because the ghosts crush her to the wall but this time the ghosts digs out her internal organ. (Pretty sad to see her end in this way because Mayu is such a sweet and kind girl :w:)

Chapter 3 : Encounter

The story is about Shishido Yui and Tsukasa Mikuni. When Yui is sick, she is tended by Satoshi and have a dream when she was still in Kisaragi High School. Yui meets Tsukasa for the first time in the school’s courtyard, and eventually they become a close friend (well she falls in love with him xD). So her horror begins when she needs to attend the mock exams, she sees the old woman who collapse in front of her home. She warns her not to go to school and gives her a paper doll charm with her name on it. But she refuses the charm and makes that old woman angry and she is sent to hospital. Later on her mother tells her that the old woman has passed away.

Yui forgets her goodluck charm  from Tsukasa ‘a mechanical pencil’ and leaves it in the school, so at night she goes to school to retrieve it. After retrieving the pencil the light suddenly turned off and Yui freaks out because she remembers the rumor about the ghost women (Yoshie, Sachiko’s mother) who is wondering away inside the school after 7PM. Turned out all the rumors are true, the ghost chases after her and fortunately Tsukasa manages to save her. After all the ordeal Yui wakes up and finds herself inside the infirmary room. Tsukasa explains to her that the nurse found her outside the school building. This makes Yui wonders if all her ordeal before is a nightmare or reality.

Chapter 4 : Purgatory

The story about Sayaka Ooue, the friend of Naho. Naho makes the researches about he Heavenly Host High School, which makes Kiniki (her mentor) to enter that realm. This makes Naho panics and persuades Sayaka to perform a Sachiko charm to save Kibiki. She ends up in the bomb shelter and is separated from Naho. She finds the torture room and hides inside the cabinet. In this chapter you can see how Nana (from chapter 2) is tortured by Yozhikazu (her tongue is pulled out). And later on Sayaka finally meets her ends after days wandering around in the shelter, she is found by Yoshikazu.

Chapter 5 : Shangri-La

The main character for this chapter is Morishige Sakutarou, he wanders around the Heavenly Host to search for Mayu. But throughout the chapter you can see that he has a fascination with the corpse, even taking a picture of the corpse as a memento  Later Morishige will meet with Mitsuki and Fukuroi, from Byakudan Senior High School. At the end of the chapter Fukuroi is tortured by Yoshikazu and when Kizami finds him, he is still alive, then he kicks his abdomen, making him die. Mitsuki also almost gets killed by Kizami but she runs away and this time she doesn’t trust anyone else. This chapter ended with Morishige is looking at his cellphone, fascinated with the corpses’s picture that he has taken.

Chapter 6 : Mire

The story is about Yuka who is captured by Kizami, but she is saved by Yoshikazu despite Sachiko’s order to kill Yuka. After the earthquake Yuka finds herself inside the Bomb Shelter. In there she meets with Sachiko who pretends to be a nice ghost and at the end Sachiko kills her.

Chapter 7: Tooth

The story about Tohko Kirisaki from Byakudan Senior High School, she with her other friends ends up at Heavenly Host and searches for the way out. Tohko and others are separated with Mizuki, Fukuroi, and Kurosaki. Katayama is injured and eventually died because of the blood loss, Kai is killed by the ghosts. And later on Kizami goes on rampage and tries to kill everyone else. The remaining survivors is scattered out while running away from Kizami, meanwhile Tohko refuses to believe that Kizami capable to do something sinister. She confronts Kizami but her efforts are in vain, he punches her, resulting her tooth to fall out (and he eats it, gross). The chapter ended with Tohko goes hiding inside the infirmary room.

Extra Chapter: Blood Drive

This story is a direct continuation from Corpse Party Blood Covered, there are only five survivors and the people who are not survived at Heavenly Host, their existences are erased. Meanwhile Ayumi and Naomi who remembers the whole event go to Yoshie’s house to bring back the memories of their missing friends. There they find the Book of Shadow which is the forbidden book consists with the black magics. With the book in hands, they try to do the ritual to bring back the dead, starting from Mayu. Unfortunately they fail and their spell backfires. Ayumi almost dies but her sister manages to save her and the chapter ended with Hinoe hugs Ayumi then suddenly Hinoe’s head is chopped off : “To be Continued.”

Book of shadow is a great game even though you are not a fan of horror, you can still play and enjoy it. It is highly recommended that you play Corpse Party Blood Covered before playing this game because you will have a slight confusion with the story and some characters. Nevertheless you can still enjoy BoS as standalone game. The extra chapter of BoS which is called Blood Drive is hinting for another sequel. As much as I like this game but I really wish for the tag game to be returned in the sequel. Overall I really love this game, the story, music, seiyuu, and even the characters are brilliant. My favorite characters are Ayumi, Yoshiki, Tsukasa, Kizami, and Mayu.

PS: Don’t forget to play this game using an earphone xD