#All the spoilers I know is that Mizuki is trans and something bad happens

[totally-n0t-obsessed-fan]

I love only being caught up with *checks my fandom list* only one of them bc I don’t have to suffer through watching/reading/playing anything tragic like the rest of the people on my time line and sob my eyes out. And I don’t have to get a grim reminder of the tragic event when someone makes a jokes about it.

[ssruis]

Spoilers

> I don’t believe in gatekeeping. Here you go.

> niigo kaito needs to be trained better. Meiko come get your dog he needs to learn when his opinion isn’t needed.

> niigo meiko…. You are such a good friend. Slash mom. Slash aunt? You’re such a good virtual singer.

> “what mizuki is carrying is very fragile and easily shattered” hysterical sobbing

> rui is such a good friend. I’m glad he was here. which is a take I’ve had since the beginning and did not change after reading the event. No don’t scroll down my blog to find evidence against this claim. you’re delusional and it’s all in your head.

> in all seriousness I’m a little scared for their relationship after this event because like… Rui has been able to understand mizuki & her past in a way no one else can but I’m so worried that the fact that he’s been able to move forward & mizuki hasn’t (& has now experienced such a huge setback) is going to make mizuki feel isolated even from him….

> ena is also such a good friend… seeing mizuki is nervous but continuing business as usual & not pressuring her to talk before she’s ready…. “I’ve decided to wait” everyone who said you’d be bigoted in this event owes you $10000 I know those art supplies aren’t cheap

> I’ve only seen the shirts an/akito were wearing (ugly) and the shirts rks were wearing (actually cute!! 3C has a graphic designer among them! And i know it isn’t rui because his design taste is. Bad!) I wanna see ena’s shirt and mizuki’s shirt….

> what the fuck was that play tsukasa. Thanks for this moment of comedic relief before my heart is torn to shreds I guess. A brief smile before entering Hell.

> toya and mizuki :)

> niigo knows mizuki so well… ena being the one to figure out where mizuki would have put the key, & being technically right (only being wrong bc toya suggested a twist)

> mizuki also planning to come out to kanade and mafuyu…. I am so so so proud of her.

> and so unspeakably angry at that npc classmate A drop your address you’ve got a pipe bomb present ready for shipping.

> mizuki does get outed. I’m glad they changed the date even if it wasn’t because it was coming out day bc this would be a fucking awful coincidence.

> god it fucking. Breaks my heart. That so many things seemed to line up for mizuki to tell ena herself. Ena ends up going to the festival because she accidentally brought home stuff she’d need to return to the school anyways. Toya is covering a shift at the escape game reception. & then Mizuki has to go help someone and Ena has to wait for her and happens to run into the wrong people.

> ena waited for so long for mizuki to tell her on her own. Mizuki has spent so long building up the courage to tell ena. & she finally makes that choice and she’s ready to finally take this incredibly scary step and she’s robbed of that opportunity in the worst way possible. Ena had no way of knowing what was happening either… ohhh my heart.

>

And this has just fucking ruined that special place for her. Because Ena didn’t get to wait and Mizuki didn’t get to be the one to tell her.

> mizuki rejecting the kindness bc she knows this won’t change things. Niigo will love and support her all the same. but at the same time it will change everything………. The line delivery as she leaves & ena watches…. I’m fucking sick….

> I’m glad they confirmed that mizuki is trans.

> I don’t want to be the one to comment on whether or not this was handled in the right way but as someone who has been outed in… a lower stakes way. I’m not dropping the lore on that. It was violating and heart wrenching. Having something you keep so close to your chest shared so callously with no regard for your feelings… having the choice robbed from you… It sucks. It really does. I can’t even begin to imagine how she must have felt being outed like that. I’m so sad for her.

> cliffhanger fuck you colopale. Niigo disbands (temporarily) mizuki disappears from area convos in the real world….. we are fucked. We are so fucked. Kanade5 (unless they fuck w the rotation) I am so scared. let’s all kill ourselves.

> unserious note: if nene5 & kanade5 are both next month i am going to be going fucking insane. And I just know kanade5 will be so serious and nene5 is gonna be more wxs beach episode era unserious clownery training arc shit. Truly a niigo/wxs foils moment.

Found an event TL. oh mizuki……. Oh…..

[theironbottomsound]

[REVIEW] Corpse Party: Blood Drive - The Finality

Makoto Kendouin has returned with yet another sequel of the Corpse Party series. The sequel known as Corpse Party: Blood Drive serves as the concluding tale of the Heavenly Host saga. New characters, new enemies, and a whole new Heavenly Host Elementary School await the unfortunate souls.

The game now comes with a full 3D rendered characters and environment, as well as new 2D sprites. New mechanics have been introduced which isn’t found in the previous games. Some mechanics also returned to full enhance the player experience.

Corpse Party: Blood Drive follows the story from Book of Shadows’ final chapter (it is highly recommended to play the first two games). Ayumi Shinozaki, stricken with grief and guilt at the loss of her dear friends and her sister, seeks out a way to revive her fallen friends. Armed with the Book of Shadows she found in the Shinozaki estate, Ayumi sets out on a journey to redeem herself and undo everything she’s done. But little did she know, a new curse is rapidly growing within the walls of Heavenly Host.

I tried to be as vague as possible with the synopsis to not spoil the story of the entire game to you. If you have no idea on the story of Corpse Party, I highly suggest you play at least the first game. Blood Drive is not an entry-game for players who are new to the series to pick up.

Story

The game is composed of 10 main chapters as well as 8 extra chapters. This is an upgrade from the previous games who only sort 5 and 8 main chapters respectively. Each chapter will give the players the ability to control certain characters and navigate their way into the halls of Heavenly Host. Ayumi is stricken with guilt at being responsible for the death of her friends: Suzumoto Mayu, Sakurato Morishige, Shishido Yui, and Shinohara Seiko, who all died during the events of the first game. It is said that those who died in Heavenly Host, their existence in the real world will be wiped out. It means that no one would be able to remember them except for the survivors.

New characters were introduced in Blood Drive. While they “may” be new to the main games, most of them have appeared in a spin-off game called Corpse Party: Anthology~ Sachiko’s Hysteric Birthday 2U.

Some of these new characters include Niwa Aiko, an intelligence agent and a student of the Paulownia Academy. As one of the characters who accompanied Ayumi in her journey, she is a cheerful person whose real intention is to extort information with the people around her. Her sister, Niwa Kuon, served as the homeroom teacher for Ayumi’s class into the game.

Another one would be Magari Mizuki, a transfer student from the Paulownia Academy. A girl who’s a part of an occult and has vast knowledge of the Book of Shadows. She helped Ayumi traverse the halls of the school in search for a way to revive her fallen friends.

The game also now sports a new antagonist under the name of Sachi. Sachi roams the halls of Heavenly Host. She poses a grave threat to those unfortunate souls who traverse the halls of the school.

It is also said that Blood Drive a lot of references from the other Corpse Party Media. It references heavily from the first two games, Corpse Party Cemetery0, and the anime OVA, Corpse Party Tortured Souls. If you have any idea on what the story of the mentioned media is, then I do hope you’d immediately get the reference after encountering them in the game.

I’d probably talk more about my insights of the story later in this post.

Gameplay

The gameplay vastly improved compared to the first two games. After the backlash that was Book of Shadows, the devs listened to the cries of fans and reverted back to an adventure-type of game. With the enhanced technology of the Playstation Vita, it gave Team GrisGris, the company responsible for the series, new abilities and mechanics that they can incorporate into the game.

Puzzle-solving has returned from the first game. Players get to solve the puzzle behind the story to unlock new areas, new CGs, and progress into the story. The puzzles have been fairly difficult compared to Blood Covered. Each action of the player will have its consequence whether it is good or bad.

The flashlight mechanic has been introduced to the player in this game. Players can use it in order to navigate the school safely. It comes with battery lifespan so players need to scavenge around for batteries to keep the light going. Upon the fans’ requests, the devs also placed in an “endless battery mode”.

Characters can now move diagonally into the world. This is really helpful when dodging traps, enemies, and other entities inside the school. Phantoms are also incorporated into the game to chase you around the school until you have successfully hid from them or purify them with talismans. This posed a problem because the game lags EVERY TIME a phantom appears. This kinda ruins the overall player experience for lagging on a console. Plus, they can be pretty annoying because they follow you wherever you go.

Graphics

The graphics of this game have improved. Gone were the days of pixel sprites and now comes the age of 3D models in the series. Blood Drive is the second game of the series to ever support 3D models (first being 2013 Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient). While the upgrade from pixel-art to 3D models is good, I think it doesn’t seem to fit well with the overall theme of the game. They looked cute but they’re supposed to be running for their lives, right?

The CGs returned to facilitate better experience for players upon reaching crucial parts of the story. I want to note also that the game is very very brutal. They took the liberty of not putting up CGs or torturing the character models for the sake of narrative execution of the story. This can be their way of “censoring” brutal moments that may deem unfit for their target audience.

Audio

The audio of the franchise is something that I really really enjoyed hearing. Each has been recorded and cued to play at important moments in order to provide the overall atmospheric feel of the current situation in the game. Even if the game doesn’t provide a CGI on some of the brutal murders, you couldn’t help but cringe at what the character is going through with the use of carefully executed sound effects.

The BGM feels great although for me, it doesn’t seem to sit well with the game. BGM now sports more techno-feel at some parts, unfit for a horror game. Kinda ruins the immersion that I have while playing the game. Unlike in the first two games, where the BGM can subtlely provide context on what’s the next thing that would happen, in Blood Drive, it’s almost impossible to decipher what’s next because of how the BGM is played. This isn’t a bad thing since it keeps players in their toes with what’s happening story-wise.

This time around, there are two opening themes that players can listen to. “In the Rain”, sung by Hara Yumi, is played all throughout the first 6 chapters of the game. I couldn’t help but feel that the song reflects Ayumi’s desire to regain her friends from the curse of the school.

The second opening theme is called “Keshin” (Trans: Incarnation) sung by Ayumi’s voice actress, Imai Asami. The song will start to play from Chapter 7 until the final chapter. The song basically reflects Ayumi’s determination and resolve after finding out the truth behind Heavenly Host. Knowing the dangers that she has to face, she steeled herself to face them head on and not run away anymore.

Note: The following below will contain MAJOR SPOILERS to the entire Corpse Party series. If you haven’t had any idea about the overall story of the game, turn away NOW.

Overall Insights

Blood Drive is (in my opinion) the scariest game out of the Corpse Party franchise. I was really scared while playing this game. Aside from the darkened view of the hallways, phantoms will start to chase you out of nowhere and I, as a player, really really hate things that chase you around in horror games. I’m fine with jumpscares just not something that will chase me around.

The story for me feels a bit weird. The inclusion of more depth in the occult-theme of the series kinda threw me off-guard. It kinda became a fantastical thing compared with Blood Covered. Though I’d admit, it was this storyline that gave answers to my questions ever since finishing the first two games. But upon clearing the game’s main story, it just popped out a lot of questions from me once more.

I hated Ayumi ever since the first game. Whiny, crybaby, and disregards other people’s feelings, she was the reason why my favourite character in this series is dead. However, in Blood Drive, I can see the toll of the stress from dealing with black magic have an effect with the blue-haired girl. Having lost her friends in the school, her sister in the Shinozaki estate after her meddling with a forbidden spell, with Naomi’s left eye being damaged because of it. She also tried to deal with everything’s that’s happened on her own so that her friends wouldn’t worry. She became desperate. It turns her into someone who’d trust anyone who has knowledge crucial to Heavenly Host. It was because of her willingness to trust anyone at this point that kickstarted the events of the game.

Her friends, the other survivors of the first game, are all worried about their beloved class-rep. So when they learned that Ayumi went back to Heavenly Host alone in order to atone for her wrongdoings, they took it upon themselves to bring her back to the real world. I felt each of the character’s struggle into thinking of coming back to the place where their friends met their demise once more.

I get to see Ayumi, distressed and emotionally unstable, which was used against her. Her distraught made me easily manipulated by some of the characters to do their goal. I think that Blood Drive expounded more on Ayumi’s character development as she comes to terms with what she has done. Her naiveness paved way for her to be more determined and resolved after going through harsh challenges and emotional stress.

So over the course of this game, I slowly started to like Ayumi. Her coming into terms and doing whatever it takes to bring the dead back to life amazes me. It keeps me on my toes on what’s the next thing that would happen. I was also secretly hoping she’ll be able to revive Seiko and the others and have the happy ending that they all so deserve.  For the first time in my playthroughs of the games, I hoped that finally, Ayumi’s desires would see the light.

Aside from Ayumi, my fondness of Yoshiki also grew in this game. It is still clear that he truly cares for Ayumi, even to the point of following her blindly into Heavenly Host. The girl used to brush off his antics and concerns but in the course of Blood Drive, the two of them managed to settle their differences...slightly. Ayumi still brushes off Yoshiki at times but acknowledges his presence more over the course of the game.

As for Heavenly Host itself, my first reaction to it is “what the hell happened in here?!” Red patches of blob are scattered all over the school. Tentacle-like tendrils wrap themselves in doors, preventing entry to those who wish to enter. When they say that the school is currently unstable, I was expecting jumbled dimensions and all but not those tentacle...things. It’s disgusting.  It doesn’t help that later in the game, the school will once again change its layout, making it even more disgusting! There’s even a poop-shaped thing in the middle of the room!

Another thing I really loved about this series is that the game leaves what is happening to your imagination. Certain parts of the game do not have anything going on in them but the descriptive narrative and the audio enhances the story for the player. While this may be their way of censoring “brutal” happenings in the story, it is also a way for players to let their imagination run wild as to what is currently happening to the game. If you have a wild imagination then I hope you’d be able to sleep at night.

The phantoms are the only thing that I really hate with the new Heavenly Host. I tend to suck at the hiding mechanic of the game so I mostly avoid places with phantoms lurking around unless I have a talisman for them. They also made my game lag so much every time they spawn, which incites panic to me. The lag is a result of poor optimization on the developers’ end since it happens 100% of the time.

Speaking of development, there was a game-crashing bug that I encountered in between chapters 3 and 4. Upon reaching a certain part of the game, it will crash. This is a known bug in the Japanese release and the developers made a patch to fix it. But I’m not sure if the patch got carried over to the West when they did their localisation.

All in all, Corpse Party: Blood Drive serves as a sick, twisted, but overall the best way to end the Heavenly Host saga once and for all. The ending of Blood Drive has been referenced in Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient. The game is set 5 years after the events of Blood Drive and for those who have seen or played the game, the introduction of the game finally made sense once you’ve completed Blood Drive. I highly highly recommend this title for anyone who is a fan of the horror genre as well as a fan of the Corpse Party series. Setting aside the technology problems, its well-written story and characters will be enough to keep you up at night.

Make sure to play this at night with your headphones on for a much better and thrilling experience!