NISA is on to a good thing with the Yomawari series. These might look like humble little indie anime games, but they know how to throw an emotional and horrific gut punch and a half. The publisher has a third on the way later this year and has shared an announcement trailer.
Related reading: Catch up on the first two Yomawari titles here.
From the press release it sounds like the game will follow carefully in the tradition of the first two, mixing Japanese Shinto-style horror with a modern suburban setting: “To break a curse placed upon her, a young girl must venture into the haunted streets of her town at night to search for her lost memories while evading the twisted spirits that lurk in the darkness.”
What will get you with these games is the way they very cleverly tap into the careful blend of tragedy and sheer fear that marks the best in Japanese horror – it’s so much more terrifying precisely because you empathise with the fundamentally human stories of loss, regret, anger and misery that the characters are going through. I can’t wait for the moment where Lost in the Dark will inevitably do something that has me sitting there with my mouth wide open for a few minutes at the subtly and evocatively shocking thing that just happened. The previous two games each had a good one or two of those.
Anyhow, we don’t have much else to go on but the trailer at this stage. The game launches on Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC in Fall (Spring for Aussies… expect Halloween) this year.
See? Who says video games are dead! It’s the same with cinema, there’s tons of gems and always will be, you just have to know where to look. 🙂 Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll be sure to search out the others.