Corpse Party (2021)

Kept getting wrong end in chapter 1 for 6 hours, looked at a guide. Still got wrong end, did something different and beat chapter 1.

Cried as I went to chapter 2, Got lost going around, chat helped me (shout out to croaking) if not i would've been lost and died for a long time :Wheeze:

Will recommend to friends to watch them go through the pain like i did.

Very traumatizing! The story, cast, and voice acting are fantastic. There are tons of endings to explore, and the gore is intense. I had a lot of fun playing this on my Steam Deck (It runs really well). Just don’t play it at midnight if you want to sleep peacefully!

Honestly did not expect the storytelling to be this great, an incredibly good story with plenty of twists and turns to keep you interested. Also one of the chapters entire plot is about someone having to pee, just pee in the goddamn corner god fucking damnit.

Ah, a classic horror from my days in high school, and I now return older than the teacher character... how cruel time can be...
So yes, I've loved this series for a very long time, for better or for worse. But the best of the best is no doubt its first entry, which already had a different iteration on Steam, I'll get into later. Corpse Party, for most of its entries, are a masterclass in combining text, sound, and voice acting to truly paint horrific scenarios in your head, even more so here for its first entry where there are pixel sprites. And the quality of what's depicted in the CGs feels so unique and iconic to look back on it now.
And some newcomers may be put off by some mutterings of fanservice and yes, I must say... that is a weakness in this series, especially in that the bloody horror genre doesn't lend itself well to random panty shots weirdly placed in otherwise disturbing CGs. And it's much worse the further you go, especially by the time you get to Blood Drive, but that game is another matter entirely. For the here-and-now with this game, you can rest assured it honestly isn't too bad. If you're not looking for it or focusing on it for more than a second, then what you're left with is really solid horror that spun off into a whole franchise for a reason.
Now between the two, Corpse Party and Corpse Party (2021) can mostly be differentiated by the art used, including character halfbody sprites and CGs. This alone, in my eyes, makes this version (as well as just about any other port) the superior version, and being the most recent iteration as of now means that it also has the most to offer in terms of EX chapters. Not to say that someone couldn't enter into the story just as well as from the old version, but this feels like the far more definitive entry point that I would recommend to anyone.
Good for achievement hunters too! Very straightforward goals. Literally just "get every ending (including Wrong Ends)" and "pick up all the collectibles". Don't even have to work to unlock every single CG for the gallery like I remember doing for my PSP version! Goals that feel good to achieve, not too frustrating overall.
Having not yet had the pleasure to play through the 3DS "Back to School" edition (which is a shame because those little Seiko & Naomi figures that came with them are SO CUTE), there is a series of EX Chapters I enjoyed that, technically, are old news. However, with each edition they add more. There is a new EX chapter set in 2020 that feels like a loveletter to the fans, even if they had more fart fetish and Blood Drive connections in there than I would like. And another one that secretly follows a character's Wrong End, in which I was thrilled it took me by surprise after I mentally tried to place the timeline for the chapter before the heartwarming reveal. The added content is good content.
And to any newcomers who see all the Corpse Party titles on Steam and need someone to break down a play order and how they related to each other, here it be:
Corpse Party or Corpse Party (2021) - these are the first entries that cover the same story. For the reasons listed above, I recommend this 2021 version, but both are available and would largely convey the same thing. The change in art style moving on from the first Steam Corpse Party will be pretty wild though.
Corpse Party: Book of Shadows - The prologue and epilogue are canon and will lead into the opening of the more traditional sequel, Corpse Party: Blood Drive. The Chapters in-between, however, will either act as prequels and/or AU short stories based off of a very important Wrong End from the first game. Very non-linear, but still great horror and really goes into detail on the lives of certain characters and how certain events of the first game came to be.
Corpse Party: Sweet Sachiko's Hysteric Birthday Bash - largely non-canon comedic and often fanservicey fluff that lets the horror take a backseat while you kind of chill with the characters in wild scenarios. Obviously people might have gripes about making a comedy out of a horror series, but imo if you go in knowing what it's supposed to be it's actually an amazing time and even until this point Corpse Party still hasn't missed. Weirdly also ties into Corpse Party: Blood Drive.
Corpse Party: Blood Drive - We actually hit the first full canonical sequel, wow. And it's uhhhh.... Ok, yeah, don't recommend it, but it's there. NOW Corpse Party officially missed. Yeah, this is pretty much "leave the fandom" bad, but I'm still locked in. You can read my review or others for more detail, but yeah that's what comes next.
And then we now have warring concepts for a Corpse Party 2 on Steam.
Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient - as far as I and others are concerned, this was an incomplete demo for where they wanted to go after the "Heavenly Host" arc of Corpse Party. New scenarios, new characters, new location. The story didn't seem bad at all as far as I could tell, but mechanically it needed some work. Pick it up or don't. This was the last word we had, aside from the occasional port, about Corpse Party UNTIL
Corpse Party II: Darkness Distortion - That will apparently exist. As of writing right now, it's not out yet, store page isn't even up yet, but it's happening. Physical "Ayame's Mercy" Collector's Edition looks sweet. Looks like they finally ditched the Blood Drive chibis. I'm guessing this is what the development for Dead Patient eventually lead to? It does still seem to take place in a hospital. So we'll see?
Closing thoughts: this fandom needs a resurgence; please play it

I really enjoyed this game but getting the true ending in chapter 5 is more of a chore than anything and I had cloud save issues between steam deck and PC. Other than that it was good.

Good game, but why couldnt yuka just piss in a fucking bucket istg

I had heard of Corpse Party way back when however, like a lot of games inevitably, I never got the chance to get around to it. But what’s a time as ever than the spooky month!
Although I would consider Corpse P arty a game, I do have to include the caveat that it’s barely one, far closer to a VN than a normal game, but does the bare minimum that I would consider it a game. Now whether it’s a game or not has no bearing on it’s quality but I’m of the opinion that Visual novels are not games, however games can have heavy visual novel elements, which Corpse Party falls into such category. So if you are looking for some top down shooting or an RPG you’ve come the wrong place. But hey, adventure gamers I’ll take your coat!
Corpse Party begins with a bunch of High School students and their homeroom teacher getting together on a school night to practice this weird ritual, for fun. There was always weird things about their school, weird things that you’d wonder why they couldn’t build their high school literally LITERALLY anywhere else. But that’s probably not important. This is also a time of goodbyes, as one of your classmates will have their last day before they transfer. Some tension here, some unrequited feelings there, some...really REALLY weird feelings...somewhere. But enough of the high school drama, onward with this spooky business!
This weird ritual is called “Sachiko Ever After”, which would allegedly allow them to stay friends forever no matter where they are. As they did the ritual, something seems to go wrong, and the group is then transported to this nightmare alternate reality version of their school, with deadly ghost and killer traps are abound. The group has been separated, so it’s up to the ingenuity and perseverance of each group to join again once once more, and leave this hellish nightmare before even more things get “separated. But hey, if you can’t make it out, no hard feelings, eh?
Corpse Party is more in line with an adventure game, having you find items to access different rooms, solve puzzles, and while you’re at it running from the murderous ghost trying to rip you apart. The game is split up into five chapters. Each chapter has one true ending, and several “wrong ends” that have someone being brutally butchered. They don’t call it Corpse Party for nothing.
The gameplay is pretty basic, and even the AI of the ghost that chase you is fairly laughable. I wouldn’t really play this game to be challenged in anyway as you’re really just here for the story. The puzzles themselves are fairly simple with what you’re supposed to do usually being pretty straightforward (but not ALWAYS so, don’t want to name any Nurse’s Offi- I mean names). At most you will be looking for where to go, which I feel the game could be better at informign you about as I did spend a lot of time walking aimless through those creepy halls looking for story progress. It ultimately wasn’;t that bad though.
But fear not in thinking that this is wanton slaughter, as there is an underlying and quite detailed mystery underlying this ghoul school. I try to make my reviews spoiler free so I can’t really go further in it without breaking that rule, but I should say that I felt that the first 3 or so chapters felt a bit too “meandery” for my liking as you don’t really get into the real meat of the story until Chapter 4 or 5, with that same meat being spread pretty thin in the first 3 chapters, like you’re eating a cheap TV dinner.
There is also an issue in which in order to get the full extent of the plot, you will have to view the extra episodes, in which you will see flashbacks of the past and what other characters got up to while the main story focus most of the initial cast. Generally didn’t really like this as if you just focus on the chapter stories a lot of story arcs and “Character whereabouts” feel pretty anticlimactic. At the time of this review I have not reviewed the Extras episodes, but will do so in the future.
Corpse Party has a lot of spinoffs and sequels, and the canonicity of aspects of them (and even entire games) and called into question. I thought the game ended pretty well ignoring the unresolved things but apparently they get further touched upon in Book of Shadows, a game of essentially Extra chapters I hear. Take that what you will.
All in all, an interesting story. Port was good and I had no complaints besides wishing the game would let you see the dialog log during cut scenes. Understand though that in a lot of ways it’s not wholly straightforward, so in order to understand everything you’ll have to do a little digging.