Corpse Party (2021)

**Corpse Party (2021)**CastGallery

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*Corpse Party (2021)*, released in Japan as *Corpse Party: Blood Covered ...Repeated Fear*, is a horror adventure game developed by *Team GrisGris* and published by *Xseed Games*. Originally developed as *Corpse Party: NewChapter* for Japanese mobile phones, *Corpse Party* was a remake of the 1996 NEC PC-9801 video game *Corpse-Party*. *Corpse Party (2021)* is a refresh of the remake. Players control a group of high school students who are transported to a haunted elementary school after performing a supposed friendship ritual, looking for a way to escape. *Corpse Party* is the first game in the series' rebooted continuity. Since its release, the game has received generally positive reviews across all platforms, gaining praise for its inventive sound design, though it received criticism for its drawn out wrong endings. A sequel, *Corpse Party: Book of Shadows*, was released for the *PlayStation Portable* in 2011. *Corpse Party (2021)* was the first game the *Syndromedia* took on to create an English dub of.

## Gameplay

*Corpse Party* is played in a third-person view from a top-down perspective. Players are tasked with exploring the haunted school grounds for a means of escape. To fulfill this task, characters must interact with the environment and surroundings, such as picking up objects, talking to other characters, and inspecting documents while avoiding enemies. Characters possess hit points (HP), which measure how much damage they can take from enemies and obstacles before dying. Unlike the original 1996 *Corpse-Party*, the remake omits role-playing game elements like magic and a battle system, with characters taking damage exclusively through overhead navigation. *Corpse Party* also contains longer dialogue sequences during story progression, where full character portraits are used along with the 2D in-game character sprites. These sequences make up a large portion of the game's playtime, which has caused some to outright describe *Corpse Party* as a visual novel, rather than an adventure game. These sequences make use of the game's binaural audio, allowing players to hear events in perceived three-dimensional space.The game's story is split into five chapters, each focusing on different characters and featuring multiple endings that are achieved based on the player's in-game decisions: a "True Ending" required for the game's progression; and several "Wrong Endings", the game's equivalent of a game over. If a character's hit points reach zero or a poor decision is made, a Wrong Ending will be achieved, requiring the player to reload their save file to continue playing. As players progress through the game, they unlock ten extra chapters that focus on the game's side characters and expand the storyline.

## Plot

Set in 2008 Fujisawa, Japan, *Corpse Party* takes place at Kisaragi Academy, a high school built on the remains of the remains of Heavenly Host Elementary School, which was closed when a series of murders and disappearances occurred years prior. The game primarily centers around a group of nine, seven of which are students of Kisaragi Academy. These include Satoshi and Yuka Mochida, Naomi Nakashima, Ayumi Shinozaki, and Yoshiki Kishinuma, as well as Seiko Shinohara, Mayu Suzumoto, Sakutaro Morishige, and their teacher, Yui Shishido.

Prompted by Ayumi, the group gathers at night at Kisaragi Academy to perform a charm circulated around the internet as Sachiko Ever After, which would supposedly allow them to stay friends for eternity. Upon its completion, the group is instead transported to a different dimension, where a haunted Heavenly Host still stands.

In the group's time in Heavenly Host, they discover that many others have been transported to the school before them, most of which have already been killed. With four of the original group members dying along the way, the remaining five learn that the school's existence is a result of Sachiko Shinozaki, a young girl in a red dress. Sachiko, who was murdered alongside her mother, kills the inhabitants of Heavenly Host in rage over their deaths, and was responsible for the murders of the other students at Heavenly Host before it was shut down.

In an attempt to appease her soul, the group collects the remains of the students she killed and return them to her. When this succeeds, they are transported back to their dimension, but learn that the memories of everybody who died in Heavenly Host are erased, as if they had never existed.