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Kamikakushi? Do You Love Me? Are You Riding? Say You'll Never Ever Leave from Aside Me.

  • Frogge
  • 02/01/2019 06:46 PM
  • 2455 views

Kamikakushi by TobiObito4Ever
Length: ~1 hour


Kamikakushi is a horror game. Actually, scratch that. I honestly have trouble calling this a horror game, because the most frightening thing you'll come across in this game is probably just a few pools of blood. I think Kamikakushi is much of a mystery adventure than a horror game. This is the kind of game I would recommend to someone who's new to rpg maker horror games but is kind of a wuss. Of course, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can serve that purpose well. Not everyone has the stomach for gorier, spookier games, so sometimes you just need lighter toned games like this one, and I don't think it's an issue that this game isn't scary. Anyway, as I said, this is game you could recommend to your friends who scare easily but want to get started on the rpg maker horror genre. But of course, if you're going to recommend a game, it shouldn't just fit their preferences, but it should also be good. So, is Kamikakushi actually any good? I'm happy to say that, yeah, Kamikakushi is actually a pretty decent little game. Nowhere near being the best, but it's something I wouldn't have trouble recommending.

The story features Yasu, Shin and a whole bunch of other Japanese names that I did not bother to remember. Yasu is forced into a shrine by bully friend 1 and 2 and she must escape. A simple setup, and one that's already been done to death, but there's a few intrigues here that isn't present in every other game of this type. For one, I like that the game focuses heavily on Yasu's cowardice. It leaves a lot of room for character development in a way that not a lot of rpg maker horror games give their protagonists. That being said, I can't help but feel the set up is considerably more prominent than the payoff. This only sort of comes into play in the true ending when the main character must embrace a brave fate of sorts that I won't spoil here, but it's just glossed over. I can't help but feel a little disappointed by the lack of any scenes where Yasu has to embrace her fears to stand up to the spoilery identity of the villian.


This is everyone on the rmn discord trying to get me to finish my games.


Anyway, that's not really a huge issue, but it's the benchmark for how generic the story turns out to be. Kamikakushi's story is extremely simple. You can predict the twist almost immediately, especially if you have played other rpg maker games of this sort before. To add to the lack of scares, Yasu is actually a very sarcastic character who does not tend to take her situation too seriously. I enjoy these sorts of characters, and I think it works out here considering the game isn't scary either way. In more atmospheric titles, this would have been completely out of place, but I think it works well in establishing Kamikakushi's biggest selling point - it's pretty entertaining.

You see, Kamikakushi isn't a gritty, artistic game with deeper meanings, social commentary, professional writing techniquest, et cetera. Don't go into Kamikakushi expecting it to be the Hereditary of rpg horror, but rather the Krampus, Cabin in the Woods or Scream. Of course, it's nothing like those movies, but I'm not here to list all the differences, I'll just give you the point of my comparison - Kamikakushi values entertainment over quality storytelling (in this case, I guess Cabin in the Woods and Scream are both bad examples considering both are technically satirizations, with Cabin in the Woods in particular having one of the best stories in any horror movie ever, and they- okay you know what I'm not going into this). Anyway, the point remains, Kamikakushi is an entertaining game to play, not one of amazing quality.

The gameplay actually sort of complements the story well. It's an exteremely easy game. I highly doubt you're likely to get stuck on even a single puzzle. There usually aren't a lot of rooms to explore and the path forward is pretty clear. There's chase scenes, but the enemies actually move at your walking speed, so if you just run, you absolutely won't have any trouble. I know this would be a huge plus for some people because I know the rpg horror community has very mixed feelings on chase scenes. Some people absolutely despite them because they have a lot of trouble, while others like me find them to be an entertaining rush of dopamine given that you don't lose a lot of progress for dying. I think the former would enjoy these chases in Kamikakushi a whole lot more than the latter.


Either this is a really clever reference or a big missed oppurtunity.


Gameplay being easy can turn some people off, but in this case, I think it actually works out in the game's favor. Even some of my favorite rpg maker horror games of all time like The Witch's House really bore me when replaying them when I get to the less straightforward later parts of the game. Kamikakushi, on the other hand, can be picked up and enjoyed by anyone. Never getting stuck is likely to make you less bored, but I can also see why this might be an issue to an audience who enjoys puzzles that make them think more. That being said, I think this makes Kamikakushi even more beginner friendly. Even if you don't scare easily, you might still find that the puzzles in the more mainstream rpg horrors are a bit too obscure if you've only recently joined the fandom, so Kamikakushi can be a good intro as to what you should expect.

Now while this is not something I usually expect of a game of this type, I still would have liked to see the game more well polished. I ran into lots of passability bugs all across the game, as well as other issues. One weird one is that the footstep sound effect for wooden floors is actually delayed, so it plays slightly after you actually move. Or not. You see, if you just keep moving into a solid object, the footstep sounds keep playing even though you're not actually moving, for some reason.

This also becomes very clear in the game's visuals. There's good to be found here. The game generally looks pretty good. The maps are not bad at all, the screen isn't ridiculously dark unlike a lot of rpg horrors, and the choice in sprites and tiles used is pretty decent, and most of them blend together pretty well. It's an interesting choice to use so many MV tiles in ace, but they actually don't look bad at all. Sadly, a lot of lackluster things shine through here too. The first red flag for me was the character art, which is pretty much really weirdly resized for every character and really doesn't look that great. There's even some weird inconsistency in that some busts appear above the window while some appear behind. There's also quite a bit of inconsistency in character sprites as the developer tries to blend everything from tall sprites in the style of mack to looseleaf characters to xp rtp characters to sprites in the stlye of MV's rtp. It's not as big of an offender as the art, which otherwise actually looks really good. If only it was resized properly.


Uh oh, some's talking bust has been stretched real bad.


There's minor mapping issues here and there too, such as walls that are sized differently than each other. I remember one room had two tile high walls near the top but three tile high walls on the left side, which kind of gives the room a weird perspective. The art can also sometimes be inconsistent with the sprites. For example, after getting a haircut, Yasu's sprite is wearing a black shirt while her bust art has her wearing a sort of sweater jacket.

I also wish the deaths were a bit more gory. This game takes a lot of inspiration when it comes to the death scenes from the likes of The Witch's House, and you can tell. Sadly, however, what made me want to see every single death in that game was how ridiculous and gory they were. Most deaths in Kakurashi are there, but they lack the fun in dying that The Witch's House had. You can get your head slashed off or strangled on the toilet, but it's not shown on screen. That's disappointing.

Beyond this, there isn't anything super remarkable about the game's presentation. It's not a bad looking game, but neither is it a bad one. A few weird visual issues here and there are really awkward, but they don't particularly ruin the game's aesthetic, but I do still hope to see them fixed if a future update happs.


The stretching on these talking busts keep getting increasingly worse.


As for the characters, there aren't any of them I think I particularly cared for. The mom from the true ending is pretty badass, I guess. Yasu's sarcastic remarks make her dialogue fun to read, but she's still missing the proper character development to be a great character. Still, I'll take her over the mary sues from the plethora of Ib inspired rpg horrors any day. The funniest thing for me here is how the developer talks about the villian, whose identity I won't mention. They bring up in the bonus room that they had mixed feelings writing him, because they hated him and wanted to kick him in the trash. But honestly, the villian isn't all that menacing at all. It's kind of interesting to see someone actually hate a character just because of one of the reasons among being a serial killer, abusing others or being a racist/homophobic/generally bigoted dude (I won't mention which it is in this case). These sorts of characteristics have already been done to death, and I certainly know I actually have trouble hating a character just because they have one of these features. If you've seen other pieces of media before, you've probably already seen a gazillion characters like this, and chances are you're used to it by now, so I feel like if you want the audience to hate a character, you probably need to push the bad characteristics a bit more. You can even have a character who's kind of silly and not very serious like the one in this game and still make the player have a love hate relationship with them. Look at Count Olaf, my recently discovered favorite example of a villian who's equally hilarious and menacing. (Sorry, had to throw the Series of Unfortunate Events reference in there)

I think I summed up my opinions on Kamikakushi pretty well in the first few paragraphs alreay, but to give you a quick tl;dr rundown; Kamikakushi is an entertaining experience, but not a very well polished one. It's not a game that is likely to scare you, or even get you tensed up. It's well worth playing if you've got an hour to spare and you're not looking for a super serious game, and I really didn't find myself getting bored with it even once.

I give Kamikakushi a pretty solid three and a half weirdly stretched foxes out of five.




Come on, you guys, I'm rmn's residential sex crazed maniac (virgin) and even I know better than to get it on in a haunted shrine. Kinda brought it upon yourselves.

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Thanks for your blunt honesty. To be honest, I had one heck of a time getting those face graphics right. Either the quality suffered so much you couldn't see the expression or they covered up the sprites.

Anyway, thank you for telling me of any errors I missed. If you could tell me exactly where, I'll do my best to fix 'em.

I mostly kinda love and hate writing the villain because of how hammy he is and I'm like "NO! Focus!"

Funny you should mention the gory deaths on the toilet. I DID try to add a movie that pretty much showed poor Yasu getting stabbed but the game kept crashing.
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
Crap, should've noted down the errors while I was playing. Sadly, I don't remember any in particular right now, sorry.

I'm glad you enjoyed the review! Hope nothing came across as too harsh!
author=Frogge
Crap, should've noted down the errors while I was playing. Sadly, I don't remember any in particular right now, sorry.

I'm glad you enjoyed the review! Hope nothing came across as too harsh!

And also, the reason Mefis hates Shin isn't because he's homophobic. Mefis couldn't care less about what you do in the bedroom. Anyone who has to listen to wild foxes screeching outside when you're trying to sleep will know how Mefis feels. Just so we're clear: Mefis is just apathetic, not homophobic.

Shin himself is actually pansexual. He says it himself in the bonus room: "Men, women, everything in between? I have no preference." Why would I have a homosexual character be homophobic? It makes no sense. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
Somehow I completely missed the fact that LGBT was in any way involved and I didn’t really suspect homophobia from Mefis, so you’re all good.

(Besides, having homophobic characters is fine. Not every character has to be a precious snowflake, you’re allowed to have assholes)
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