Leave

For its length and simplicity, you may notice that Leave sits at a surprising pedestal of popularity. I think Leave sits at the perfect spot of obscure mainstream for the rpg horror audience. It's the kind of game that's not exactly as mainstream to the genre as games like The Witch's House or Ib, but most rpg horror fans have still somehow played this one. It's not talked about often, but it's undoubtedly became one of the most played games of the genre. Leave has a special place in my heart, not only for the nostalgia but also for traumatizing me when I played it as a kid years back thanks to that stupid bathroom jumpscare.



Recently, I played STYGIAN, another game by developer Astral that sadly never saw an English release. The developer seems to have one other game called DISORDER which I've never actually played, but I'm fairly sure it shares some similarities with both games, but I'll get to that later on. Anyway, coming out of STYGIAN, I figured I would replay Leave as well. It had been a while since I last played this game (Fairly sure this is my 4th playthrough? Could also be the 3rd, so don't quote me on it) and finally even drop it a review.

It's very hard to describe Leave without spoiling anything. Essentially, it's about a girl trying to leave her house while being chased by a red woman. For how simple the red woman's design is, it's surprisingly memorable. You could pretty much show any rpg horror fan the picture and they would probably be able to recognize that it is from Leave, despite the fact that there are countless other ghost ladies in the genre. I will admit, though, her design is fairly creepy for what it's worth, and if you scare very easily like child me, she's probably also engraved in your nightmares for jumpscaring you real bad a couple times.

In terms of story, though, Leave isn't particularly impressive. The ending is about as cliche as it gets, and the only interesting parts are pretty hard to understand. It could be due to some things getting lost in translation, but I had a hard time understanding what exactly was going on personally.



As for the ending itself, this is where I think the game shares its similarities with STYGIAN and DISORDER. Do watch out for spoilers for this game alongside STYGIAN, and possibly DISORDER as well below.



Perhaps the coolest twist in Leave is that the ending is actually hiding in plain sight - the title screen. While I don't suggest doing this without playing the game first since it has spoilers, if you actually put the title screen into photoshop and turn up the brightness, you can uncover some hidden text. The ending itself is pretty lame because, you know, it's so overused, but at least the whole title screen thing is really interesting.

As for what other aspect of Leave stands out, I would say it would be the presentation. The game makes heavy use of the color red, and as cliche as it is to use red in your horror games, it's there because it works. Quoth the best horror youtuber, John Wolfe, "red means scary guys!" The dark red atmosphere of Leave gives it a very tense mood, and I appreciate the consistency in its usage. The mapping's pretty okay and the photorealistic aesthetic is kind of interesting. It is a shame that the game doesn't use much original art because the PASS folder (and STYGIAN's facesets) imply that Astral is actually a pretty damn good artist. I do believe this version of Leave is actually outdated as the freem version seems to have completely different looking screenshots, so I suppose if you can understand japanese or you can somehow get one of those rpg maker translation tools to work, you might want to play that instead. It could be the case that the newer version actually does feature some art by Astral themselves, and I would hope it does. Another rare part of this game is that it actually features an original soundtrack by Astral themselves, and while it's not particularly mindblowing, it's definetly spooky. I would compare it to that of Silent Hill's soundtrack, though obviously not as good. But hey, not like it could be, this is Silent Hill we're talking about.

The presentation does have a couple glaring issues I would like to point out, though. Again, the game has a newer updated version, so it's highly possible that these have already been fixed, but it's not the version on RMN so I suppose they're still worth pointing out. First off, the blood effects look ridiculously cartoony. It's very hard to take them seriously when they look like they are just red strokes with the default MS paint brush.



As for my other big issue, it's that the game is very dark. Of course, that's pretty much become a staple for most games using the Khas Light Effects script, but Leave actively feels like it's going out of its way to ensure that the only light source is from your tiny ass lantern. The lanterns are all turned off and you cannot turn them back on, and this can lead to some parts of the game being really hard to see.

I suppose the last thing to go over here would be the gameplay, and there really isn't much to talk about. You solve a few extremely minor puzzles and, well, leave. That's about it, really. I don't have an issue with minimalist gameplay, as I always say, as long as the puzzles themselves aren't bad. Luckily, the ones in Leave, while not really anything interesting, are at least easy enough to figure out on your own and don't immediately have your running to a walkthrough. There is one section that pretty much just requires luck in the basement after unlocking the padlock, but I managed to get through on my second try, so it wasn't horrible, at least. Still, I would be in favor of removing it completely, but it could have been a lot worse.

Leave is a pretty average experience, and not one I would have recomended had it not been for the nostalgia value. It might be worth playing for the presentation and scares since it's so short, but you won't find much here that you wouldn't find in any other rpg horror game. Final verdict; STYGIAN is better. Please give us an official English translation of STYGIAN someday. Thanks. I give Leave two and a half ghost ladies out of five.