Howling Village: Echoes Reviews

（中文评测在下面！） Howling Village: Echoes (Inunakimura: Zankyou) is the official game to the 2020 J-horror film Howling Village (Inunakimura), which is directed by Shimizu Takashi and features Miyoshi Ayaka. The game was originally released in mobile platform in 2020, and now it is ported onto NS and PC. (The porting is bad though, the game even tells you to TAP the screen rather than CLICK.) It's basically a point&click puzzle game with a linear story-telling. The game features 6 main characters, each one has its own route, and each route has its True Ending. The True Ending to a route is always blocked at first, you should play other routes to unlock it (like 428: Shibuya Scramble in a much simpler way). The game makes you feel like you have many choices and options, but in fact you don't. In order to clear the game you must play each route and each chapter in a certain order to unlock the True Ending. Like I said, it's pretty linear. As for the "more than 50 endings" they claim in the store page, well, it does have that many endings, but most of them are just meaningless Bad Ends. The game only has ONE TRUE ENDING, and you can't ever miss it. By the way, the translation is very bad. Grammar errors and misspellings are everywhere, but above all the confusing tutorial translation is the worst. I was misled by the English tutorial first, only did I switch to Japanese can I realize how ridiculous the translation is. So I'll put the correct tutorial here: In the route selection page, a blue chapter indicates you have clear the True Ending to it. A blue-gray chapter indicates you have yet to clear the True Ending BECAUSE it is blocked, you can only unlock it by playing another chapter whose top right corner has a INCOMPLETE sign. After you replay the chapter with INCOMPLETE sign and trigger the right thing, the INCOMPLETE sign will become COMPLETE sign, and the once blue-gray chapter will become blue-red, which means the True Ending has now been unlocked. Clearing a chapter with Normal Ending or True Ending will grant you 5% progression, as the progression grows new chapters may be available, and once the progression becomes 100%, the epilogue will show. Now back to business, the game is a horror game, it has many cheap jump scares, most of which are not scary at all (I mean, not all but some of the jump scares still got me). The whole game is giving me a low-cost feeling. Maybe it is a good mobile horror game, but also a bad PC horror game. It reminds me of Tsugunohi, which I think is even worse than this one. The most notable thing in the game is its plot. It's quite obvious that the game's plot has many connections to the Howling Village movie and shares some common ground with The Grudge (Ju-on), which is another famous J-horror film directed by Shimizu Takashi (There's even an Easter egg to Ju-on in the game). The game's plot is in a typical Ju-on style, 6 characters, 6 inevitable deaths by the same curse that cannot be lifted, 6 stand alone chapters intertwined in the end, all in one infamous haunted place created by the agony of many deaths. I think the game even has a better plot than the movie. It's a pity a good horror story like this is wasted in such a low-cost mobile game. Hana is especially a remarkably terrifying J-horror figure, just like Sayako in The Grudge or Sadako in The Ring, but Hana even doesn't have a proper CG in the game, leaving all things to my imagination. Although you can play the game without having watched the movie, I strongly recommend watching the movie before or after playing the game. And if you have already watched the movie and rather like it, consider this game a must-play. Because the game answers some questions to the movie. Like when I watched the movie I wondered [spoiler] why did the men from the company abused the villagers? They could just kill them, abuse is clearly not necessary.[/spoiler] After playing the game I found the answer to it:[spoiler] Because the company director blamed the curse of Inunaki for his wife's death, so the abuse to the villagers is his way of revenge. [/spoiler] So the story of the movie is making much more sense now. In a word, this is a good mobile game, not so good on PC, but still worth playing, especially for J-horror movie fans. （以下是中文版的评测） 这游戏名字叫做《犬鸣村：残响》，是2020年清水崇执导的恐怖片《犬鸣村》的官方游戏，[strike] 没错，就是三吉彩花都救不了的那部烂片 [/strike]。这游戏原本是手游，现在则被移植到了NS和PC上。（而且移植得相当烂，日厂传统艺能了。） 游戏玩法是个point&click解谜。6名角色6条线，每条线有一个真结局。真结局一开始是锁定的，需要打其他角色的线才可以解锁（可以把玩法理解成一个低配428）。尽管这个游戏会让你产生一种自由度很高、分支剧情很多的错觉，但实际上这是个线性得不能再线性的游戏，因为解锁真结局需要按固定顺序来游玩章节。至于商店界面说的50个结局，绝大多数都是毫无意义的BE，这游戏真结局只有一个，不可能错过的。 顺便一提游戏英文翻译非常糟糕（[strike] all your base are belong to us[/strike]）。而最令人发指的就是教学都能翻得牛头不对马嘴，搞得我还切了日文版才搞清楚教学讲了啥。顺便把真正的教学放这里吧：在章节选择界面，蓝色的章节表示已经通关了真结局，蓝灰色的表示未通关真结局且真结局已被锁定，解除锁定的方式就是去玩另一条路线上带有INCOMPLETE标志（英文版）的章节，在该章内成功触发某个事件后该章的INCOMPLETE标志就会变为COMPLETE标志，然后原本那条线的蓝灰色章节就变成了蓝红色，表明真结局已被解锁可以打出来了。每通一个真结局和普通结局游戏完成度+5%，完成度升高后会解锁新章节，完成度100%后出整个游戏的真结局，然后就通关了。 言归正传，作为一个恐怖游戏而言，本作存在大量很low的jump scare，其中绝大多数都不恐怖（不过也有少数几个恐怖的）。整个游戏从头到尾充斥着一种廉价感。能看得出这游戏是一个优秀的恐怖手游，但绝对不是一个优秀的PC恐怖游戏。这让我想到了翌日，而且其实本游戏比翌日还要强一点。 本游戏做得最棒的地方，其实是剧情。这个游戏的剧情不但和电影版有很多联系，而且还带着浓浓的咒怨感（这游戏有一处咒怨的彩蛋，就是村长和夫人的名字分别叫刚雄和伽耶子）。且游戏的叙事结构也与咒怨非常相似——六个主角，六个注定的死亡，六条相互交织的叙事线，全部被一个诅咒之地联系了起来。我觉得这游戏的剧情可比那烂片的剧情要好太多了。很遗憾这么优秀的剧情却被浪费在了一个廉价的手游身上（这剧情要是拍成电影或者做成步行模拟游戏都很棒啊，偏偏就做了个点击手游，我该庆幸这手游好歹是买断制的吗）。我特别要提一下这游戏里的女鬼担当，Hana酱，她的形象真的太棒了——和服少女+缝合怪，天真的面庞+邪恶的肢体，形成一种绝妙的反差感，一眼就能看出这是只有日本人才能设计出的怪物形象。比起伽椰子来我更喜欢Hana这种类型的女鬼，伽椰子有点太露骨了，Hana这种克制感就很棒。但是Hana酱甚至连一张清晰的CG都没有，实在非常遗憾。 尽管没看过电影也不影响玩这游戏，但我还是建议看过电影再来玩或者玩完再去看电影。因为游戏和电影剧情有一定关联，游戏也解释了一些电影里没有解释的剧情。比如说我看电影的时候就奇怪[spoiler] 为什么电力公司的人要虐待村民呢？明明只要把村民杀了就好，并没有虐待的必要啊。 [/spoiler]然后玩了这个游戏我才找到了答案：[spoiler] 因为公司经理认为自己的妻子死于犬鸣村的诅咒，所以出于为妻子报仇的心理而虐杀了村民。 [/spoiler]这么一来就解释通了。 总之，作为手机上的恐怖游戏很棒，作为PC上的恐怖游戏就没这么棒了，不过还是值得一玩的，尤其是对于日恐电影粉丝来说。