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[tommib]

Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a 2023 visual novel video game developed by Xeen and published by Square Enix for Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, and Windows.

Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is a visual novel. The player must work through each story in order to uncover the mystery behind the curses taking over the district. The gameplay mostly focuses on the plot with brief sections for investigations and quizzes based on what the player has learned. A flow Chart allows the player to go between the storylines and perspectives of the main characters. Certain story branches and choices can bring a character to their death leading the player to revert to an earlier scene to deduce how to alter the events and trigger an alternative story path.

STEAM:
Overwhelmingly Positive (95% of 1,691) ALL TIME
Overwhelmingly Positive (96% of 186) RECENT

MC: 85

Note: very late OT but this has been one my favourite games of the year, unexpectedly. I think it's very under the radar and hopefully the OT will help a bit with visibility. A must-have for horror and mystery fans.

 

[lyan]

Had a great time with it, game certainly deserves more attention.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Nice OT! Have it on my wishlist from your recommendation, tommib and I'll probably get it for my Switch after I'm done with a few VNs I've picked up recently.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Cute waifu

gimme names gimme

Sauce is Dark Gathering and the waifu is Eiko Houzuki (she is possessed by a several centuries old spirit lol)

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

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[Vampire On Titus]

Played on switch when it released, I loved it and it's left a lasting impression on me as my favorite interactive story of the year. Mechanically it feels like a modern take on a "pre-takumi" 80s ADV game. What I mean by that is, in the wake of Shu Takumi's Ace Attorney series ADV design trends, particularly for detective and mystery ADV, shifted to follow its lead . This meant that these games began to be designed in a segmented and formulaic* way (for example in Ace Attorney, murder > investigation > trial. In Danganronpa, murder/daily life > investigation > trial. In Somnium Files, setup > investigation > Somnium. In Spirit Hunter, urban myth > investigation > exorcism).

Paranormasight, on the other hand, feels like a modern take of an Japanese ADV from an earlier era. One that makes no commitments to regimented allotments of expected interaction. It has a lot of gameplay elements you'll find in other similar games: P&C exploration, metanarrative branching, reasoning sections, riddles, even an escape room-esque part, but Paranormasight is content to dole its interactivity out as the situation sees fit. If that means 30+ minutes of uninterrupted story, fine. If that means back to back brain teasers, also fine.

I found that refreshing, because I haven't played a game with *quite* this kind of design sensibility outside of stuff from the 80s to mid 90s. It's like a look at an alternate branch of design for mystery JADV where Ace Attorney's influence didn't set the standard. Which isn't too surprising because Takanari Ishiyama, the game's writer and co-director, has been making games of this sort on a smaller scale for a long time.



The game also successfully draws from newer trends with its meta aspects, but those are best appreciated first hand. I can safely say this game is worth playing for the Komagata Bridge confrontation scene alone, anyone who's played the game will know what I'm talking about.

I'm really happy this game has managed to achieve a degree of cult success due to positive word of mouth throughout the year, I'm hoping Square Enix will let Ishiyama keep making games like this for then foreseeable future.

*(I don't mean formulaic in a bad way, just that no matter what the story conforms to that segmented formula)

 

[OuterLimits]

I bought this and House of Fata Morgana recently. Looking forward to both.(I need more free time dammit)