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1994 · Port · Chunsoft · Visual novel

Banshee's Last Cry

Port

Banshee's Last Cry is a thrilling visual novel that takes readers on a deadly thrill ride of murder and deception. Set in a snowed in hotel lodge during Christmas, vacationers find themselves caught up in a murderous “whodunit” game when someone winds up dead.

Released: 25 November 1994
Platforms: Android Game Boy Advance PlayStation Vita SNES Wii U iOS
Genres: Visual novel
Developers: Chunsoft
Publishers: Aksys Games
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: First person Text
Themes: Drama
Country: Japan

About

Banshee's Last Cry is a 1994 visual novel video game developed by Chunsoft. The game is set in a snowy mountain area in Nagano, where the player unravels a mystery behind a murder that occurs. The game was developed by Chunsoft as the second game in their Sound Novel series following Otogirisō (1992). These games featured text covering still backgrounds while the player reads the story told through text on the screen.

The player can make choices from menu options to progress and change the direction of the story. The story moves in different directions based on some of these choices which will give clues to the player on the identity of the murder culprit.

›Story

Toru, a university student, is invited by his girlfriend Mari to go on a ski trip and stay at the pension "Spool" run by her uncle and his wife Kobayashi in Nagano prefecture. Toru is eager to go on this trip in order to make up for the fact that he and Mari are still friends but not lovers.

While the blizzard is still raging, various people stay at the pension, including part-timers Toshio Kubota and Midori Shinozaki, office workers Kanako, Aki and Keiko, the Kansai boss and his wife Kayama, and freelance photographer Yosuke Mikimoto.

One of the guests, however, is a yakuza-like man, Ichiro Tanaka, who wears sunglasses and avoids being seen.

After dinner, a letter is found in the room of the three office workers, which says "Tonight, 12 o'clock, someone will die", which is dismissed as a prank. After nine o'clock at night, they hear the sound of breaking glass from upstairs, so they investigate the rooms upstairs and find a dismembered corpse in Tanaka's room. The window of the room is still broken and open, and there is no sign of the murderer.

There was no sign of the killer. A blizzard prevented anyone from getting out, and everyone was completely trapped. With the phone lines cut and mobile phones out of range, it is a closed circle where the police cannot be called. Is this murder the work of the local yokai, Kamai-tachi?

The protagonists are threatened by the invisible shadow of the killer. As if to mock them, a second and a third murder occur.

In order to protect his beloved Mari, Toru sets out to find the true culprit in order to solve the case.

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Banshee's Last Cry is a sound novel, a term academic Rebecca Crawford described as being applied to Chunsoft's 20th century visual novel games. It features a user interface where the games story is told through text superimposed on an image of the entire screen. In the game, the player either progresses through the story by pressing buttons, make choices through menu options to change the direction of the narrative, or is prompted to enter a name based on who the player currently thinks the murderer is. Players also have the option to fast-forward through text they have read or rewind to re-read text that was previously displayed.

The story in the game is divided into chapters which can also be re-selected for re-reading after a player had reached an ending. Choosing different options gameplay will have the story unfold differently and potentially lead to different endings. Banshee's Last Cry features multiple scenarios and multiple endings with the narrative changing depending on the users choices. The more endings that are found allow for allows for more choices at branching points in the game.

Story

The game follows the characters Toru (Max in the English localization) and his girlfriend Mari (Grace in English), who stay at a ski lodge when a snowstorm takes place. That evening, a paper note is found in another guest's room, stating "Tonight, at midnight, someone will die". When one of the lodge guests is killed shortly thereafter, the characters are drawn into a murder mystery, while being cut off from contact with the outside world.

Development

Following the release of Otogirisō (1992), Chunsoft received requests via feedback postcards that the next game should be a mystery. Following the release of Otogirisō, Chunsoft contacted several mystery authors and sent them copies of the game. Among the authors contacted was Takemaru Abiko, who had his first mystery work Hachi no satsujin published in 1989. Abiko responded saying he was familiar with Chunsoft since their game Door Door (1983).

This led to a meeting with a member of the teams staff in July 1993. Producer Koichi Nakamura described Abiko as an real game enthusiast, having played more games than even he had. While he initially thought he was just going to proofread or give advice on the next game, Abiko ended up writing the entire script which took him two years to complete. The plan was to have a long substantial episode, then have two or three substantional fully fleshed out mystery stories and then from there have a variety of stories such as the spy oriented one that involves a snowmobile chase.