...Iru!

PlayStation exclusive

...Iru! takes place in a high school with a large mechanical clock in the center. You control an upper classman who, along with his fellow students and teachers, finds himself locked inside the school when staying late to finish a project. As the bodies start to pile up your goal is to escape the school while saving your girlfriend and as many of your fellow classmates as you can.

Released: 1998
Platforms: PlayStation
Genres: Adventure Horror Platformer Survival horror
Developers: Soft Machine
Publishers: Takara
Perspective: First person
Themes: Horror Survival
Country: Japan

About

...Iru! is a 1998 adventure game for the PlayStation. It was developed by Soft Machine and published by Takara. The game has a horror theme, and is set on an island off the coast of Japan, where students find themselves trapped in a high school where one by one, students are discovered dead.

The game was an anomaly from Soft Machine as they were predominantly known for assisting with trivia and sports video games before Iru!. It was also a rare Japanese horror game that drew from Cthulhu Mythos. On its release, it received middling scores from Dengeki PlayStation who found the game appropriately scary, but found its controls and pacing to be weak. Retrospective reviews Hardcore Gaming 101 and The A.V. Club similarly found the pacing poor and the gameplay frustrating, but said it may appeal to audiences who enjoyed the lo-fi aesthetics of indie horror video games that grew more popular later in 2020.

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Austin Jones of The A.V. Club said that on its surface, Iru! appeared to be a survival horror game, but was closer to a horror-themed adventure game with set of puzzles and flags to be set to proceed with the story. Robert Fenner of Hardcore Gaming 101 echoed this, describing Iru! as predominantly being an inventory-based adventure game, where the player is free to explore without being attacked throughout most of the gameplay.

Iru! is played in a first-person perspective. A meter is shown when a potential killer is near the door to the area the player is located, which forces the player to find a hiding place before the meter runs out.

Story

Iru! is set on a small island off the coast of Japan on the evening before a cultural festival. At Kirigaoka High School, the protagonist Tatsuya, his love interest Yuma, and some of their classmates are staying late to finish preparations.

Before long, the lights go out, and Yuma vanishes. As Tatsuya explores the school, the corpses of his friends begin to be found, while the few teachers on-site either cower in fear or act as if nothing is happening. Soon, its discovered that the faculty and students have engaged in occult rituals, in an effort to prepare the school for the rebirth of Cthulhu.