What They Say:
Innocent Grey presents an original, psychologically thrilling mystery for your pleasure. Here, your investigative work and deductions directly influence the course of the story. Will you be able to use the clues contained in your notebook to piece together the truth in this pulse-pounding mystery thriller? With a cast of more than thirty characters, there’s no shortage of complicated relationships, drama, and riddles. You may let out a scream. You may be this close to letting the killer get away. But what every you do, don’t let this amazing work slip under your radar!
Perhaps one girl’s smile might await beneath the shell of tragedy…
Artwork:
The benefit to a visual novel is that the game makers can use some animation to make characters and sometimes events expressive so that not all of the work in describing a situation needs to come from text itself. For Kara no Shojo a more realistic design is used along with a darker palate of colors that matches the tone of the story. There is no animation for the characters but they are drawn with care and attention paid to details and scale. There are also a number of poses and facial expressions that get used often though the story though they are switched up often enough and done well enough to convey the emotions that correspond with the events in the novel.
Text:
The text for this visual novel is translated in such a way that it reads fairly well for the most part and has a rather natural flow to it and there were few errors noticed during play through. MangaGamer retained the use of honorifics as well as other Japanese concepts such as sempai and also has a file of translation notes, though some notes might be spoiler in nature so it is best to open the file after playing.
Audio:
First off the elephant in the room: As most people who followed the news of this release when announced know there is no voice acting with this game as a result of MangaGamer and the voice company being unable to come to terms to release it with them included. This is a bit of a loss as there are a number of places where I found myself wondering how a certain line would have been delivered but it isn’t fatal. The game largely works as a novel with pictures and often I found myself advancing the text faster than the dialogue would have kept up anyway as I wasn’t willing to let the suspense hang longer. So in the case of this game the loss of voice isn’t nearly as devastating as it would be for another title, say one that focused on singing though it is still missed here.
What is present otherwise are all the sound effects and audio tracks created for the game and included in the Japanese version, at least as far as I can find. There are some rather nice tracks that feature in the game and while a few tracks are rather average there are a couple tracks that make me wish for a CD soundtrack, though the game does have a music track feature when unlocked.
Packaging:
The material reviewed was provided as a download so there is no packaging to review.
Menu:
The menus for this release are a basic but mostly intuitive affair. The main menu starts with an image of a long legged girl in a white school uniform with some vines tangled around her as she sits perched on a cracked open egg shell that is filled with blood. The logo is situated on the right of the screen in Kanji as well as English. The options are new game, load, configure, gallery and exit. Start does that for the game and takes you right into the opening scene of the game. The configure screen allows the user to customize sound level, effect level, text speed, curser as well as the game window size. Gallery provides a simple and easy image source of all the major CG images from the game which includes the ero scene pictures as well as less risqué dramatic ones and certain pictures can be clicked on to display additional changes in the picture where present. The music player is also accessible on this screen and once unlocked there are 26 tracks that are available to be selected. Scene playback allows access to the 12 ero scenes in the game as well though they must be unlocked first. Throughout this screen a quiet music box sounding track plays though once unlocked the music can be changed.
On the game screen itself there are quick buttons in the lower right hand side to either do a quick save or quick load, return to the menu, skip text, auto text so you don’t have to right click and log. In the text box is an icon for log which is useful as it contains recent text from the game so if you miss a point or wish to review something you can, though you have to search through manually as there is no quick search in the log. Also in the text part is an option to hide the text box so as to see the full image on the screen unimpeded, though this can also be accomplished with the left click button. The save menu allows you to save at almost any point and has space for sixty regular saves which either display the current line of text or current location. Also a feature of this game is the presence of a small notebook icon at the top of the icons which when clicked on contains notes on the various characters and pieces of evidence collected throughout the game and when there is an update the notebook glows red.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsDhHPyybd0&w=420&h=345]
The Steamy Side:
Kara no Shojo is an adult title in every sense from its heavy subject matter to the fact that there are sexual interactions in the title. The sexual situations largely would qualify as “vanilla” as they are largely rather standard in the sexual acts depicted, though there is one act that was put in to shock and it does as the act is considered taboo in most societies. The rest of the scenes are just slightly more than would be allowed in a US R-Rated feature as they have many close up shots of genitals, particularly the main male character’s which often gets the dreaded NC-17 rating. A few of the scenes are used to build some character development though a few seem to just be there because this type of game is expected to have a certain number of these types of scenes.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
It has been just over a decade since the end of the last War to End All Wars and Tokyo has been steadily rebuilding into a modern metropolis, though as with any major concentration of people that means there is good and bad. While the city allows people to pursue many different means of life and education its concrete paths and steel structures also allows predators to stalk through the urban jungle unnoticed. For Tokisaka Reiji this is a mixed bag as it allows him to pursue a career as a private detective but it is a job that takes a toll on him as he is always called in to find the cause of events but he is not able to prevent the events themselves.
Reiji has recently finished a case and is looking forward to some down time when he finds himself approached by a young woman who, like his sister Yukari, attends Ouba Girls Academy and who wants to hire the detective. The young woman, Kuchiki Toko presents him with an unusual task-she requests that he find “…Me. My true self.” Without any further explanation Reiji is left standing alone befuddled as to what that request was all about. But life is going to take a sudden turn that presents him both with distraction from the quest as well as an impetus to do more about it.
Reiji returns to the house he shares with his younger sister that their deceased parents left them to find a large man, Uozumi Kyozo, waiting for him. Uozumi is an old friend whom Reiji knew from even before the two men worked together in the police department and who has remained his friend even after Reiji resigned in the wake of a brutal case. Almost six years ago a deranged killer stalked the streets targeting young women who were pregnant and mutilating the corpses-and whose final victim was Reiji’s fiancé. Now wounds of the past that are barely covered threaten to rip open as a new killer stalks the streets-one who is leaving corpses, or most of the parts of them, in various places and in some odd states of being like with a foot set on fire. Uozumi is stumped and requests that Reiji help him out as he tends to gravitate toward odd cases like this.
Reiji takes the case but soon finds that he will have even less free time than he thought as victims start appearing that have a connection to Ouba Girls Academy with a few victims having been students there. Reiji is brought in by Saeki Tokio, the schools’ vice principle, who wants Reiji to look for some missing students on school grounds to and also to investigate so that no more of his students go missing. While on the campus working under the cover of being a part time teacher Reiji will come into contact with, and become a bit close to, Toko as well as some of the other girls that his sister knows while examining the riddle before him.
What is the connection between all of these victims from this and what does it have to do with an item found on the bodies and strange messages left at the scene? Thing is, even if he solves the case oddly similar murders may continue and no one may be safe. As events start to spin madly Reiji will have to rely on all of his friends and even some people he doesn’t like much to try to catch a killer-a killer who seems to be striking close to Reiji and some of those he has decided to protect. With the acceleration will similarities between the current case and the one from almost six years ago provide Reiji with answers and closure, more sense of loss due to his impotence or will this case even cost him his life?
Kara no Shojo decides from its earliest scene to throw the player straight into the seedy and disturbing world and events that are going to really define the game, though it does make the transition a little easier early on by describing crimes scene rather than showing the state of the victims. As the game unfolds these training wheels are taken off though and it becomes a story that wouldn’t feel out of place if it were adapted for TV by one of the higher tier cable channels that create their own shows and have freedom to get graphic. As much as madness is unique to an individual and difficult to relate to an observer as the person with it has to deal with it, the story manner really presents its effects in a way that bring the impact of its effects to the player even if they aren’t able to relate to the cause.
It isn’t just moments of horror that catch attention though but also different personalities expressed by the characters in the game and the amount of thought that went into creating them. All the major characters have the feel that a good deal of time was spent fleshing them out so that even when they don’t get long sections to talk about themselves a sentence here or some expressed interest there make it feel like they could be real people one is just meeting. When characters and mood mix perfectly it really helps to bring a sense of fear and dread for the characters and instill a desire to continue on to try to piece the mystery together.
As good as the story is at times however it is in the mystery aspect, particularly in choosing different approaches and where to go in the semi-free choice are where the game hits a snag. A good mystery story leads the reader down the path and gives clues along the way so that when a decision is made the audience can follow it and feel a bit of a thrill from the brilliance of the detective. This idea is credited for being the reason Robin was created-so Batman could talk to him, and by extension the audience, without appearing to just talk to himself to clue them in. While the novel lets us see into Reiji’s thought process the mental leap to put some of the pieces together is frustrating at best as the game likes to use very difficult to just plain lucky choices to decide what path it is going to take.
The semi-free moments are worse as there is no way of knowing if the path you have chosen is correct-and even knowing the path to take thanks to a guide doesn’t clue one in all the time why Reiji would be going to a specific place rather than another place. In this aspect it is probably the most frustrating visual novel I’ve played and putting it in the running for among frustrating games in general, though other disasters would keep it out of the top 5 of my personal list of such games for sure.
There are a few story warts as well as one of the words that pops up isn’t used correctly from what my understanding of the word is-not a translator issue I don’t think, just a writer taking some license with a word and how it is used in general rather than the specific that the word really means which distracted me because of what I know of it. I did love that with the various play throughs one can interact with different characters and be able to fill in more pieces to the mural created than even going through and getting the True Ending provides. A play through may let one experience much of the game but some of the subtlety and reasoning of the side characters is only really explored in their own route and it is this dedication to fill out the edges where the different endings are truly appreciated as some monsters no longer are, and others are actually worse than one believed from a single angle.
In Summary
Kara no Shojo is a shadowy trek into the world of suspense, psychological horror and madness as the player attempts to stop a killer from completing his macabre task. In this it is a very adult title for reasons that go beyond just the sexual situations contained to include some graphically violent scenes but those who like a good mystery story with dark overtones should give this a play through. Just go in knowing that within the story lie no small amount of madness and the terror it creates. Also become comfortable with the idea of having to use a guide to get through as the detective options and free roaming choices part of the game is broken, though it doesn’t fatally wound the game.
Grade: B
Released By: MangaGamer
Required OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
Age Rating: 18+
MSRP: € 24.95 (Note price is in Euros)
Download Size: 818.57 MiB (818,330,380bytes)
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