Gamespot Score: n/a
My Score: 7.3
(+) Pros: - Creepy school atmosphere, - FULL of unexpected scares, - Freedom to explore and how you want to solve the problems presented to you, - Surreal characters (almost like "corpse party" in many ways), - Unexpected and interesting villain, - Quick travel is ass saving.
(-) Cons: - Way short (shorter than most other good pixel horror games), - Solutions to some problems can be a little bit too hard to look for, - Plenty of cheap deaths (save often).
Gameplay time: Less than 5 hours
Well I did mention sometime ago in one of my posts that there was a time where I spammed the hell of out translated pixel horror games. Games like "Ib", "The Witch's house" and so on. I've got plenty of them under my belt now, at least the ones that have been translated by "vgperson" (seriously, she's amazing at what she does). "Misao", in my opinion, is probably one of the weaker pixel horror games, NOT that its bad by any means, its still fun (I find most of these games fun, except "Paranoic", f**k that, it was boring). It has a less refined style compared to other pixel horror games, its in some ways, a lot shorter, and there is less environmental variety presented. However, it has what you're looking for, horror. There are plenty of scares, and its definitely not something that you can breeze through without having some jumps yourself.
Miso is actually story driven (almost all pixel horrors are, except for "The Witch's House"), and it sounds like a pretty cliche high school horror flick's script, but it does its job well. You play as Aki, a female redhead that attends high school. Some time ago, Aki's best friend, Misao, died out of an unexpected incident. Since then Aki has been having weird visions of Misao asking her to find her. One day in school, everyone was gossiping about Misao, when shit finally hit the fan. The entire school grounds got caught up in a curse, and Aki wakes up alone to find a mysterious man who claims to be the student council president. He tells Aki that the school has been cursed by Misao, and the only way to fight the curse, is to find body parts of Misao scattered across the school grounds...
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| Erm, no... |
For a horror game to take place in a school environment....don't you think that reminds you of "Corpse Party"? However, these 2 games are very much more different than you think, at least in terms of the atmosphere. Both nail it just right, but while "Corpse Party" takes on the environment as an old, degraded school with chipped wooden floors, cracked walls and broken windows everywhere, "Misao"'s school is a more modern one, with full out flourished cement wall, floors, ceilings and classrooms with sliding doors. In a way, the atmosphere in "Misao" is creepy because its unexpected. There is nobody lingering in the hallways, and there is always an unexpected aroma of death that may just get you during any time of the game if you take a wrong turn.
Speaking of deaths and scares, this game has plenty. Pick up a note on the floor and suddenly this creepy ass girl jumps at your face screaming, giving you a good jump off your seat. After that, you die. Open a random door in a bathroom and this little girl with a cute face greets you...only to have that transform into a typical anime sadistic/evil face and eventually kills you. How about entering a room to only hear a weird singing voice, and have a ghostly figure tailing you? Having a dead body fall from the ceiling and then having it suddenly cling onto you is scary as well, for it ends your life shortly after. You can never know what to expect, for there are scares lurking in almost every corner.
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| Death! Death everywhere! |
Unlike most pixel horror games that follow a rather linear game progression style, where you just solve problems/puzzles and move from one area type to the next, the world of "Misao" allows you freedom in how you want to solve your problems. Instead of multiple areas, "Misao" only has one big school, a huge playground for you to test your and explore your problems. Many areas in the game are immediately accessible from the get go, and you go wherever you want to explore/look for problems/solutions to existing problems. The characters are also pretty surreal, like you can relate to their despair. While they are not near the levels of complexity from characters in "Corpse Party", you can feel for them when they DIE AND DROWN IN THEIR OWN BLOOD.
The game also has an interesting villain. I'm not one to spoil, but he's pretty much there to f**k with everything and since he is the cause of everything, you can't help but hate him. While many would see it coming from a mile away, it still boils down to the very moment when he reveals himself and you go "I KNEW IT". Another good thing to note is that since the game world is pretty big, and that you'll be backtracking almost all the time, fast travel is a freaking godsend. Many similar games do not have fast travel, and "Misao" having it really saves you time from a lot of mindless backtracking (though you can only fast travel to certain predestined areas).
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| The cheapest f**king death in the game. |
Like most pixel horror games (once again), "Misao" is short, even shorter than most. Even on my first playthrough WITHOUT a guide (okay I had to use a guide when I was searching the classrooms for plants), I clocked in about close to 2 hours (yes, plus the extra epilogue chapter). And yes, this was the only pixel horror game that I had to resort to a guide, because some of the solutions to problems are SOOO hard to spot, its almost impossible. You need to be a king genius to see through some of these puzzles. Also, I did mention tons of scares, and that these usually lead to deaths. How am I supposed to know when I'm going to get jump scared? That's the fun part! Why do you have to punish us for it? As much scares in this game there are, there are an equal amount of cheap deaths waiting. Save often, don't regret.
Pixel horror games are free anyway, so there's no reason to not play "Misao". In my opinion, its the worst of the fun ones, BUT ITS STILL FUN NONETHELESS. The only one you shouldn't play is "Paranoic" (I'm only listing the games on vgperson's site), the rest are good. If you want a pseudo "Corpse Party" feel, "Misao" will fill all your "high school horror experience" needs! Just don't expect to be entertained for too long, because this game lasts as long as "Portal" at most.
Happy gaming!
