If late night playtime brags are your thing, chances are you've played a game like this. Where your luck and sanity is tested, as well as the will power to overcome horrible odds stacked against you. Even the Junji Ito, and H.P. Lovecraft inspired mystery solving aren't for the faint hearted.
World of Horror is this low res, 2-bit colored Japanese inspired roguelite RPG, taking place around Shiokawa in the mid 80s. A void with unprecedented and unspeakable kind of horror starts to affect the denizens of the small Japanese town. As time goes, more incidents create more mysteries to solve. And all in short time before a portal opens, and an Eldritch god consumes everyone in it.
A small selection of teenage characters are available to select, and each must solve 5 mysteries each playthrough, before the Doom meter hits 100. How much am I willing to sacrifice to get to that end goal? Well, there's plenty of options for that, not everything is all doom and gloom 😜.
Starting the game was interesting, I was presented with an MS-DOS boot loader before arriving to the GUI and starting New Game, I was presented with different ways to start my playthrough. There are various options on the right side, like how combat plays, difficulty, and different timelines.
This game was released around Halloween season, so that pumpkin should spice things up. But as the paper suggestion said, I needed to start with the first one in order to have a grasp of how the game plays. Not like it was hard, yeah, so ah, I died like multiple times on this, and it was really fun.
Before fighting the scissor lady, I was told through a friend's journal that I have to create a ritual involving chalk drawn sigil, and some holy candles. For some reason, those are laid across the entire school, because "my friend" couldn't bother to just give them all in one bag. Finding these involve this RNG of going to multiple rooms, while anticipating or prepping for the worst to come.
Majority of the playtime is like this pen and paper board game, where I do things with only few options provided. In this playthrough, I only have to explore the school. Sometimes I get to find a locker, where I got a baseball bat, and some food maybe. Other times, I make grueling discoveries.
Now, take note of this creepy lady because she gets important later on. For some reason, always helping her gets me a good bonus. But this was an inevitable encounter, and how I knew that? Because this women follows me afterwards, and creeps around whenever I peek at my class door.
I went to the gym, going through a bug infested mutilated corpse, went deep into the pool room and had to fight a bloated PE teacher. Simple things like make a decision between two or three choices lead to veritable outcomes, either good or bad or neutral.
And then, I finally found the chalk, followed the diary to change to right symbols, and then the candles. When suddenly, she knocks on the door. And then right after, a battle ensues. I have no idea as to what effect the ritual helped to take her down, but in this tutorial, 2 turns of instructions where I was invulnerable, suddenly turned into one of my worst fights ever in a game.
Set of moves, a timeline to set them and execute. Now, the issue is, some of my attacks don't do much damage at all, while hers, I have 3-4 turns left to take her out before she depletes either my stamina or reason. This is an RPG without health points, those are it.
Now, if I die, I have to do this tutorial all over again. After wasting 15 minutes, 3 times in a row, I finally sort of understood how to effectively take her down, but so much trial and error, and sheer dumb luck finally got me out of this. And saving my friend, thus ending tutorial.
Ah yes, I finally got started, and now playing as a school girl in her apartment home. I know that sounds wrong in some ways, but hear me out. This is important as here is the prep stage, where she takes baths, watches TV with offers, and also peek out the door. Something always creeps outside.
You might be wondering, why is the color range so different and there's a border? Yeah, that's the feature it has. I mean, it's an RPG maker title, that's just how it is. There's plenty of aesthetics to tinker with, I like the ones I picked. Always create different moods of atmosphere each time.
The scissor lady was sort of a tease, an appetizer if you will for what's to come. It starts off like any horror movies in the 80s does, where strange activities due to presence of cultists, human sacrifices, and creatures of the unknown lurking near the shores.
The main objective is to solve 5 mysteries, before the Doom meter hits 100%. As it increases, so does the various levels of threat I face, investigating becomes more challenging. Each playthrough, I can level up my character after earning 100 XP, and spending each of that to increase my stats and get perks. Believe, anything like this comes handy.
I can equip two different accessories and one weapon at a time. Not every accessory I find is always helpful, as there are trade-offs, but some I get lucky that are super useful like pearl earrings or flashlight. They can also be purchased at a store, but visitation there will increase Doom.
I already played this mode several times, either through quickplay which randomly selects options or me picking on them. My first playthrough sadly I quit after solving the forth one when my Doom meter was at 96%, and I played well, having enough Stamina/Reason points to keep going.
But I also asked for help a lot by visiting the school and trading XP for help from classmates. XP is also tradeable in police stations for money, which gets me items. But that'll slow my leveling progress. I have to picky I guess. Every investigation on location, every visit creates these random events. Funny enough, I did it on the school and the scissor lady popped up again. PTSD flashbacks.
There are so many weird mysteries to solve, my second one involved going to a festival, only the locals started to act weird and cult people were sneaking about. I was outside of town, so the map changed, and I had to visit forest areas, while following them. In 4 turns, I had to solve the case.
I won't spoil what happens next, it's a game that deals with Eldritch horror, you fill the rest. I had the next one where an old friend, Kana visits me. And of course, with her, we both look into the weird fishing neighbor, he's poisoning people and Kana trying to confront him, got some in her eyes.
You damn right I poke her eye with the needle, what hospital is going to fix that problem? Enough movie logic would tell you otherwise. But I also thought I was doing something terrible, good to see Kana came out of it alive, and now with an eyepatch. This was my 4th, and one I stopped continuing with, as ah, knowing if I continued further, it was game over.
Now, I never explained why it was important to solve these mysteries, because each time I did, I would get a key. I need 5 of them to unlock the door to the lighthouse. That's where the signal for the Eldritch is, and that stopping them would also save my realm.
So second playthrough, new god to stop, new rules, new stats, and a new face. Also, I forgot to mention, each time Doom goes up, there's like some calamity happening in the town. Water gets contaminated, prices for goods go up, mass paranoia, and others among those.
This time I played as a dude, and seeing his strength and perception points being higher, I thought I got the lucky role. And that my playthrough would be easier, and smoother. I did solve two cases with less than 40% Doom, and that would mean the rest of the game should be easier.
I probably forgot to report to the police station and tell them to add more officers in the area, to reduce threat level. Because the second case is where I got the real s**t kicked out of me. I won the battle, but with a -1 on reason point, and a smudge my character's portrayal screen.
This is a fun roguelite I played in intervals. The combat is really a big game of chance, that takes a lot of strategic thinking to overcome. But the game likes to really kick me in the gonads more times than my sanity could take. Each case solved, thankfully has a save and exit option where I can continue later on. Aside that, taking an hour time stopping old gods did a number on me.
There's more content here for multiple playthroughs, as they get unlocked after winning the game each time. I mean, if that's what you want that is. Maybe you've read Junji Ito's work enough times to have a go at it. Do as you will, but this game will somehow change you in the end. Good luck 👍
