released in English as ''Banshee's Last Cry'', is a

visual novel A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...

developed and published by Chunsoft for the

Super Famicom The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a Fourth generation of video game consoles, 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in No ...

in 1994. The game is the second sound novel by Chunsoft and brought a myriad of other companies to develop similar games. The term "sound novel" was a registered trademark, but is regarded as a genre. A remake, ''Kamaitachi no Yoru: Rinne Saisei'', was released for

PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, then in other international territories on February 22, 2012, and was produced ...

in 2017 and ported to Windows in 2018.

Gameplay

The player reads the text on a

gamebook A gamebook is a work of printed fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices. The narrative branches along various paths, typically through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages. Each narrative typically does not ...

Plot

The game follows the characters Toru (Max in the English localization) and his girlfriend Mari (Grace in English), who stay at a

ski lodge A ski lodge or day lodge is a building located in a ski resort, ski area that provides amenities such as food, beverages, seating area, restrooms, and locker rooms for skiers and snowboarders. Larger resorts have a day lodge at each base area and ...

when a

snowstorm A winter storm (also known as snow storm) is an event in which wind coincides with varieties of precipitation that only occur at freezing temperatures, such as snow, Rain and snow mixed, mixed snow and rain, or freezing rain. In Continental cl ...

takes place. One of the fellow lodge guests are killed and the characters are drawn into a

murder mystery Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a profession ...

, while being cut off from contact with the outside world.

Development

The game was revealed alongside a contest for readers to write related storylines. Ten of such stories were published in a book titled . This book was a success. A similar competition started upon the release of ''Kamaitachi no Yoru 2''. It went out of print after many years, but was re-published when the sequel came out. The game was written by Takemaru Abiko.

Music

Kōjirō Nakashima and Kōta Katō composed the game. The soundtrack gained significant popularity and was reused in television shows about

Aum Shinrikyo , better known by their former name , is a Japanese new religions, Japanese new religious movement and doomsday cult founded by Shoko Asahara in 1987. It carried out the deadly Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995 and was found to have been respo ...

. Two songs, "Sequence" and "Two People Return Alive", were used for the fourth volume of Orchestral Game Music Concerts.

Graphics

Background images included the lodge in

Hakuba is a village located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan. As of April 1, 2019, the village had an estimated population of 9,007 in 4267 households, and a population density of 48 persons per km2. The total area of the village is . Hakuba is located i ...

Nagano Prefecture is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,007,682 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture ...

. Exceptions are the background for bathrooms and the wine cellar, which were done with miniatures. All characters have silhouettes. The game changed the setting (including its graphics) to

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Ports

Releases

The game was ported to

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

on December 3, 1998 and for

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

on June 28, 2002. It was released in 2002 on

SoftBank Mobile is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services to customers in a m ...

on April 1, and on PC on July 1.

i-mode i-mode (, ) is a Japanese mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service operated by NTT DoCoMo. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and ...

released it on January 30, 2004. The story had minor changes for the script of ''Kamaitachi no Yoru × 3'' for

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

. It was later ported to other consoles, and was released on the

Virtual Console The Virtual Console was a line of downloadable retro video games for Nintendo's Wii and Wii U home video game consoles and the Nintendo 3DS family of handheld systems. The Virtual Console lineup consisted of titles originally released on pa ...

service in Japan for

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

in 2007 and

Wii U The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. The W ...

in 2013.

Aksys Games Aksys Games Localization, Inc. is a video game publisher that specializes in translating and localizing Japanese video games for English-speaking markets. It was founded by Akibo Shieh in 2006. Some of its clients include Bandai Namco Games, Xs ...

released the game in English for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

entitled ''Banshee's Last Cry'' in January 2014. It was translated by Jeremy Blaustein.

Changes

; PlayStation version * A flow chart was added and choices were colored according to whether choosing in previous arcs * The player may replay the scenes * Vibration added * Two stories were added * Changes in unlocking the extra storylines and parodies * Improved graphics * Added background information on characters ;Game Boy Advance version (comparison with PlayStation version) * The characters were changed after the ones for the sequel * A commercial message for the sequel can be unlocked * No vibration * Two extra stories were excluded after lacking cartridge spaces * Some minor changes in the script

Remake

A remake developed and published by 5pb., ''Kamaitachi no Yoru: Rinne Saisei'', was released in Japan for

in 2017 and ported to Windows in 2018. The remake has a new Japanese cast, new art by '' Sharin no Kuni: The Girl Among the Sunflowers'' artist Alpha and an additional scenario written by

Ryukishi07 is the pen name of a Japanese writer who is the leading member of the group 07th Expansion. He is the creator of the ''When They Cry'' visual novel series, which includes ''Higurashi When They Cry'', ''Umineko When They Cry'', and ''Ciconia When ...

Related media

Radio drama

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, dramatised, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the liste ...

was released on

Compact Disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...

. The characters appeared in a different storyline with terrorists trying to acquire WMDs somewhere in Nagano. It stars

Hikaru Midorikawa is a Japanese voice actor from Otawara, Tochigi who is represented by Aoni Production. He is best known for the roles of Softon in '' Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo'', Tamahome in '' Fushigi Yûgi'', Seiran Shi in '' Saiunkoku Monogatari'', Gridman in '' ...

and

Yumi Tōma , known professionally as , is a Japanese voice actress, narrator, author and singer from Chiba. She has been part of the singing group Goddess Family Club. Tōma once worked for Aoni Production before she founded her own agency ALLURE&Y. Becau ...

Television drama

The two-hour drama series was aired by

Tokyo Broadcasting System (formerly ) is a Japanese media and licensed broadcasting holding company. It is the parent company of the television network TBS Television and radio network TBS Radio. It has a 28-affiliate television network called Japan News Network, as ...

on July 3, 2002. ''Kamaitachi no Yoru 2'' was released on July 18 of the same year, and the first edition of the game contained a bonus DVD of the entire drama. Like the radio drama version, the television is not a rendition of the actual game (the premise is that the fans gathered to shoot a film based on the game, when one of the characters is killed). It was available at

Hulu Japan Hulu, known outside Japan as Hulu Japan, is a Japanese Subscription business model, subscription Streaming media, streaming service owned and operated by HJ Holdings, a subsidiary of Nippon Television, Nippon Television Network Corporation. Laun ...

Reception

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'' scored the Game Boy Advance game 31 out of 40, and for Super Famicom for 30 out of 40. The game sold 1.25 million units with remakes and ports in April 2002. It sold 750,000 units for Super Famicom and over 400,000 units for PlayStation. In August 2016, Spike Chunsoft conducted a poll on whether the players would purchase the game released on Steam.

Notes

References

External links

Official page (iOS version)

Virtual Console page

Knulp (the ski lodge used in background graphics)

Instruction manual (Super Famicom)
at

Giant Bomb ''Giant Bomb'' is an American video game website and wiki that includes personality-driven gaming videos, commentary, news and reviews, created by former ''GameSpot'' editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis. The website was voted by ''Time (maga ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Banshee's Last Cry 1994 video games Adventure games Android (operating system) games Chunsoft games Detective video games Game Boy Advance games 1990s horror video games Psychological horror games IOS games Kadokawa Corporation franchises Mobile games Murder–suicide in fiction Mystery video games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation (console) games PlayStation 4 games PlayStation Network games Single-player video games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games Video games about crime Video games developed in Japan Video games set in Japan Virtual Console games Virtual Console games for Wii U Visual novels Works set in hotels