Excellent story and horror.

Recommended ✔

In both its visual novel and anime incarnations, Higurashi When They Cry, also known as Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, is revered as one of the greatest horror/mystery works of their mediums.

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Definitely, without question. The anime is a great adaptation in two ways. First, it does not cut out or distort many important plot points, although there are certainly changes. Second, it makes fantastic use of the advantages of the animated medium to create suspense.

The visual novel, however, explains several key plot points better than the anime does. Most importantly, the visual novel portrays paranoia and confusion far better than anime ever could. The visual novel really gets you thinking like the protagonist thinks, whereas the anime just has you experiencing what the protagonist experiences.

Chapter 1, Onikakushi, covers the first four episodes of the anime.

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Two main things set Higurashi apart from otherwise similar horror titles.


Higurashi in its entirety isn't just a story about how bad things happen and a bunch of people die. At its core, it is a story about overcoming adversity (although the first chapter is very much about bad things happening).

Higurashi's early slice of life scenes reinforce this overarching positive theme. They depict a group of friends who participate in cutthroat competitions on a daily basis. They struggle and play dirty to improve themselves and each other. It's very much not your usual slice of life.


Paranoia plays a huge role in the first few chapters of Higurashi. Many characters deeply involved in the series of murders have yet to be revealed. Two main characters have yet to be introduced. The protagonist, and by extension the reader, doesn't know why or even what is happening. In this way, Higurashi is quite similar to the visual novel Chaos;Head (excuse me, ChäoS;HEAd). An unreliable protagonist tries to survive and figure out what the hell is going on.

You could say that Higurashi is to horror visual novels as Amnesia: The Dark Descent is to horror video games.

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Higurashi is phenomenal bang for your buck in terms of both quality and quantity. It is very much enjoyable as a standalone work, but also leads into a greater overarching story. What are you waiting for?

Bought this game to find out when they cry. The only one who cried was me.

so good, it'll make your neck itch ..

Finally, a game that teaches players valuable life lessons such as:

- Stay away from little girls with cleavers.
- When in a town full of crazy people, try not to be home alone.
- Don't do cocaine in phone booths.

Higurashi is a classic VN. It's had anime adaptations, its own manga series, OVAs, live-action films, even a third-person shooter. The cult surrounding this VN undoubtedly made 07th Expansion what it is today. How's the Steam release, then?

• Returning players will notice that the English translation has been entirely redone. MangaGamer opted to do away with the subpar 2009 official translation and redid all of EP1's script from scratch. The results are satisfying; characters speak naturally, inner monologues don't feel stilted, and wordplay is more sophisticated.
  
• MangaGamer contracted an artist to create new character art to replace Ryukishi07's original work. Again, the results pay off as the new character sprites look professional and do a great job at conveying the emotions of the characters. I personally prefer the new art to the old, but purists can switch between the two by simply pressing 'P'.
  
• The Steam version of Higurashi runs on an entirely different engine than the original, an engine which allows the game components to be modded at the players' leisure. Players who wish to use the PS2 character art, PS3 backgrounds, etc. are easily able to modify Higurashi's files to do so. The new engine doesn't interfere with normal gameplay at all, and returning players might not even notice it.

All of these make the Steam version one of the greatest ways to experience Higurashi, but how's the story itself? Engaging, to say the least; first-time players often find it difficult to stop reading once they've invested time and emotion into the plot and characters. Each chapter ('Onikakushi' being one of eight) is roughly 7-9 hours in length, so you'll definitely not feel cheated for content by the time you finish.

Higurashi has earned its acclaim/notoriety. If you ever wanted to get into VNs, this is one of the best you can start with.

A psychological horror game/novel that doesn't include jumpscares.....
Not many games like that exist today.....









EDIT: There is one or two scenes in the novel that made me jump a bit but I think i am in the minority there (The 'LIES!' scene in particular)

This game made me realize how slow of a reader I am...

Higurashi When They Cry is a series that spans 8 Chapters (or Arcs) in total and Onikakushi (Spirited Away by the Demon) is the first of 8 chapters. The Steam version is a remaster of the original Sound Novel which includes the option to switch between the new sprites or the original sprites.

The story in itself is a solid horror/thriller experience, it throws you in a shoe of Maebara Keiichi, a recent transfer student to Hinamizawa and his experience with his friend. The beginning of the game shows you an all-happy go round group of friends and kyute girls that as they go about doing kyute things. As the story progress, Keiichi discover that there was a bloody murder in Hinamizawa. Confused and curious about what happen, he started asking his kyute friends about the incident but they keep denying it happens, which makes Keiichi starting to doubt his friends. The story starts to get interesting around the end of Watanagashi festival, I won't spoil the rest of the story but expect a crazy ride after that.

If you have already watched the anime, then you must read this VN (I know I said Higurashi is a Sound Novel, but blame Chunsoft on that one) since the anime butchered a lot of content from the VN. There is no choice to be made since this is a kinetic VN and no it doesn't have voice acting even though it was promoted as Sound Novel (blame Chunsoft). Also this is just the first chapters/arcs of Higurashi so expect to shell out another $6 for Tsumiboroshi, Meakashi, Watanagashi, Matsuribayashi, Tatarigoroshi, Minagoroshi & Himatsubushi. Based corporate :^)

Closing this review, I recommend any oldf*gs out there (like myself ;-;) who have played Higurashi before to play this one not only because of the updated sprite, but also unifying all your Higurashi in one place (Steam) is nice if you didn't have the physical copy of all Higurashi. If you're interested/new to the series, love horror/thriller genre or have watched the anime and still feel that it's lacking, pick this up and sate your horror/thriller need.

Also, Umineko f*cking when MangaGamer?