Once more we delve into the madness of Corpse Party
This entire series has been a mixed bag of good and bad things that turn into a fascinating video game. Corpse Party: Blood Drive continues this trend of good things like the crazy story they wrote while also turning exploration into a chore thanks to all the traps. But lets focus on the game first shall we. After the end of Book Of Shadows the cast that survived must come back together to face the horror filled halls of Heavenly Host once again. Like the first game this one is played from a top down perspective. Although 2D sprites have been replaced with 3D models that still look just as good. The ensemble cast in this game is quite large and each chapter will focus on different characters depending on what is going on in the story. Which can be effective use of suspense depending on the situation you leave them in near the end of each chapter.
Also this game goes all in on expanding the scope of what is going on in ways I did not expect. What will happen next is what I kept thinking when I played this game. Since at points the storyline is willing to throw just about everything at you at once. The constant thing about this series that has been good is the voice work and music/sound effects. When something horrible happens you will believe it even if some of the music doesn't quite fit in. (Ripping guitar solos and 8 bit dub step doesn't work in a horror setting.) Even when the game isn't trying to horribly kill your player character it does a good job of setting the dark tone of the game while also giving a few silly moments to break up all the darkness.
Unfortunately flaws from previous games show up again with a little something new to make exploration annoying. This only happened once but I missed out on a key item that wasn't very obvious so I had to run around the school a while till I ended up right back where I started. Running around the school isn't as safe anymore either. Glass,broken wood, tripwires and evil ghosts haunt the halls. None of these challenges ever feel like they are much of a threat so it just turns them into a annoyance. Which can also be said about some of the instant kill sections of the game. Which seem to be set up so you'll most likely die once just to see how you'll be able to run through a maze.
In the end I enjoyed playing through the game. I've grown attached to these characters so I had to see how this act concluded. Although this game feels like it is going away from the simple scary atmosphere of the original it plants itself in a direction that is worth seeing if you've enjoyed the previous games. Going into this one without at least checking out Corpse Party would be a horrible idea.
