#otogirisou

In the mountains, a man (named by the player) and his gilfriend drive under the rain. Passing by some hypericum flowers, the man remembers a Heian era legend, where a falconer killed his brother over the reveal of a family secret, the blood falling onto the flowers. Not long after, the couple end up in a car accident, and with no shelter, they take refuge in an old house they were lead to by a path of those very hypericums. Who knows what awaits them inside.

Directed by Koichi Nakamura for the Super Famicom, this is Chunsoft's (now Spike Chunsoft) first attempt at a “sound novel”. Unlike a typical visual novel, the emphasis isn't on the synergy between text and visuals, but sound. Which is honestly one of the game's biggest strengths; compared to all the titles of this week so far I'd say this is the first one with truly great sound design, at least as it concerns the sound effects. It's well curated and used to maximum effect at key moments that do get under your skin.

But a novel of any kind lives or dies by its writing. And this is where Otogirisou feels… experimental.

There's no real lose condition here, the branching paths for the player to choose all lead to different, proper endings. However, those endings vary wildly both in quality and even the nature of the conflict itself: wether you're in a supernatural or psychological horror story depends on the ending. And you cannot access some of these routes the first time you play, so the game encourages experimentation in your choices over multiple playthroughs. It's a double edged sword in the end, the game offering you some impressive variety of scenarios, while on the other you get a lack of cohesion and many set ups either becoming red herrings or events left unexplained. And while visuals aren't the focus, the flat sprites could use an improvement. Even still, with so much variety and a short play time, it's still VERY MUCH worth checking out.

Gameplay footage here:

While a moderate hit, this game set out a template for many others to follow and starting a new path for a company that was up to that point a subsidiary of Enix making Dragon Quest games. From visual novel developer Leaf to Team Silent's own Silent Hill series, the scope this game's influence is frankly overlooked. There's available fan translations so even though it never left Japan you can play it right now. As a side note (because I know my followers), there's a curious nod to this game in Spy X Family. Or at least the Heian era legend it references. In Japanese, the character of Hemlock is called Otogiri(弟切), keeping a floral motif but with a different meaning (for the curious, this flower is allso known as the St. John's wort). Not only that, but his preferred method of assasination is beheading, which is the way the falconer killed his brother in the legend. That and the fact the flower is a bad omen tied to resentment and revenge coudln't be more fitting for Garden's resident incel. It even becomes a meta joke in the sense that a character named after a flower tied to a story of falconers... is disliked by the one actual falcon in the manga, as McMahon's pet Keekee pesters the little prick every time they share a panel.

As you know, sometimes I draw stuff for fan-translations! In this case, it was a small drawing in botanical fashion for Otogirisou's credits (you can see it in the manual).