Review: The Room Visual Novel
A short, branching horror story with an interesting premise.
I like horror visual novels like The Letter or Higurashi When They Cry. But, I’m also a busy guy and some (most?) of the time I don’t have time to read a thousand words before I get to the creepies and freakies. The Room Visual Novel is a quick scratch for that itch.
The premise is simple. You, a stereotypical Japanese student, wake up in a locked, dark, creepy room with four other Japanese students. You know nothing about them. After a few words are exchanged, a TV lights up and the (Jigsaw wannabe) criminal mastermind that organized this tells you that the other four are evil people who have not been punished for their crimes. It is your job to choose, one-by-one, who dies, and with very limited information about any of them.
As the novel progresses and you choose who dies (although you don’t see any bodies), the story opens up. You find out just who these people are and why they’ve been put in the room. You also eventually find out why you’re there, being forced to act as executioner. The choices you make lead to different endings and, to really find out what’s going on, you need to play through pretty much all of the endings. There seems to be one “best” ending, although it isn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows. Then again, this is a horror-esque VN, so there really shouldn’t be…