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Heavy spoilers for Kamaitachi no Yoru, Danganronpa V3, Zero Escape 999, and light spoilers for Paranormasight

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Kamaitachi no Yoru was the 2nd game in Chunsoft’s “Sound Novel Evolution” series. Kamaitachi was originally released for the Super Famicom in Japan in 1994. It was directed by Kazuya Asano, and produced by Koichi Nakamura. Nakamura was Chunsoft’s founder who previously worked at Enix. Nakamura, by the way, would go on to program The Portopia Serial Murder Case, and direct Dragon Quests 1-4. Around the time in Japan, visual novels were mostly seen as PC eroge games. However, Chunsoft chose to distinguish themselves from most visual novels. They did this by filling the whole screen with text, and adding a background location image. This was a rather unique approach to the visual novel genre, considering most visual novels at the time included a text box at the bottom of the screen, and character art on the rest of the screen. This made the game play more like reading an actual novel, with added music and sound effects. Asano had another genius way to give Kamaitachi a more mature feel. He suggested that they should add character art, but only in the form of silhouettes. The character silhouettes would appear in the background whenever they were present in that scene. Sometimes, the silhouettes would be posed, depending on what happened in the scene. The use of silhouettes makes the story a lot easier to follow, but still leaves the details of the characters to your imagination, just like reading a book. They made sure to distinguish the character silhouettes from each other, by giving each of the characters unique qualities that could be differentiated between each other. For example, there are 3 different girls in the game that are all about the same age. However, one of them is tall and has long hair, one of them has glasses and average height, and the other one is short and slightly bigger than the others. Just by giving each of these characters one or two traits that allows you to easily tell them apart, even when just looking at the silhouettes, you can still clearly know who is in the scene. The plot of Kamaitachi is pretty simple: a group of people stay at a pension house in the mountains for winter vacation. Then, after eating dinner together, they hear a crash, and find a dead body in a bag in one of the rooms. One of the people staying with them, a suspicious mystery man who didn’t talk to any of them or reveal his name, is gone. The body is cut up, so it’s difficult to tell its identity, but they assume its the mystery man’s body, since they can’t find him. Everyone freaks out and tries to call for help, but since the cabin is so secluded, and the blizzard outside, they learn they cannot call for help until the next morning. From here on, everyone is suspicious of each other. Depending on your choices, you can choose to trust certain people, or lie and conspire against them. The original release of this game includes around 40 endings. Most of these end up with the characters shifting around the blame and killing each other. However, there is still one true, final, ending.

Each of the bad endings in Kamaitachi involve the protagonist trusting or betraying different people. By completing many endings, you gradually learn more about the characters and the incident at the pension. So how do you get the “best” ending where everyone gets out alive? When you get one of the bad endings, the game is not over. The game is just beginning. The player is required to get as many bad endings as it takes until they can figure out what really happened. Throughout this journey for the truth, various endings will hint at how to avoid certain events. Kamaitachi, however, cannot be solved on your first playthrough. It can’t be solved on even your 2nd or 3rd playthrough. Kamaitachi no Yoru forces you to read through many bad endings, and then asks you, the player, to tell the good ending. When the game begins, before everyone even eats dinner, as soon as everyone arrives at the cabin, you must make some very specific, seemingly meaningless conversational decisions. After giving some strange answers, the player is prompted to answer some questions about the scenario. The protagonist will claim that a murder has happened, before anyone even could have seen the body. If you answer the questions correctly, the protagonist will then go on to describe in detail how the murderer will carry out their plan. Finally, the game will ask the player to type in the name of the culprit. The culprit attacks the protagonist, and by navigating through a few more combat decisions, the protagonist will escape and the culprit will be arrested. This is what makes this game one of the most authentic metafiction video game experiences. To get the best ending, the player must exit the game’s wonderful immersion and forcefully manipulate the situation. Within the reality of the game world, getting this ending would be impossible. There would be no way that the main character would have as much information as he provides in the best ending. Most metafiction involves the characters in the story breaking the viewer’s immersion. However, in this case, the player must choose to break the immersion for themselves. How does Kamaitachi execute this so well? First, Kamaitachi shows the player one of the most immersive visual novel experiences possible. Since this game is a “sound novel,” it included immersive sound effects that most visual novels of the time were lacking. The use of silhouettes instead of character art prevents the player from recognizing the story takes place in a fictional world. One of the Kamaitachi remakes, Rinne Saisei, replaces the character silhouettes with anime character art. By including anime style character art, the game takes the responsibility of imagining the details of the characters away from the player, which limits the about of interactivity the player has with their experience. Also, when the player is imagining the characters as real people, and not anime characters, it becomes easier to think of this story as real events. Kamaitachi borrows one of the most immersive and interactive elements of reading books to make the player invested and thinking about the story. Kamaitachi is based around making decisions for the main character throughout the story. Each ending provides hints on how to avoid getting the same ending again. To my knowledge, the game never hints very clearly at how to get the best ending. After getting many bad endings, the player gradually is able to piece together what actually happened in the cabin that night. At some point, the player will also realize that there is only one time frame when the murderer can be stopped. However, to execute this, the player must break their roleplay and immersion with the game and do something that the main character couldn’t possibly know to do. If the player gets all of the endings, yet another immersion break occurs. The game will tell the player to perform a certain button combination at a specific point in the game to reveal a secret message. The message would claim to be written by one of the game’s developers, who was going insane after being locked in a room and told to singlehandedly write the story of Kamaitachi. This is Kamaitachi’s final trick. The game finally acknowledges that it’s just a game, and the story was made up.

After the success of Kamaitachi no Yoru, Chunsoft decided to rerelease it on several other consoles, including the PlayStation and the Game Boy Advance. The PlayStation version of the game, by the way, would include the first known example of a flowchart in a visual novel. This would be extremely useful and revolutionary for the genre. Eventually, after the release of the PlayStation 2, Chunsoft decided to make a true sequel to Kamaitachi no Yoru. However, this wouldn’t be a direct sequel to the events of the first game. The sequel would instead work as a reimagining of the plot of the first game. Same cabin, different location, different people. The sequel would continue the use of the silhouettes introduced in the first game. The first game would be referenced in the sequel as a video game that the characters try playing at one point. Not much is known about the story of this game in the west, as there is no official or fan made english translation of the game. However, there is still something I would like to mention in relation to the first game. There is another final bonus message after the player has gotten all of the endings. However, this one is slightly different. The message is again from the point of view of the person who wrote the game, but this time the silhouettes of the characters from the game are becoming real and trying to kill him for describing all the different ways they would die in the game. Let’s put everything in order. First, Kamaitachi no Yoru asks the player to break the immersion and make the game meta. Then, Kamaitachi no Yoru includes a secret message, that directly tells the player that the story isn’t real. Finally, Kamaitachi no Yoru 2 tells the player that the story in the game is fake, but the characters are becoming real. This is a perfect evolution of breaking the fourth wall.

After Kamaitachi no Yoru 2, Chunsoft would abandon their “sound novel evolution” series. However, they never stopped creating visual novels. Their next major project would be Zero Escape: 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors. This game would be completely separate from Kamaitachi, but the concepts introduced in Kamaitachi are still very present. Zero Escape includes many bad endings and one true ending. To get the true ending, the player must achieve every bad ending. Then, the game will allow the player to make a new decision at a certain branching point of the story. The main character will suddenly gain new knowledge and be able to change the story. This time, the main character recognizes that there’s no way he could’ve known this. The game later ends up describing the idea of collective consciousness and sharing ideas across different minds without knowing. The game’s final puzzle involves directing a child from the past on how to solve a sodoku puzzle. The main character would solve the puzzle in the present at the same time. The player would then act as the connection between their consciousnesses, allowing the kid to correctly solve the puzzle. Here lies another genius example of breaking the fourth wall. However, this time, Chunsoft chose to create a real explanation for it happening within the game’s world. Chunsoft would then go on to release 428 Shibuya Scramble, a spiritual successor to Machi. Machi was a Saturn/PS1 game with a story involving multiple protagonists with intertwining stories set in Shibuya. After Machi became a cult classic in Japan, fans wanted a sequel. Chunsoft responded to their requests with 428. 428 Shibuya Scramble stars 5 main protagonists on April 28th, in Shibuya. Like Machi, these characters’ stories all connect to each other. However, Chunsoft of course added their special twist to this game as well. By making certain decisions on different characters’ storylines, you can affect the other storylines. The player acts as an omnipresent force that guides the decisions of all of the characters. Each “chapter” is one hour of that day in Shibuya. To “clear” the hour, the player must find the right combination of decisions in every character’s story. This is a perfect evolution of Kamaitachi no Yoru’s gameplay loop. 428 is also the best way to tell a story in a visual novel format, but I won’t go into that here.

Nowadays, the sound novel series is over. Chunsoft has not released a sound novel in over a decade. However, that doesn’t mean that Kamaitachi’s DNA is completely forgotten. There are several examples of direct acknowledgement of Kamaitachi in the latest Spike Chunsoft series, as well as in other games. Currently, Spike Chunsoft is split into 2 primary teams: Team Zero Escape, and Team Danganronpa. Team Zero Escape now makes a series called AI: The Somnium Files. Team Danganronpa used to make the Danganronpa series, but now they’ve moved on, now making other projects like Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. I have not yet played Rain Code, but I have played some of AI and all of Danganronpa. AI: The Somnium Files is a wonderful evolution of the classic adventure game. You can look around and interact with items in a room, change locations, and talk to people. These are the exact same actions you can perform in The Portopia Serial Murder Case, by the way. Near the beginning of the game, if you interact with some skiing gear, one of the characters will ask you if you’ve ever heard of the murder at the pension “Spur.” This is a direct reference to Kamaitachi no Yoru, however, I knew this game was made by people who loved Kamaitachi before I ever saw this dialogue. Danganronpa V3 infamously ends the game by breaking the 4th wall and saying it’s just a game and all the characters are made up. However, it also says that in reality, Spike Chunsoft rules the world, and this is actually the 53rd Danganronpa game. This is also a direct reference to Kamaitachi no Yoru. In Kamaitachi 2’s secret bonus message, one of the developers says that Chunsoft has been hiding subliminal messages in their games to influence the masses. The message in Kamaitachi no Yoru was simply “let’s love Chunsoft games,” but the messages will get more extreme over time. The developer goes on to explain that the young adults that are playing these Chunsoft games now, will grow up to form a society where Chunsoft rules the world. People will go to the Chunsoft church to worship the Chunsoft gods, then go to the Chunsoft store to buy some Chunsoft brand food. If you haven’t been able to tell yet, this is directly referenced by Danganronpa V3’s ending. Kamaitachi isn’t only kept alive by Spike Chunsoft. Paranormasight also includes what I consider to be a direct reference to Kamaitachi. Again, I could tell this game was made by somebody who was astonished by Kamaitachi before I even noticed the reference as well. Paranormasight also includes a sort of meta explaination of why the player jumps between character stories and makes decisions for them. Already, this seems like a pretty noticeable parallel to Chunsoft’s novels, specifically, Kamaitachi no Yoru. During the ending, the narrator asks the player a few questions to make sure you actually know what’s going on. For two of these questions, a keyboard pops up, and he asks you to type in the name of the true identities of two of the characters. Just like how Kamaitachi asks the player to type in the true identity of the murderer in the true ending of the game.

Therefore, Kamaitachi no Yoru has directly influenced almost every visual novel created after it. Spike Chunsoft games have always been an expansion of what Kamaitachi began, and even visual novels released in 2023 by different developers still directly borrow techniques from Kamaitachi. This is why I believe that Kamaitachi no Yoru is one of the most important visual novels of all time. Most people dismiss Kamaitachi, pinning it as a simple little murder mystery game, but there’s a reason why this game was remade or rereleased 13 different times.