This is the first in a series of posts where I, Tom, talk about the games that I have played on stream. I'll go over my thoughts on the game in a way that exercises my writing abilities, so I might write things that sound overly verbose or obtuse, so bear with me!
It should be noted that discussion of this game will most likely include discussion of the more traumatic elements, so one should be warned before reading further. These elements include: Animal death; Child death; Suicide imagery; Child injury; Blood; Kidnapping; Graphic imagery; and Insects.
If you are prepared both for discussion of these elements, as well as spoilers of the game, then read on ahead.
Yomawari: Night Alone is a horror game helmed by Yu Mizokami that is reminiscent of RPGMaker Horror games from the late 00's. In it, you play as a young girl of probably around 5 years, referred to as the Protagonist, who is searching for both her lost dog, Poro, and her older sister, Sis. However, despite the title, she's not alone in her town on this dark night. Many spirits roam the town, including the titular Yomawari-san. Wielding her trusty flashlight, the Protagonist must search high and low for her family.
Yomawari is a relatively short game, with the main story having taken about 5-6 hours to complete. It also boasts a post-game free-roam mode where you can go around and collect any of the collectables that you missed during the main game. With about 100 collectables, there's a lot to find while exploring! (Tsuchinoko.... real?????????? #NOT FAKE?????????)
I was very hesitant going into playing the game. As most horror games of this style appeal to me, I was wanting to give it a shot. A little-known widely-known fact about myself is that I am very brave and strong a big baby coward, so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to give it a fair shot. As the VoDs show, however, I managed to more-or-less fully complete the game! As of this writing, I still have some collectibles to get, but I have finished the main story and collected most of the items in the post-game. As thus, I wanted to not only kick off this blog, but give my proper thoughts on the game as a whole.
The story starts off fairly strong, as the Protagonist and her dog Poro are walking home down a mountain. The Protagonist picks up a rock, and is tutorialized to throw the rock, one of the main mechanics of the game. What happens next will land this game on the "Does the Dog Die?" site, as Poro runs out into the road to fetch the rock and is struck by a car that appeared out of nowhere. This is unavoidable due to how the game tutorializes you. It's quite a shocking start to the game, and quite honestly could be the point where many people decide that the game is not for them. I continued to play, both expecting traumatic themes from a horror game, as well as having had proper warning from friends about the severity of what happens.
Moving forward throughout the game, the story becomes about looking for Sis. The Protagonist had not been able to tell Sis about what happened to Poro, so she had gone out on her own in order to find him. As the story explains later on, the Protagonist, being a FIVE YEAR OLD CHILD, had struggled to accept both Poro's death and her involvement in the matter. Because of this struggle of the Protagonist's, Sis is taken captive by the Mountain Spirit while searching the town on her own. After braving through several trials in town, including facing a human-faced dog, appeasing a centipede spirit, and being kidnapped by Yomawari-san, the Protagonist finds Poro and is able to forgive herself and properly part with Poro. Resolved, the Protagonist heads deeper into the mountain and confronts the Mountain Spirit in order to save her sister. With Sis safely recovered, the two head home, having faced the night. However, the Protagonist is forced to pay a price, and loses an eye as a trade for her and her sister's safety to leave the spirit realm.
The gameplay overall is fairly simple, with the main mechanics being tossing items as distractions/impediments to deal with spirits, as well as making use of your flashlight and various hiding spots throughout the town. There is a bit of clunkiness when moving around the town, as there are quite a few spaces where it looks as though you should be able to walk through an area, but you are unable to. The map is also strangely not fully updated to the game's in-game paths, although you'll only experience any issue with two paths in particular, which aren't that walked down to begin with.
I didn't have any actual issues with the gameplay overall, besides at one point in the school, so my experience wasn't overly dragged down. Later on in the main story, there were a few moments where either my path was obscured or enemies would have poor movement tracking. In the former case, I imagine that the path being obscured is part of the intended design. Nothing appeared wrong, per say, but I was not a fan of not being able to see ahead of me in some cases. In the latter case, in the lead up to the final boss, enemies were seemingly supposed to chase me back to a safe spot, where they'd disappear. However, the enemies got stuck and instead blocked the entire path, with no real way to get them to move. This was solvable, but was a bit frustrating at the end of a playthrough.
At the very beginning of my playthrough, I actually had something very humorous happen. During the first scripted scare in the game, setting aside the moment with Poro, the Protagonist is supposed to walk forward down a street. However, I had somehow got the Protagonist stuck before the intended movement, and the game decided to resolve this by launching the Protagonist far off the map. I was able to eventually walk back to the game proper, and managed to preview certain areas. I plan to see if this is recreatable, as it would be very fun to see how fast the game can be completed this way, if at all.
Overall, the atmosphere of the game did as it was supposed, as I was a very scared Tom. I'm glad that, like the Protagonist, I was able to face my fears and push through to the end of the night. I am not a huge fan of how, after the factory chapter, Yomawari-san can appear randomly and kidnap you again, but despite this, I felt all of the horror to be properly utilized. I look forward to playing the other installments in the future, but for now, I'm quite horrored out.
If you are able to handle the traumatic imagery and the scary atmosphere of the game, I definitely give it a recommend! If not, consider watching the game and taking your time going through, with proper breaks as needed for either method. Yomawari: Night Alone is definitely worth a playthrough, even if you watched me play through the game on Twitch. If you feel that playing through the game after watching it is a bit dull, consider both buying the game to support it, as well as trying out Yomawari: Midnight Shadows, its direct sequel. Yomawari: Lost in the Dark, the third title in the series, is slated to come out in the fall of this year (2022).
I look forward to writing more entries like this in the future as well, both about games I play, as well as whatever I feel about writing about. This particular piece was written during the final stream of the game, with support from chat members (big shout out to Rue for guidance both in setting this blog up and playing the game). You can watch the full playthrough over at YouTube!
Thanks for reading!