Release Date: October 23rd, 2019
Developer: GrisGris
Platforms: PC
Price: $9.99

To say I was elated when I heard Corpse Party would be coming back with the announcement of the localization of Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient would be an understatement. I specifically remember throwing a massive party (I was the only one attending) to celebrate the news of what I considered to be monumental. Here's a series that has evolved and grown so much with unforgettable moments and characters within its narrative that makes you wonder and keeps you at the edge of your seat (or in bed with the nightlight on), and has spanned literal decades at this point and still remains one-of-a-kind. Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient takes a slightly different approach to its storytelling, however. For starters, the Dead Patient we've received is not the game in its entirety, but is being released on a chapter by chapter basis. To some, this may be a more favorable way of consuming the content, but considering the game initially made its debut in Japan in 2013, six years later we have to settle for just a snippet of the bigger picture, which may leave some Corpse Party fans such as myself with a bit of a bad taste in their mouths given the need to binge on such an immersive story and world.

While I would still consider it a visual novel, Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient is undoubtedly the most loose of the series so far, as the dialogue seems to be shortened quite a bit with more emphasis on the gameplay portion, which is similar in style to Blood Drive. While there are a lot of cutscenes as you go from room to room and floor to floor in Amare Patriarcha Crucis Hospital, the main location of Dead Patient, you'll spend the bulk of your time finding items to progress further in the chapter. Choices aren't as imperative here as there are very few branching story choices, gallery stills, and endings to unlock, and you can tell that the visual novel portion has taken a step back this time around also since there isn't a skip or fast-forward button at all to quickly go through text. It's a bit unfortunate since when you're trying to unlock everything like I am, you will inevitably have to sit through a lot of what you've already done just to collect an ID, illustration, or ending you may have missed. Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient undoubtedly changes the formula up here a bit, and to be fair they've all been pretty different from each other, but even though the visual novel style of Corpse Party has been shelved in favor of more exploration this time around, it still holds its most important quality: feeling like Corpse Party.

Waking up in a hospital with no recollection of anything, lost and confused, Ayame Itou awakens in a room seemingly post-surgery, and as she attempts to get off of the operating table, she lands on the floor unable to stand as the anesthesia slowly wears off. Once she comes to, she leaves the room to find the hospital she's in dark and quiet. She feels alone, but as she explores the place looks like it's been ransacked, and she delves deeper into what's going on, she quickly realizes something is not right. Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient has no real connection to the story of Shinozaki in the first three games, though there is a slight reference in the prologue, and an extra chapter - which is available to play at the choice of the player before or after completing Chapter 1 - which does heavily focus on Satoshi who happens to be in the hospital because he's visiting his mother. Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient so far serves as a standalone story, and though I would still advise playing through the other games to have a greater appreciation of the world how all of the events that transpired would effectively lead to Dead Patient, it's also not entirely necessary this time around.

One of the biggest mishaps I noticed right away is that Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient doesn't have any voice acting. There are a couple of cues to convey certain emotions and reactions, but other than that there is little to no voice acting involved. Oddly, a few lines sporadically throughout Chapter 1 were fully voiced, but there was no pattern to where, when, or the significance to the line. It's something I found super odd and due to the fully voiced dialogue the series has seen since its inception, it unfortunately made the game feel empty. Corpse Party has never been this super high budget series, and admittedly it doesn't need to be, but after I found myself completing my playthrough in just an hour and a half, I couldn't help but feel like this was more of an indie game than something with a significant foundation in the VN and Horror genre, with a publisher like XSEED to boot. With all due respect to Indie games, which I love, in Corpse Party's case it just felt wrong and a step back, overall, from how much it has evolved, and while the game is a step in the right direction in a lot of ways as I feel they've gotten better with their presentations and format, the short chapter, very few unlockables, and lack of endings is disappointing in a lot of ways.

I can't speak for everyone - though I do believe taking the game chapter by chapter is easier to digest for most, especially those short on time - but Corpse Party to me has always been enjoyable in massive binges. Those stories are so good, and Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient is no different, so it's a shame that I'm limited to an hour and a half of playtime (there's also an achievement for completing Chapter 1 in under an hour) to experience something I've waited so long for and that I hold near and dear to me. To fully complete everything and get all unlockables and endings, it took me just over 45 minutes to do cleanup from where I had finished the game, leaving a fully completed game in just under 2 and a half hours. Most importantly, however, is that I did enjoy my time with it all the way through, as I feel between the puzzles, progression, UI, item management, and overall structure of the game has been vastly improved compared to prior entries in the series, I would have just liked more time to really get to know these characters more, and in a way befriend them much like I did the cast of the past.

PROS:

The mix of an enhanced chibi art style that's been cell shaded complements the 2D portions of objects within its environment very well
Atmosphere is still very much exquisitely done
An overhauled item system makes management much more intuitive and easy to keep track of, easily making it the best throughout the series.

CONS:

Very little voice acting, serving mostly as grunts and gasps to convey emotions
Corpse Party is so enthralling that it's extremely upsetting to get this on a chapter-by-chapter basis

A big thank you to XSEED and Team GrisGris for providing us a copy of Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient for the purpose of this review

Corpse Party 2: Dead Patient Review