Newcomers to Corpse Party will find the series as a grisly take on school horror. In the series, four students become involved in a turmoil that plunges the Heavenly Host Elementary School into the realm of the supernatural. Beginning with the original Corpse Party game, players find themselves helping students escape the school’s terrible curse and uncover the mystery surrounding the mysterious Sachiko.

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As the series expanded into new games and even an anime adaptation, fans will soon learn more about the overall story previously known in prior installments. However, there are certain aspects of the game series that will always end up more frightening than any adaptation.

10 The Anime Risked The Adaptation Syndrome

Naomi and Seiko in Corpse Party

As any otaku would know, media with extended stories such as RPGs, light novels, and visual novels always face the risk of shortened narratives when adapted into movies or anime. Unfortunately, Corpse Party and its major set of 20-hour-plus games meant that the anime suffered the same restrictions.

While the anime manages to capture the game’s overall themes, the adaptations failed to capture the sheer fright in Corpse Party games. Granted, the anime managed to resolve major plot points as shown in the games. However, the journey wasn't quite as satisfying an experience.

An eerie environment in Corpse Party

It’s natural for players to expect quite the gory experience from a horror game named Corpse Party. However, with a backstory involving students and a school named Heavenly Host, the gore just quadrupled the horror. Anime viewers might feel the adaptation overdid the gore a bit. Unfortunately, too much blood and gore in a horror film may desensitize viewers to the overall experience.

In contrast, the game showcased its gore perfectly in the most unsettling ways. The game already featured its fair share of blood, bodies, and dilapidated environments. Juxtaposed with its anime visuals and chibi or sprite-based gameplay, it’s always shocking — and properly frightening — whenever the game surprises players with gory moments.

8 The Games Scared Through Graphics

A character in a cutscene in Corpse Party

Akin to other ambiance-heavy horror titles such as Silent Hill, Corpse Party heavily relied on both gameplay and environments to frighten audiences. Unlike the anime, which struggled to scare through its sped-up scripts, the gameplay of Corpse Party itself meshed well with its environments to frighten players.

Even the first Corpse Party title (Blood Covered) can excel in scaring players despite its premise. At its core, this title has a visual novel approach to narrative overlayed on 32-bit exploration. And despite the rather simple graphics, the unsettling music over the backdrop of a haunted school can leave players scared even in broad daylight.

7 The Games Frighten With Simple Mechanics

32bit graphics in Corpse Party

Contrary to other survival-horror titles, Corpse Party is largely a horror adventure title. In addition to scaring with the background, the heavy emphasis on exploration did a great deal to help solidify each Corpse Party game’s horror potential. Blood Covered already frightens players with its dilapidated school with blood and dead students in 32-bit graphics.

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However, what’s frightening is that players need to carefully check each body and each interactive object for clues where to go next. With this core mechanic, players have to power through the anxiety of having another grueling discovery before getting through the game’s main story.

6 The Games Expand Goals, Hopes, Fears

Two characters struggling to survive in Corpse Party

In both the anime and the games, Corpse Party remains a story about friendship. The irony of the game's prologue itself, that of students being trapped in their school after a ritual of “always being together,” is emphasized throughout each game’s story. However, this is highly unlike the anime, which follows a straightforward approach to each character’s “main” fate.

In the games, both main characters and side characters offer dialogue realistic enough for their age and situation. As such, players get an equal share of students being frightened and having natural reactions to their current state. These emotions, especially as they are on the verge of death, help stress the sheer horror and helplessness of their situation. These dialogues and actions add to character development that the anime couldn’t match.

5 The Games Have Relaxed Pacing

Exploring the environment in Corpse Party Blood Drive

It’s natural for the Corpse Party adaptation to get straight to the point with the game’s story. Unfortunately, while it did tell the Corpse Party story in a straightforward manner, its pacing didn’t help “sell” the story.

What the anime fails to realize is that pacing remains a core component for fans to fully appreciate the overarching narrative. Thanks to players taking the time to explore the game and interacting with both main and side characters, the emotional attachment makes shocking scenes all the more gruesome and unexpected.

4 The Games Fulfill The Haunted School Trope

The Sachiko Ever After ritual in Corpse Party

As a horror game set in Japan, it’s natural for fans to expect the game to have horror tropes unique to Japan. While the long-haired spirit has been a staple in Japanese horror, the “haunted school” trope remains multicultural. As such, Corpse Party in itself is unsettling from the get-go due to its premise: being trapped in a haunted school.

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Unlike the anime that simply “retells” the story of the games, the Corpse Party titles put players into the haunted school themselves. Since it's an exploration title, players only have their own perception of a haunted school as their context as they learn more about the game’s events. The game relies on the player’s own perception to scare them, which the anime cannot do.

3 The Games Involve The Player

The enigmatic Sachiko in Corpse Party

As with other visual novels, Corpse Party is a largely interactive experience. Contrary to its anime and manga counterparts, Corpse Party games involve the player in the main story. Each game has its own set of playable characters; however, it’s always up to the players to decide what moves they’ll make and how to tackle the game’s problems at large.

True to an exploration-heavy experience, Corpse Party emphasizes its horror through discovery while touring one’s surroundings. And despite being repeatedly set in schools, each Corpse Party game always unsettled players in new ways through this interactive approach.

2 The Games Hold Players Accountable

Game Over Screen in Corpse Party

Since they involve the player, the games excel in that they hold players responsible for the fates of Corpse Party characters. True to its visual novel narrative, players have access to one True Ending and an overwhelming number of Bad Endings to each game. Additionally, some hard-coded and subtle choices can determine which characters die at any point in the story. Players can feel solely responsible for the endings they cause.

What’s more interesting is the fact that these choices can also affect the story’s final ending. As a result, a Corpse Party game’s final survivors may or may not be canonical, with players having to do a replay to find out. This is highly unlike the anime, where characters act based on predetermined scripts.

1 The Games Expand On Endings

A mysterious mansion in Corpse Party

Unlike the more straightforward anime adaptation, the Corpse Party games offer a myriad of narrative expansions for players. Aside from its core True Ending, the Bad Endings also offer new perspectives to characters before spiraling towards their cruel fates.

Moreover, some Bad Endings become the main scope of certain Corpse Party entries. In particular, the Book of Shadows sequel explores one of the original game’s Bad Endings. And the third game, Blood Drive, continues from Book of Shadows. The extensive narrative surrounding Sachiko’s story and the mystery behind the Heavenly Host School remains the most compelling drive of the series.

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