Corpse Party: Blood Drive is a direct sequel to Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, and is the first game in the series for the PlayStation Vita. It is a visual novel first and foremost, with a survival horror exploration aspect as its primarily gameplay. It’s best to have played Book of Shadows first but if you haven’t, then the story is still easy enough to pick up the important parts and understand in general what’s going on through the dialogue. You won’t recognise the characters so some impact is lost there, but otherwise, it’s still perfectly enjoyable for first time players of the series.
The story mainly follows Ayumi, who had escaped from Heavenly Host, and is back living her life, albeit without her friends who had died, and their existence erased. This constantly haunts her and she is given hope that she’ll be able to bring them back if she returns to Heavenly Host and obtains the Book of Shadows again. The first few chapters start off slow as it builds up the setting but once Ayumi is at Heavenly Host, then that’s when the twists and turns come. Ayumi is joined by several other characters whose stories are interlinked.
The story is told in visual novel format, and this is actually the bulk of the game. These cutscenes can go on for some time and they like to interrupt the gameplay, which can feel abrupt as if the game is wrestling control away from you (which it is). The cutscenes can come at the worst possible times, and the ones after a big event where you just want to either save or know that something is currently chasing you, but you can’t get back into it as you need to sit through a lot of story can be frustrating. Outside of the story cutscenes, you’ll be left controlling the character as they explore Heavenly Host, which takes on the form of a school that’s falling apart, filled with blood splatters and other traps. The character defaults to walking at a slow pace but can sprint for a short period of time.
Heavenly Host is permanently in darkness, you can still see but it will make the traps harder to spot. As a result, each character has a sort of light, whether this be a proper flashlight or their phone, to help illuminate what’s in front of them. This will allow them to avoid traps such as glass on the floor or tripwires which damages the character, and causes a game over if their HP goes down to zero. The music is slow and eerie, it really helps build up the tension in the atmosphere.
As you go on exploring, there are also other shadows / spirits that pop into being, chasing your character. Whenever this happens, you can either defeat it by having a certain item in your inventory or run away to hide. They can be annoying, especially when you run out of the items and are forced to desperately find a way out. Coupled with the short sprint time (that you have no idea how much is left) and if you exhaust that, you’re stuck in one place, perfect for the spirits to kill you, it can be one of the worst parts of the game.
Exploring is the bulk of the gameplay and it can be confusing at first since it doesn’t have an in-game map, but the school isn’t that big in the end and you’ll be constantly going through the same areas. You’ll start to recognise where you are even without a map. However, since you’re treading through the exact same areas in each chapter, and with no helpful objective markers, you’ll easily get lost or confused in where to go in order to progress the story.
While this may not be the scariest game ever, it can be creepy and get under your skin. It sometimes relies on jump scares but due to the chibi art style, they’re not too bad. It’s more so the survival horror aspect where you can die during story events, resulting in a bad ending. At this point, you’re constantly on edge thinking something will happen and that’s what’s you’ll be stressing about. As you get used to how the game mechanics work, and become more familiar with the school’s layout, some of the creepiness will start to fade.
A negative of the game are the loading screens. Even booting up the game takes a while. Once you’re in the chapter, then every time you enter and exit a room there will be a loading screen. Pulling out the menu will trigger a loading screen, selecting something in the menu is another loading screen. It feels a bit overkill and can become quite an annoyance. It reaches a peak at one of the later chapters where there are instant kill traps, so you’ll be dying and reloading the save, taking ages in the process.
The story takes around ten to fifteen hours to finish, depending on how much you get lost. Obviously, if you follow a walkthrough, you’ll finish it within 10 hours, but this also depends on your reading speed. There are also various bad endings to obtain, and there are extra chapters that you can read afterwards. These are side stories that expand on the background of several characters, although they vary in quality. The extra chapters ranges from a few seconds to twenty minutes in length, so can feel inconsistent but it’s extra content.
Overall, Corpse Party: Blood Drive, for all its flaws, is surprisingly enjoyable. If you are a huge fan of survival horror, then this might not be scary enough for you. This game is also mostly a visual novel, so there is a lot of reading. However, this allows the story to be extremely intriguing, even if you have not played previous games in the series before. It keeps you interested in the lore of the game, and how everything is going to pan out. There are definitely some annoyances such as the cheap deaths and lack of direction so it’s too easy to get lost and not know where to go next. In the end, this is a worthwhile and fun game to play.
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