Gameplay & Bug & Things of Interest Info for Forbidden Siren.
v. 1.86 - completed 16. 12. 2008
Tested, acknowledged and compiled by AKheon.
See the end of file for more information.
Home site of the author: http://akheon.wordpress.com/
0. Contents:
------------
Note: do a search if you need to find something specific.
0. Contents
1. Introduction, version history + abbreviations
- Preface
- What this file will not tell you
- Who is this file for anyway?
- Why the strange list of topics?
- A note on info placement
- A note on the video demonstrations
- (version history)
- (abbreviations)
2. Glossary, mechanisms, explanations
- What's the point of this section?
- Notes about time passing, carried items and level details
- Important, general entries on game mechanics
- Other entries on general mechanics
- Actions
- Shibitos
- Special techniques
- Mechanism-related, "for experts"
3. Level-by-level details (the meat and potatoes...)
4. List of items
5. Legal information + contact info, etc.
1. Introduction
---------------
Preface:
The need for this file came when there was noted to be very much
stray information about this game and its bugs. We were doing
various challenge runs on the boards, finding out strange things at
an alarming pace. This compilation was then put together...
Most of the content is well tested out and found out to be true,
some is just teetering in the edge of fact or fiction - a very meager
part, though. Stuff that was very hard to test out, mostly. If you have
info on falseness or info on new bugs, then, please contact me.
WARNING:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This FAQ is not really a normal FAQ/Walkthrough, and if you're looking
for one, turn back now.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you haven't played the game through already, you shouldn't peruse
this file as there are spoilers and not too much help gameplay-wise.
I've been told this file can actually be used as a sort of walkthrough
guide, even though it was intended for a different purpose - but I
don't personally recommend it.
What this file will not tell you:
This file concentrates on both the minimal and the maximal - both tid-
bit details and very general facts - at the cost of leaving the things
in the middle zone largely out. (archives, the plot, lesser objectives,
etc.) There are many practical things (such as step-by-step strategies
or specific locations of items) this FAQ will not reveal. This file assumes
that you already know the game fairly well, but - are interested in knowing
more. Or, if you indeed are a new gamer and wish to use this FAQ, then I
suggest you at least try out the levels several times before resorting
to using help. That way the spoilers hurt minimally. Also, get prepared
for some very in-depth material which you probably won't understand or
are not interested in.
Who is this file for anyway:
The information is esoteric and specialized, that's for sure. At it's
broadest - including the most hopeful estimate of its consumer group
this "FAQ" is of interest to anyone who wants to squeeze something more
out of their Siren-experience.
Why the strange list of topics?
Because they are very conveniently explained together. They have
so much to do with each other (in effect) that you couldn't separate
the topics and walk away without lacking in essential content.
Originally this file had info on speedrunning too! Be thankful
for this reduction, as things would've been otherwise a lot messier.
A note on the info placement:
I'm trying to refrain from repeating myself at any point. Therefore,
some info may be found somewhere else than where you'd think it's found.
So look around in a case of emergency. If you still can't find what you
are looking for, it probably never was in this file's range of topics.
Or if it was, then it's something mistakenly overlooked, probably.
For example, I'll mention the required default things of interest
about any certain character/place on the first time it comes up. On other
occasions I'll only mention the new things of interest. (for example,
about some recurring PC and his/her abilities that change with time,
not explaining every single detail about his/her previous capabilities
whenever his/her topic comes up.)
A note on the video demonstrations:
I sometimes illustrate a point via a Youtube-hosted video. These
videos are all made by me, for random reasons originally not related to
this "FAQ". But as it turned out, they're useful here too.
One final warning:
This FAQ is extremely talkative. Try to deal with it.
Version history:
----------------
-v. 1.86 (16. 12. 2008)
- added Maeda comments
File size: 227kt. (yes, it's kt now)
-v. 1.85 (25. 11. 2008)
- Added turbo-gliding and other small stuff
File size: 226kb.
-v. 1.81 (14. 6. 2008)
- Added little info
- Updated links
NOTE: I'm aware that this FAQ is somewhat outdated. I should get back into Siren
and try to update all the stuff that should be updated, but it doesn't seem
possible in close future.
File size: 223kb.
-v. 1.8 (18. 5. 2008)
- Finished the item listing
- Updated info
File size: 223kb.
-v. 1.5 (20. 4. 2008)
- Started an item listing.
- Listed detailed times to levels.
- Listed video stages.
- Added some small stuff here and there.
File size: 218kb.
-v. 1.22 (2. 3. 2008)
- Rewrote text.
File size: about 211kb.
-v. 1.20 (12. 1. 2008)
- More discoveries on gliding, etc.
- More entries in the glossary thingie.
- Prioritized content.
- Updated links.
File size: about 212kb.
-v. 1.15 (22. 12. 2007)
- Added info on weapon switching.
- Corrected text.
- Updated links.
File size: about 210kb.
-v. 1.12 (3. 11. 2007)
- Corrected grammar stuff.
- Rewrote meager amounts of text.
- A new "glitch" from Kyoya's Day 1 - 23:00 was added.
File size: about 210kb.
-v. 1.11 (30. 9. 2007)
- Added small amounts of info.
- Some spelling errors were terminated.
- A logical error was purged.
File size: about 208kb.
-v. 1.10 (1. 9. 2007)
- Re-arranged the glossary and some layout.
- Added glossary entries.
- Added objective listing to each level.
- Added info on gliding.
- Added info on several 'invisible wall'-sightings.
- Added a couple of new special techniques.
- Bunch of info here and there.
File size: about 207kb.
-v. 0.99 (29. 8. 2007)
- Changed something in the introduction.
- Added info on several levels. (like Reiko's Day 1 - 23:00)
- Added glossary sections. (Ramming to walls, character sizes...)
- Added info on some glossary sections. (locking doors, event-handling..)
- Corrected typos.
File size: about 189kb.
-v. 0.98 (26. 8. 2007)
- More stuff on event handling.
- More stuff on Risa's Day 1 - 22:00.
- More stuff on Harumi's Day 2 - 15:00.
- More glossary sections.
- Random new or never-before-mentioned info all around.
File size: about 184kb.
-v. 0.96 (19. 8. 2007)
- Updated version history.
- Added examples and info to several places. (e.g. the phone bugs)
- Clarified an important section, rewrote stuff all around.
File size: about 172kb.
-v. 0.95 (18. 8. 2007)
- Found out the "in-game menu" is actually called the "List Menu" inside
the game - made a mention of it.
- Added a lot of info here and there. Added inventories. Added a mention
about a new glitch.
File size: about 170kb.
- v. 0.9 (11. 8. 2007)
- The first one published. All the levels listed.
File size: about 160kb.
What to do in future revisions:
-------------------------------
- add an info section on each of the maps of this game, instead of
just the levels. (is it necessary?)
- add more details and consistency.
- Mina�s and Risa�s taunts. Also Maedas'. Does Akira have taunts?
- maybe sort out the various video links better/add more/reduce them.
- of course, more bugs listed! But they have to be found first...
Abbreviations:
--------------
PC = player character, the character you're controlling.
MO1 = mission objective 1
MO2 = mission objective 2
FPV = first-person view
sidekick = a general term of any person you have to escort during
this game.
"normal menus" = the menus you get to by pressing start or select
"normal movement" = usually means: the movement caused with the left
analog stick, just running or walking, no strafing,
crouchwalking, etc.
"first frame possible" = as quickly as possible, basically. My use of
this term is pretty unscientific...
2. Glossary, mechanisms, explanations:
--------------------------------------
What's the point of this section:
I explain the basic properties of some mechanism/object, then delve in
the interesting stuff surrounding it. Also, you get a general glossary
for some terms that I may use later on. Some of these are terms I
personally invented for explaining this game's phenomena, so bear with
me. Note: Info that is highly obvious might not get mentioned, except for
introductory purposes.
Notes about time passing, carried items and level details:
- Inventories do not really 'carry on' from the previous levels, with
the exception of some special items. E.g. bullet amounts are fixed in
each level.
- If there's some eminent level-specific mechanism available somewhere
for the sole use of solving the respective level, such as 'a fire
extinguisher', it is assumed canon that the character indeed used the
mechanism (even if s/he didn't in your playthrough) at that time and
place. An example: you have a chance to light Miyata's car on fire at
Kyoya's Day 2 - 07:00. Even if you don't, it's burnt to a smoky husk
when you later see it with Tamon - it DID happen anyway.
Important, general entries on game mechanics:
---------------------------------------------
(read this or you won't have an idea on what I'm talking about later)
In-game menu - activated with triangle button:
A specialty of this game, a small menu that you can open during normal
gameplay. It contains commands for unlocking/locking doors, shouting,
reloading and manipulating sidekicks, combined with the occasional very
special event-specific command. While the in-game menu is open, all
in-game time is stopped.
You can't open this menu if you're climbing, falling, in attack
stance or - in general - doing something else than running or normally
moving. Whenever you operate something through this menu you lose 0.08
seconds, even in locations where all time is stopped.
Whenever you open up the in-game menu, your character's normal
moving animation (if s/he was in one) resets. This results in glitches
which are explained in a section about 'Gliding'. (way down below)
The official name of this menu is actually "List Menu".
Other entries on general mechanics:
-----------------------------------
Character sizes & differences:
There are basically three different sizes for characters in this game.
There are differences of health and stamina between characters, even
though they're in the same class, as there are some other differences
too - this is just a brief categorization.
1, adult male
characters: Kyoya, Tamon, Kei, Shiro, Akira
Means: toughest PC's, can climb things up to their own height.
2, adult female
characters: Risa, Reiko, Tomoko, Naoko
Means: second-toughest PC's, quick 180 degree turn, can climb
things up to half their height.
3, little kids
character: Harumi
Means: weak as hell, slow running speed, low stamina, can
nonetheless climb things half their height.
I'm not sure if the different sized characters have different hit boxes
as well.
Checkpoints:
The creators of this game have graced you with occasional checkpoints
that activate as the PC reaches some location or activates some cut-
scene, etc. After that, if you die or choose to retry, you'll continue
at the checkpoint instead of the beginning of the level.
While restoring from a checkpoint, the PC's inventory is
meddled with. For example: the amount of bullets resets to some certain
amount. Some level-specific objects are eradicated and you need to go
get them again in unlucky cases. If there are some additional important
events or objectives in the level, regarding the mission objective 2's
for example, the checkpoint will usually not restore them even if you
had completed them before dying. (such as: breaking the sake bottle at
Kyoya's Day 2 - 07:00)
Checkpoints can occasionally be abused. This means: consciously
retrying for the sake of acquiring bullets, health or losing alerted shibitos
off one's back. Rarely skipping a part of the level.
Video demonstrations:
1, checkpoint abuse at Kyoya's Day 2 - 22:00:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGyOpBMTQHw
Dying:
When a character dies, s/he starts his/her death animation. It takes a
diabolically long time to run through. This was mended in Siren 2, in
which death animations are up to 75% shorter.
The dying of either you or your sidekick is considered a failure
and the game ends. While dying, no cutscenes or other events may be
entered. (for example, if you kill an enemy whose death activates a
cutscene, that cutscene will not activate if you or your sidekick dies
at the same instant.) Also, as the death throes begin, the light effect
of the PC's flashlight is diminished, as if it suddently wasn't on
anymore. (to darker the mood)
A dying character cannot be attacked or targeted. This may
result in awkward situations where your sidekick gets attacked while
the PC is dying 'safely'. But note that when this happens, your sidekick
will not die no matter how bad a beating she gets. The same applies in
reverse too: if your sidekick kicks the bucket, the PC shall taste the
chalice of eternity... How ingenious the makers of Siren were! You all
know the running message of immortality and it's hefty prices here.
(By the way, how come it's a mission failed if the PC just
secured his/her absolute survival with the small expense of some
backwaters side-character who was about to die in just a few minutes
anyway? I tell ya, the developers just don't want to see the characters
escape alive from their grim situation...)
Special events:
- It's possible to get both you and your sidekick to die at the
same time. If this happens, only your PC will make his/her dying sound
and the camera concentrates on him/her.
- It's possible for you to die while a text message is shown at the screen's
bottom - a graphical glitch happens.
- It's possible for you to achieve gameover inside the sightjacking screen -
get someone to attack your sidekick, and then sightjack at the exact moment
she dies. (or this is how I think it's done. It has happened to me only
once.)
- It's possible for you to achieve death while a cutscene is right about to
start. The game takes an extraordinarily long time to wait (about 5-6
seconds) before the pre-cutscene's black screen suddenly awakens into the
all-too-familiar'Mission failed'-jingle & text.
Video demonstrations:
1, having both the PC and his sidekick die at the same time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR7WVdVbIxk
2, dying in cramped spaces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GeIms1To-w
Sub-objective messages:
You see these at the bottom of the screen at the beginning of the levels
or when you've achieved something the game deems as important. They are
like normal text messages except that they do not interfere with the game
time or events in any way. They disappear as soon as you press X, circle,
triangle, or if enough time has passed, or if your character is dying.
There's a small bug in which the sub-objective message will not
disappear by itself. So you could theoretically complete whole levels
with the message showing... doesn't seem very useful, I know. I'm not
sure how the bug activates, but it may have something to do with
pressing X extremely lightly while the message shows - somehow the game
may think that the message disappears while it actually doesn't. This
bug has happened to me only once.
Other small bugs include empty sub-objective messages or simply
non-existant sub-objective messages (where there should be).
Video demonstrations:
1, the only occasion this has ever happened to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwXSwwKPRXQ
Actions:
--------
The 180 degree turn:
By quickly flicking the left analog stick to the back, your character
will turn around. This is faster than just turning around 180 degrees
normally, though the actual length of the 'turnaround'-animation varies
from character to character, Tamon's being the slowest, Reiko's (or other
female characters') the fastest.
This movement actually consists of two parts. There's a brief
moment before the 'turnaround' when you can still cancel the animation
or do some other stuff of your liking. For example: activate 180 degree
turn and sightjack instantly afterwards. Your character will first
go into sightjack, and, after you close sightjack, instanly turn around.
Or: crouch right before 'turnaround' starts, and the whole 180 will just
cancel out. Read more about its functionality at the section "Pre-emptive
180" at the special technique listing.
Attack stance:
When you press R1, your character will enter an attack stance if s/he's
wielding a weapon. S/he remains there until you release R1 or s/he gets
damage.
While in attack stance, you can't go to first person view (via
R2), change camera (via the right analog stick), sightjack, crouch, run
(or even walk, if there are no enemies nearby) or enter any menu. But...
you can attack, if it's of any consolation.
There are two attacks, a strong one and a weak one. The player
chooses between them by pressing X down either for a shorter or a longer
duration. Yes, the game itself says this in the help-menu! It's not about
strength, only length.
Your PC can attack with his/her fist using a glitch. First, get
a character with a projectile weapon. (Tamon, Kyoya later on, etc.) Then
shoot with your weapon, then release R1 (during the attack) and go to the
normal menu to unequip your weapon. After you leave the menu, your PC
will do a quick jab with his/her fist! (although it really sucks, not
having any range and not doing any damage either.) Read more in a further
section about "IWS - illegal weapon switching".
I don't think the enemies in this game have attack stances.
(unlike in Siren 2) Their mechanisms for moving and doing whatever
they do is simpler.
Falling from heights:
When jumping down from a place that is easily over the PC's height, the
PC will do an especially slow and tired effort in getting up. The result
is different from character to character, old and young characters
suffering the most. If the PC has a sidekick following, she'll usually
jump down as well.
These kind of falls do hurt all the characters, even though
only few locations can literally kill them. F.e. the long fall down the
Rokkaku's shed's roof - your sidekicks die after three jumps,
occasionally the PC's too. (like Kei.) Another in-game exception is if
you're starting to climb down a ladder when you're attacked. Instead of
succesfully climbing the ladder, the PC falls down and dies if the fall
was too big.
A clever way to escape recovery time is to have a shibito
attack you while you're getting up. The bad part is that you will get
damage � and with characters like Risa, it is death straight from only
one strong hit. Also, it requires some strict timing and luck.
If you fall on your sidekick or a shibito, s/he'll get knocked
backwards, but s/he'll probably not get any damage.
Video demonstrations:
1, Hisako dies after jumping off the roof 3 times:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BaW-8JddHs
First-person view:
By pressing R2 you enter the first-person view (FPV) mode. While in this
mode not everything works normally. You can't...
- enter in-game menu
- enter normal menu
- check out your map
- get in attack stance or attack
- run
- crouch
- climb or drop down
However, you can still...
- walk, strafe and back away
- turn
- look around
Not much a consolation, eh? Fortunately you also get one additional
ability you never otherwise have. It is...
- zoom
You can't enter this mode if you're sightjacking or have R1 pressed
down or are entering the attack stance.
Flashlight:
Most characters have one or are able to get one, or if not, it must be
daytime. You don't have to worry about the batteries. Turned on or off
with the square-button.
With flashlight on, your enemies are able to notice you from much
further away than normally. The flashlight ruins your stealth, even though
as an obvious advantage you're able to see much further yourself.
Sometimes you need flashlight to be able to examine or activate things.
Don't worry about this, it happens very rarely.
Ladders:
As you might've guessed, they're a method for transportation up or down.
When embarking on a set of ladders, there's a slow animation which the
character attempting to climb must partake. The same calls true if the
character is leaving the set of ladders from either end. If a character
is attacked while on the ladder or while s/he's getting on a ladder,
s/he'll drop down and die if the fall is high enough. If a character
jumps down the ladder and hits another who is climbing the same ladder,
the one who was hit will fall down. If 'circle' is pressed while on a ladder,
the character will jump down quickly and safely, even though the recovery
time from a large fall can get on nerves. If the character is too close to
the ground s/he just descends down like normally instead of jumping.
Most of your enemies can climb ladders, but they can't attack
you or do anything interesting while they're hanging there. They can
drop down or ascend or descend, that's it. There's one glitch available
for abuse, though: you can get a shibito stuck at the ladder's upper end
by provoking him to descend at a wrong time.
Video demonstration:
1, the mentioned glitch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i2VVNtAABU
Locations with first-person view:
Occasionally you stumble to some places in which you'll see everything
from the first person. (the PC's eyes.) These are for example the
innards of the closets, innards of the cars, etc. You enter these
locations with the in-game menu.
When you're in one such a place the time stops, even the Time
Attack-display disappears. (you still do waste some very meager amounts
of 'total time', as using the in-game menus somehow adds some little
digits of time in the counter.) There is one notable exception to this
rule: the closets in the abandoned house. See the rules table close by
for more information.
When you're in a FPV-location, it's impossible for you to die.
It's impossible to get any shibitos alerted either. (for example, the
enemies will not notice Harumi from the abandoned house's closets even
if the closet door is open.) In some cases, the game simplifies the
outside areas so that the enemies disappear from the field and
essentially stop doing anything.
Camera's default position is aimed right in front of the PC.
You may move the view around, but if you let go of the controls the
view quickly returns to the default. If you move the camera away from
the default position before activating a cutscene, you'll usually get
a redundant treat of seeing the camera flicker quickly to the default
and back.
The closets:
- can't die or get anyone alerted
- can't fight enemies
- can't move
- time won't stop
- can enter all the menus
- can sightjack
- can't operate flashlight
- most normal in-game menu commands unavailable
- the PC's character model won't disappear
Every other FPV-place:
- can't die or get anyone alerted
- can't fight enemies
- can't move
- time will stop
- can't enter any menus except the in-game menu
- most normal in-game menu commands unavailable
- can't sightjack
- can't operate flashlight
- the PC's character model disappears
Video examples:
1, Harumi's Day 2 - 15:00 closets and the shibitos' inability to see
inside it (even though it's open):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_zEhnDFTpA
Locking and unlocking doors:
PC has the ability to lock certain doors. It doesn't require any keys,
it is simply an option which appears when you open the in-game menu in
front (or behind) of the certain doors. When choosing to lock the door,
a short animation begins. Sometimes - it differs by the time and the
place and the character - you may interrupt it at any time after the
door 'clicks', a sign which shows that the door is then locked. Some-
times the animation can instead be interrupted at any time, in a
similar way like "Shout!" - even before the door is actually locked. So
this is something to watch out for. But in any case, the animation also
ends if the door is opened from the other side before the 'click' is
heard.
Graphic effect-wise, it looks like there are several different
door locking animations, depending on where the lock is on the door. It's
actually always the same animation, the only difference being the PC's
hand's location: the game recognizes the spot where the lock is situated
and guides the PC's immaterial hand there.
When a door is locked, it cannot be opened until it's unlocked.
The PC can do this by simply opening the in-game menu and choosing to
'unlock'. Like with locking the door, there's a short animation, and
it's subject to the same rules - it's the same animation after all. If the
door is naturally locked, as a part of the level design, it may require
a key to open, or it may simply be inoperable.
A shibito can open a locked door by simply banging to it four
times. It's not unlocked, though, until he physically opens it after
doing the bangs - and when he does it, it'll open as easily as if it
was never locked. When a shibito has opened the door this way, it can
never be locked again. You lose the option for it, maybe the lock
breaks? When a shibito has started knocking on the door, he will
continue it even if the door meanwhile becomes unlocked, and if he
then opens the door, its lock breaks all the same anyway.
Your sidekicks are unable to open locked doors of any sort.
If you leave your sidekick behind a locked door, she either finds
another route to you or then simply becomes immobile, with her head
starting to twitch slightly. (you can see it via sightjack) (This is
a sign of AI's incapability to calculate a route by which to come
to you, and it also happens if your sidekick is too far away or on a
too different height, etc.)
When the door is banged at, it will shake. If your PC is
right next to the door, his/her position will change ever so slightly...
The normal menu and the map menu:
They are activated by pressing either start or select, respectively.
You can't open them if someone is dying or you're in attack stance or
FPV-stance or sightjacking or have in-game menu open.
There are about a million things to tell you about these menus.
One of them is: pressing several buttons at once counts. Try (in the
normal menu) putting the cursor on 'Exit', and then pressing square and
X at the same time. Unfortunately this trick is not very useful in
anything else but killing time...
Most of the stuff on this menu is self-explanatory. If you really
need help, press square and a help-screen opens up.
Opening and closing doors:
When opening or closing a door there occurs an animation which's length
differs from different door type to another. Before the animation,
there's a moment of auto-positioning.
Certain doors can be opened either the fast way or the slow way.
(there's a different animation, other noticeably longer than the other.)
I think the player chooses between them by pressing the X down either a
shorter or a longer duration. It changes to the faster if you're chased
or hurt. Also, as far as I know, this kind of speed differing doesn't
happen when closing doors.
The door is an obstacle, a wall, just like every other wall in
this game. If closed it blocks the doorway, when opened it blocks the
area wherever it happens to stand then. For some reason shibitos tend
to sometimes fail in getting around opened doors - a good defensive tip
for the defenseless characters like Kei or Risa.
The animation of the PC opening (or closing) the door overrides
whatever current animation s/he had while starting it. This includes (but
is not limited to) attacking, crouching, moving. Attacking in a doorway
and closing the door before the attack is finished (sort of 'canceling'
it) is a good strategy for killing several enemies in this game safely,
even Mina. (read more in a section further down, suitably called "Attack
cancel".) Going into a crouch before opening/closing the door just looks
funny, even though it's otherwise useless.
If there's a character standing behind a door that's opening
or closing, s/he will be startled and a short animation occurs. If a
character is badly positioned inside the doorway, closing the door may
cause the character to zip inside the house and in front of the one who
closed the door.
Video demonstrations:
1, "the door that saved Kei Makino"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OoZY6EPBgI
2, "the door that screwed Kei Makino"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptt1apuquYU
Ramming to a wall:
If you're running, have runned a certain distance, and approach a certain
type of wall carelessly, you achieve a wallram. The PC will predictably ram
into a wall and waste some time. However, some unpredictable things happen
too, such as your PC's stamina sometimes recovering instantly for no reason.
(read more from a section called "Strategic wallram", further down.)
The mechanism for running into a landslide is exactly the same,
even though the end-animation is different.
Sidekick manipulation:
- 'Come here!' means that you make your sidekick follow you. Your side-
kick complies as long as she's not on a different elevation than you,
or behind locked doors, no matter the dangers on the way. If she is on
a different elevation, or inside some restricted area, she usually won't
come, instead opting to stay where she is - and if you sightjack her, you
see that her vision twitches eerily. (This is a sign of AI's incapability
to calculate a route by which to come to you, no problems. Just open
up a route or get closer to the sidekick, that should solve the problem.)
- 'Wait!' means that you make your sidekick wait at wherever she is
when you make her wait. The sidekick crouches and sometimes starts to
talk by herself. If an enemy approaches, most sidekicks forget your
orders and instead escape. The effect is the same as in 'Run!'.
- 'Run!' is a command only available when a shibito is chasing and
close. During it the sidekick simply runs away to some direction,
usually towards the shibitos and her untimely death. There are some
pre-determined places on the levels where the sidekicks stop (if they
get that far) and crouch, until they die or the PC comes and picks them
up.
- 'Hide!' is glorified 'Run!', using very restricted pre-determined
hiding places above anything else. When you tell the sidekick to hide,
they just run to the pre-determined location and crouch. Sometimes this
command is used in making sidekicks discover objects, but not often.
- 'Pull up!' means that the PC will lift the sidekick to an area where
she'd not able to climb by herself. This command is only available when
on the edge of (and on top of) a certain-heighted cliff - roughly as
high as what the PC is. If the sidekick is not nearby, she'll find her
way to the location of intended pull up.
- there are some other special commands too, but they're too event- and
location-specific to be mentioned here.
Sightjacking:
The ability that enables you to see the world through the sight other
living beings in the area, both enemies and allies. You can't enter the
sightjacking-mode if you have R1 or R2 pressed down. You can sightjack
only while either crouching or standing and being idle. No sightjacking
from, say, ladders. You can't move while you're sightjacking. (and
vice-versa, you can't sightjack while you're moving) Instead, the PC
is stuck in an animation in which s/he looks like heavily concentrating
in some inner vision. You can sightjack while doing an attack, though,
as long as you're not pressing down R1 at the moment.
The sightjacked vision is free from any darkness obscurity �
basically, it's the effect of some night vision goggles. Every character
can see as well as the other, even Yoriko without her glasses.
PC can get interrupted during sightjack. This happens if
s/he's attacked by an enemy or s/he suddenly has to perform a 'Pull up'.
There's a slight bug available: if the PC sightjacks while
descending into a crouch (or ascending from a crouch), s/he'll get
stuck to the ground for a moment after returning to the normal gameplay.
Also, if you sightjack right before special camera angles activate, they
may end up crooked. (read more in the section about "Game events, how
they are handled".)
Shouting:
You may shout with your character at any time you can open your in-game menu.
When shouted at, nearby shibitos become suspicious - this calls true for both
your shouts AND the enemy shouts. Every PC has at least three different sound
clips for this, don't know about the shibitos.
For making noise, shouting is not as effective as shooting with a gun.
Strafing:
This is done pressing the L1-button, and it can be done even without
any weapons. Animation's speed differs from character to character,
usually exceeding normal walking speed. Strafing has many uses in the
game, mainly avoiding sniper shots from behind obstacles.
A second type of strafing is available when you're crouching
and press L1. It's slower than normal strafe, and can be slightly
slower or faster than normal crouching movement.
A third type of strafing happens with the weapon equipped and
both L1 and R1 depressed at the same time. During this you can't move
the camera at all, for some reason. Maybe it is an effort by the game
creators to hide the fact that the PC's feet movement looks completely
dumb while doing this?
None of your normal opponents will ever strafe - the only
exception is the second-to-last boss who starts doing it if you get
too close.
Strangle:
Most of the humanoid enemies in this game have the ability to strangle
other characters. This attack homes in whenever the PC is close enough
(yes, 100% hit rate), and it'll continue indefinitely until the PC shakes
him/herself off it (by wiggling the analog stick), or the PC is attacked
physically by some other enemy. The fastest possible moment the PC can
shake him/herself off is after about 1.20 seconds. When/if s/he does
this, the enemy will be startled and he'll step a few steps back away
(with one exception: Mina in Risa's 22:00). While choking, both the
enemy and the PC are stuck in an animation. The enemy will never
voluntarily stop choking the PC, so it's up to the PC (or another enemy)
to stop the process before eventual death. A short while of strangling
tends to do less damage than an average physical attack.
If the PC gets strangled the instant s/he activates a cutscene
and gets teleported via it to some place else, the game acts as if s/he
had wriggled out of the strangle an instant before the teleportation.
If a sidekick is strangled, she'll shake herself off the choke
the first possible moment, unless she dies before that. You can't
strangle any of your enemies in this game. (which is a shame) No more
than one enemy can strangle you at any time.
Weapons:
There are three basic types of weapons: melee, projectile (revolver
and rifle) and "other" (Uryen). The damage each character and shibito
does when attacking depends solely on the weapon used. Some weapons
are more powerful than others, etc. as logic would call it.
PCs can't attack anything barehanded (unless with a glitch,
check out the section 'Attack stance'), even though shibitos can:
they can strangle or do a normal weaponless attack which will harmlessly
pass through anyone in the vicinity. There are only a few special
shibitos in the game who don't have any weapon equipped on them, though,
and not all of them even do the aforementioned normal weaponless
attack. (The ones I know are: patroller near ore processing plant at
Shiro's Day 1 - 03:00 MO2 and the mysteriously appearing dial lock
shibito from Kei's Day 1 - 12:00 MO2)
The shibitos do not get hit from each other�s melee weapons,
only projectile bullets.
See the section on "Illegal weapon switching" (further down)
for info about... unexpected weapon switching.
Shibitos:
---------
The shibitos generally:
They are your enemies in this game. They take many shapes and forms,
from humanoid to insectoid.
A shibito will become 'suspicious' when s/he hears certain things.
These are: hearing the PC's footsteps, hearing a shout, hearing PC's
gun. During this state s/he'll search lazily around the nearby area,
especially towards the direction where the sound was heard. This state
lasts only a short time, perhaps 10-15 seconds, after which shibito will
return to his usual doings.
A shibito will become 'alerted' when s/he sees targets, such as
the PC or his/her sidekick. In this state s/he'll start searching and
following you actively, putting you in grave danger. This state lasts
indefinitely, ending only when s/he loses you from his/her sight or
dies. After that s/he spends a moment in the 'suspicious'-state, using
the last sighting of the target as a meaningful cue.
When a shibito gets alerted, the screen will flash red (or
whatever you wanted it to flash, as it's selectable from the options)
and s/he makes a distinct sound by which you can tell s/he's alerted.
When a shibito gets suspicious, the screen will not flash red, but
s/he still emits a distinct sound.
A shibito doesn't die, but rather just gets 'knocked out'.
After a short while s/he'll be back up. The required time differs with
each shibito. After a shibito has been revived, s/he's suspicious for
a moment before returning to the normal route.
The shibitos will never voluntarily aim each other, and they
won't get damaged from each other's hits either - with the only
exception being projectiles.
Appearing/disappearing shibitos:
Some shibitos enter the level only after you've reached some location,
picked up some item, etc. Before they're around you can't sightjack
them or do anything else with them for that matter. The same calls for
shibitos who've disappeared: they're outside your sphere of influence
in every possible way. If you had a sightjacking slot reserved for a
disappearing shibito, it'll disappear as the shibito disappears � if
you want it back you have to manually set it again when the shibito is
available again.
Shibito voices:
During both normal gameplay and sightjacking, you can hear various
noises from your enemies. Most of these are obvious, like the sounds
they make when they get alerted, etc. But all of them have something which
could also be called as 'taunts', special noises which they make for no
reason at all, at random intervals. They are often very high in volume and
sudden. Though not always. If these 'taunts' come from your ex-PC's, they
often contain some clear speech clips which reveal their true intentions!
I'm not sure if these taunts are (at least partially) different during the
gameplay and when sightjacking. Some special voices are only heard when they
are alerted or become alerted.
During sightjack, you also hear all the shibitos breathe loudly.
They have a different breathing voice if they're alerted, and it turns
back to normal when the alert fades out - usually. Sometimes their sounds
remain alerted beyond their actual physical state, and you have to
re-sightjack them in order to hear them breathe nice and slow again.
Flying shibitos:
As you'd guess, they're shibitos that fly. They sport a pair of insect
wings and move around the area carrying a revolver or a rifle. Most of
the rules that apply to other projectile weaponry using shibitos apply
to them too, but they have a couple of unique things of their own too.
First of all, even though they can fly, they only scarcely pass
over to areas that normally walking shibitos wouldn't or couldn't go.
It may be a result of walls that extend high up to the air invisibly,
or it may be a result of some in-game script that doesn't want them to
helplessly fall inside obstacles or walls when they die. Needless to
say, it does happen anyway, so the end result is that they move funnily
when near walls, and they still can die inside the obstacles and get
stuck in the air. The latter doesn't happen too often at all, though.
Whenever they land somewhere they immediately become de-alerted.
So during this time, if you manage to surprise attack them, they die
from only one shot. Try it out.
Revolver shibitos:
They are like normal shibitos, except that they wield a revolver (that
holds 5 bullets) and their routes are usually different from normal
shibitos. Because of their threat's projectile nature, most if not all
of the sniper shibitos' rules apply to them too.
After shooting their reserved 5 bullets, they'll reload a variable
amount of bullets back in. If no one's disturbing them, they'll load the
gun full again. But if the character is still near, (and the shibito
alerted) they'll load only 1 or 2 bullets - this can make a difference
in life-or-death situations.
Also keep in mind that your character's hit box is genuinely smaller
when s/he's sideways. This means that if you're in danger, try to be sideways
to the shibito that's aiming at you. Another safety tip in worst case scenario
is to start tapping the crouch-button as quickly as you can. Some of the bullets
shot at you will fly over the character!
Shibito brains:
They are a certain type of shibitos whose death means that all (or some) of
the lesser shibitos on that level get knocked out with them.
Shibito brains elicit a different kind of behaviour than that
of normal shibitos. Some shibito brains try to escape from you instead
of attacking you. Some behave like other shibitos, attacking you, only
being somehow more tough, acting almost like that particular level's
'boss'-character. Some have behaviour that takes the best out of both
worlds: sometimes attacking you and sometimes escaping.
It seems that the brains, at least the escaping ones, have a
curious mechanism implemented in their behaviour: they somehow know if
the PC is approaching without actually seeing or hearing him/her. When
they escape, they also do not get alerted. THIS is why some glitchy
behaviour occurs with some brains: they start running somewhere because
of the curious implementation, then they 'normally' get alerted. They
don't know what to do anymore, turning irrationally when you chase them
or stopping dead on their tracks and almost ignoring the PC.
Sniper shibitos:
They are like normal shibitos, except that they wield a rifle (that
holds 5 bullets), they never holler or strangle and their routes are
drastically different from the rest of the shibitos.
The snipers have a nearly infallible aim, much better than your
characters. They can see and kill you easily from distances where you'll
not be able to see them. If the PC has a flashlight on s/he'll be
noticed from even farther away than normally.
The sniper's shot has only one exact route of reaching the
target at every possible moment, unless the target is far away - that's
when there's some random variation that disturbs the bullet's route and
overall accuracy.
After shooting their reserved 5 bullets, they'll reload a variable
amount of bullets back in. If no one's disturbing them, they'll load the
gun full again. But if the character is still near, (and the shibito
alerted) they'll load only 1 or 2 bullets - this can make a difference
in life-or-death situations.
When a sniper sees a new target while the previous one is still
visible, he'll stop shooting for a moment, becoming re-alerted. After
that, he'll start aiming at the new target and eventually shoots - unless
there's the previous target still available, in which case he starts
shooting towards it. (this is what happens most commonly in my games)
Special techniques:
-------------------
1. Gliding
It's a term I use for a special glitch which is utilized via the in-game
menu. Here's a pretty good documentation for it, also instructions:
1, As you close the in-game menu, the characters' current
movement-related animation resets. If you open and close the in-game
menu fast enough, a new animation will not get a chance to start during
the small lapses of time between each in-game menu opening. This
results in a movement in which the character doesn't have an animation,
s/he simply 'glides'.
So what's the use of this? Characters' movement speeds
are dictated by their animations, while acceleration is handled by a
partially different mechanism. Avoiding activating the actual animation
while keeping the acceleration rate constant will enable the characters
to eventually move in superb speeds, too fast for even the game's camera
to keep up.
2, The game's collisions work as normal only when your character
is engaged in an animation. While gliding you can sink into walls and
even pass some of them. For some reason walls hinder acceleration, so
the character's speed is not very high when doing this.
You can glide the easiest during either a strafing or backwards walking
movement. You can do it while running too, but your speed will never increase
over the normal running speed. If you're crouchmoving, the in-game menu won't
reset the animation, resulting in un-glitched movement.
Instructions: 1, start moving in some way that is compatible
with this trick. 2, open in-game menu (with triangle). 3, close it
(with circle or X, preferably circle), then open it again very quickly.
The timing is excruciatingly sharp. If you do this in Time Attack,
you'll see that the time progresses only a mere 0.08 seconds between
each time you open and close the in-game menu. 4, repeat 3 until you're
happy or you fail.
Remember that each character has different strafing and possibly
backwards walking speed. Risa and Reiko are the best in strafe-gliding,
for male characters it's easiest to walk backwards.
This trick is not too suitable for normal gameplay because it's
so hard to time right. It works pretty well in hardcore speedrunning,
though!
Uses:
- the character's speed supercedes normal running speed if done long
enough.
- you can pass through cramped spaces or even obstacles.
- you can climb small heights quickly. (by gliding inside a low-height
wall - the character will pop up through the floor without any
animation. At some places it is possible to climb even mid-height walls!)
- descend down SOME cliffs.
- gliding is completely noiseless, which means good things for your stealth.
What you can't do with it:
- avoid activating cutscenes by gliding through the activation spots.
(for example: Reiko's Day 1 - 02:00, when you meet Eiji.)
- avoid getting hit by any bullets or the trolley.
- enjoy the advantages of any kind of movement or doing that has an
animation. (e.g. climbing.)
- turn (however, see the turbo-gliding section below).
Video demonstrations:
1, Risa's Day 1 - 22:00 completed super-fast with gliding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrMmhF_AiqU
2, gliding inside lesser obstacles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ8wDnu-7kI
3, shows how fast the glitch can be activated, also, what happens when
gliding in a step-up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tskmzonbgYQ
NOTE for turbo controller owners: it's possible to emulate some effects of
gliding in real time with a turbo controller. Therefore, a new section has
been introduced, called...
Turbo-gliding:
Set L1 on turbo. Now, a wide variety of real-time gliding options open up
for you.
- normal strafing. Works just like gliding, except seemingly slower to kick
in, not to mention the character turns all the time you're doing this.
- crouchstrafing. The character turns slightly slower, which means you can
control the movement better.
- diagonal crouchwalking. Now THIS is the winner! Your character suddenly starts
moving at very high speeds to the direction you're pointing at. Eventually
the movement stops for some reason, might be something that's built in gliding
itself. But you can re-do it instantly. You gain extra speed by doing certain
kind of curved turns (only possible at high enough speeds) or combining this
move with crouchstrafing move. Has lots of usage possibilities!
- weapon stance strafing. The second most useful option you have, since you can
move in a straight line forward OR backward, which is not possible with other
stances. You can also do the traditional type of strafe, and it seems to be
quite similar to normal strafing: not too useful by itself, but at least you
can mix things up. Obviously you need a weapon to do this.
Video demonstration:
1, Shiro's Day 1 03:00 turbo'ed:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WtqjY8Wc50Q
2, Tamon's Day 3 22:00 turbo'ed:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dZRWPsXooiY
Gliding with text messages (OBSOLETE):
If you want to mix things up a bit, you can do gliding with text messages,
just not with any text messages. First of all, find a place where you can
stablely activate a command in the in-game menu which results in a text
message afterwards. (e.g. Tamon's Day 2 - 18:00, trying to 'Squeeze through'
the gap in the second floor door.) Then, do normal gliding, with the exception
that you don't circle yourself out of the in-game menu but instead choose the
in-game menu option which results in the text message. The character nudges on,
quite unelegantly for any kind of gliding, but it still works. The timing may
be slightly easier than with normal gliding because of the text message's
existence, even though the distance traveled isn't any larger (in fact, it may
be smaller. Read on...)
Unfortunately this type of glide is not as functional as the first
one. You can only do it at certain places (even though you can do it in
succession with normal gliding, so it's not that bad). And the text message
stops all the PC's momentum, so you can't get very high speeds with this one
(unlike with the first).
Uses:
- it's gliding! You know the drill.
- for people new to gliding, this may help to understand what's it all
about. It's easier to get a hang of at the start.
What you can't do with it:
- accelerate
- do whatever normal gliding couldn't achieve.
- grows obsolete if you can do normal gliding.
Q: Why not only text messages? (from examining normal scenery)
A: You can't activate text messages fast enough by themselves, and the
aid of the in-game menu is inevitable. Not to mention that normal text
messages do not reset the PC's animation, which means that you couldn't
actually breach walls or do anything else like that.
IWS - Illegal Weapon Switching:
You can't open up the normal menu as long as you're in attack stance -
probably thought by the developers to prevent the player from switching
weapons during an attack. But - during an attack animation you can release
R1, causing the game to think you're not in the attack stance. This means
that you can switch weapons anyway, causing some interesting stuff to
happen.
As mentioned, there are three weapon properties - melee,
projectile and "other". If you do this switch from a property to
another, from melee to "other" for example, the attack animation resets
and you get a quick new attack for yourself. If you do this switch
from projectile to unarmed melee, (meaning: unequipping your weapon)
your character will do a weak punch that won't hit anything.
The properties of this trick are still being explored. A strange
thing that sometimes happens when switching from a melee weapon to a
projectile weapon right as you damage your opponent is that the melee
attack does very high damage, about double damage. I figure it's some sort
of duplicated code glitch that activates because of the menu.
What you can do with it:
- for characters with both a projectile and a normal weapon, you can
switch between them for ultra-quick melee hits. (attack with the melee
weapon, then switch it to the projectile. Then, the first instant
possible, switch it back to the melee weapon.)
- have dubious fun.
What you can't do with it:
- attack through walls. Doing an attack without a weapon is something
the game's walls won't react to, but quickly switching a weapon in
and hoping it would reach the other side of the wall is futile.
Video demonstration:
1, an overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3A_hyQI9zE
Pre-emptive 180:
The 180 degree turn of this game consists of two parts: the 'input'
part and the animation part. The 'input' part is the time you activate
the 180 degree turn, in addition to the small pause during which you can
cancel the move or do many other things which either cancel or stall the
animation part. The animation part is just that, the turn itself. You
can't cancel the turn to anything else, so it isn't the most versatile of
moves. But because of its two-phased nature, it can overall be used in
interesting ways.
The pre-emptive 180 is in effect a technique in which you activate
the 180 right before activating something else. After the 'something else'
has went its course, the game 180's you the first possible moment, which
is almost without exceptions a lot faster than what any human could do.
So if it doesn't cost time to do a 180 degree before activating a
necessary 'something else', and you benefit from a 180 degree turn in
any case afterwards, it's always worth it to use this technique.
For fun: start doing a normal 180 degree turn. Right before the turning
animation begins, go to FPV. Walk around like normally, then release FPV.
Video demonstration:
1, Kyoya's Yesterday - 23:00 speedrun, where it's utilized:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REOeoXWuamg
Attack canceling:
There are only three ways in this game by which you can cut your attacking
animations short: getting hit by an opponent, doing IWS (explained above),
or suddenly deciding to open or close a door. This section is about the
latterest, because it's the only one of them which isn't yet explained or
which has any practical use as a technique.
What would be the advantage of attacking and then closing the
door? Well, stalling an opponent is one. Your enemy always has to
re-open the door in order to get to you, and during that time you can
easily get additional hits in. Secondly, the door thwarts your opponents
attacks, giving you a safety advantage too.
Sounds moronic? Don't be so hesitant to judge a technique this
strange that quickly, my friend!
Video demonstrations:
1, destroying Mina with Risa and umbrella w/ this trick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMaG9d0dtQY
Strategic wallram:
Ramming into walls is in most circumstances a very bad thing. It happens
easily and wastes about a second each time it happens. But, it has an
unexpected stress-free side too: it replenishes your character's stamina
sometimes. The conditions are not completely clear, so it's best to try
out different solutions and see what happens (if you intend to abuse this
mechanism). With its help, it's possible to pass even long levels without
getting exhausted and slowing your speed down to a laughable crawl.
Your character's stamina replenishes by other ways too, but
sometimes this is the fastest way.
Video demonstration:
1, Kei's Day 3 - 16:00 MO1 speedrun, where it's utilized:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejfY0iS5MkU
Mechanism-related, "for experts":
---------------------------------
Acceleration:
Whenever moving, there's a certain mechanism which starts increasing
the PC's speed stably. The speed increase is dependant on (and
restricted by) what animation is the PC partaking, e.g. is it running,
walking, etc. Acceleration works differently depending on how complex the
animation is too, the normal forward moving animations being the most
complex and stuff like strafing or walking backwards less complex.
Acceleration works separately from the animations. Therefore,
by eliminating the animation but retaining the acceleration, it's
possible to get your speed up to impossible heights. Read more in a
section about 'Gliding'.
Walls block acceleration. Text messages reset acceleration.
The acceleration variable for sideways movement is different
from back or forward-movements' momentum. This may need some more testing.
Auto-positioning:
There is a mechanism in this game which moves the character models in
some required position/place before they begin doing certain animations.
For example, opening doors or climbing of any kind requires auto-
positioning. The character is positioned strictly 1, towards the object
in question, and 2, right in front of the object in question. (so that
the character's soon beginning animation would avoid collisions with the
nearby walls, etc.)
In effect, the speed of this positioning movement is much
greater than what you can normally achieve. This kind of movement could
almost be called 'zipping', because that's what it can literally look
like in the worst/best cases. The player can spare some time by abusing
this mechanism (well, not really abusing. "Using it consciously" would
be a better term), opening the doors as far away as possible or making
the auto-positioning turn the character for you.
If the auto-positioning tries to move a character model in a
place where there already is someone, the latter is instantly zip-pushed
away to the same direction the former was moving. If there's something
in the way of this movement, the latter is instead pushed to another
direction, wherever there's clear standing space.
If a character gets hit while auto-positioning, the mechanism
aborts. That's the only way it'll get interrupted, the player has no
control over stopping it normally.
Small in-game cutscenes at the start of the level:
These are mentioned solely because you may activate a small bug in most
levels that have these. If you try to move the PC before the animation
begins, the stage will usually start with the PC suspended in mid-air
and in the running/walking position. The game doesn't consider you to
be moving, though, and will accelerate you as if you were starting from
a normal idle position. Activating this bug doesn't help you in any way,
actually. Read more in the section about "Game events, how they are
handled".
This may also happen if you restart from levels' checkpoints.
Game events, how they are handled (a work in progress):
Alright, the game has (at least) five different ways of handling
different "uncommon" events. These are: picking up items, manipulating
some region-specific things via the in-game menu... basically, the soon
beginning table is for listing what the player witnesses, and what it
means in practise, when something inside the game changes with the
player's active effort, but outside the most common gameplay-related
activities. It's a bit hard to explain, and you'll probably see an
updated, better description in the future.
Note: this listing was based on results got from activating from in-game
menu, so some things could be different in other circumstances. Read more
in the sections below, or if you're not interested, skip the whole thing.
1. "character reaches down to pick up something"
- time and movement is stopped
- can enter normal menus after closing the in-game menu
- can't sightjack or use FPV, though
- the pick up-animation overrides all other PC-animations happening
(e.g. crouching animation, attacking, movement...)
- there's a text message with a screen black-out at the end
Example: Shiro's Day 1 - 03:00, picking up the flashlight.
2. "character stands still", then, either a text message or a picture
- time and movement is stopped
- can't enter normal menus after closing the in-game menu
- can't sightjack or use FPV either
- PC's animations follow their course until the end (e.g. if you were
attacking while this happened, the attack would continue like normal)
- there's a text message with a screen black-out at the end
Example: Shiro's Day 1 - 03:00, picking up the wrench or the flare.
3. "character standing still", then, an in-game cutscene
- time and movement is stopped
- can't enter normal menus after closing the in-game menu
- exception: if it's the start of a level, you can usually
enter the map screen.
- can't sightjack or use FPV either
- PC's animation stops on its tracks
- pressing start skips a brief amount of "character stands
still"-animation, doesn't save any time
Example: Tomoko's Day 1 - 17:00, ringing the bell. Or at the beginning
of several of the levels.
4. A text message
- as with every text message, (except the sub-objective
messages) the game time and movement is utterly stopped. Also,
you can press X anytime to skip the message.
- can't do anything in particular, since there's nothing else but the
ordinary text message after the in-game menu.
- PC's animation continues afterwards like normal
Example: examining most things with X. Trying to activate the ventilator
at Risa's Day 1 - 04:00 without turning the power on first (but having
tied the kite string).
5. Time won't stop, quick fade-out
- variable rules, sometimes allowing you to sightjack or use FPV (e.g.
the phone at Tamon's Day 3 - 03:00)
- sometimes can move normally before the cutscene takes place, at other
times there's some special animation (e.g. when hiding in closets)
- character can die before the actual event after the fade-out,
sometimes even during the event. (e.g. Risa's Day 1 - 22:00 window
ledge event's last part before Risa appears on the ledge)
Example: you have two listed right above.
So why the hell did I just ramble senselessly about these things
completely foreign things to you? My hope, originally trying this stuff
out, was to break the sequences in a some sort of useful/glitchy way -
finding out what was possible and what was not. Anyway, even though the
findings are slightly interesting, the fact is that very little of it
can be used in anything useful, at least as of now. Visiting the Archive
and messing around there right before the game picks up an item for you
does nothing. The map screen is impotent! So, I'm sorry to say this, but
this info is here only for its curiosity and the sake of completion.
(until something new is found out)
A sparkle of hope is found in the fact that the game activates
these different event-handling procedures in different circumstances
and times, so that some exceptions and loopholes are still possible.
They just have to be found... (for example, type 3 event handle happens
on Reiko's Day 1 - 23:00 just by walking into a certain area. Because of
the very flexible 'entrance' - not from the in-game menu but from normal
gameplay - there are several other things you can do which are not listed
here.)
Shouting and reloading animations:
The reason these two are bundled together is that both of their
animations share some strange properties. First of all, they are
interruptable by normal movement or opening the in-game menu
(unlike pretty much every other animation in the game). Secondly, they
can't be canceled to opening/closing doors, which is strange too.
They do have certain differences between them, though. (e.g. you can
interrupt reloading by sightjacking, something you can't do while
shouting.) Some day this section will be expanded to something more
respectable, especially if this info is found to be somehow useful
anywhere.
3. Level-by-level details (the meat and potatoes...)
-----------------------------------------------------
Notes on content:
- Some of the level events can only be activated after you have MO2
available for completion. E.g. the floodgate at Kyoya's Day 1 - 08:00.
This is very common. Your usual guideline for knowing what's possible
and what is not is: "if a part of the level has something to do with
the MO2, it won't be accessible/useful if you only have MO1 available
for playing/completion." These are not mentioned during this guide.
Of course, if you're a new player you probably won't know what's like
that and what's not, but hopefully you can deduce things out.
- Some of the level events can't be activated if there's an alerted
shibito nearby. The game says "There's no time for that right now."
and prevents you. Unfortunately I haven't mentioned which events are
like this and which aren't... even though it would be useful.
- Spoilers are inevitable and in great abundance. Be careful.
- When I list a lesser objective as "not mandatory", it means that you
can skip doing it and still pass the game. However, there may be some
consequences which make your game harder or more frustrating, so if
you're not sure, you better just try and complete them all.
- I'll not mention everything about every mechanism or item, etc. - only
the things that are of practical importance or are somehow more
interesting than usual.
Video stage: Kyoya's Yesterday - 09:00 (09:28:57)
- A voice says in the background: "Did you get rid of that outsider?"
Kyoya's Yesterday - 23:00 (23:11:03)
MO1 = "Escape from police officer."
Level details:
Upper Arato. It starts with an in-game cutscene.
Kyoya Suda:
In this preliminary level, Kyoya does not yet possess the ability to
sightjack. Nonetheless, he can still heal himself very quickly, as if
he had already ingested the large amounts of the evil red water he'll
later.
His inventory consists of a sole flashlight.
The police officer:
The only shibito of this level. He'll remain high up in his starting
position until you decide to move too far away or somewhere where he
can't reach you anymore. Then he jumps down, proceeding to slowly get
up afterwards.
He's basically like a normal revolver shibito except with unique
looks and sounds. He seems to have a worse aim than the others, but
this is for completely understandable reasons: it's the first level, and
you're thrown in the hellish nightmare completely underprepared... They
made the challenge less unfair for the player. Of course you could also
claim that the police officer is inebriated with copious amounts of sake,
but if anything, it comes implied between the lines.
(Does a shibito remain drunk for an eternity if he became one
while inebriated? A way to save in monthly booze costs for sure.)
He has certain 'taunts', like all the special shibitos. "Shoot
to kill!", "Come out... wherever you are!", "No use resisting..."
The shed's door:
It's translucent, being probably the only door in the game which is
*in effect* translucent. Even the netted doors later in the game act
as non-translucent ones! Also, the lock is situated on the door's
right side, which is unusual. (you see it when you try to lock it.)
The truck:
You get inside with a 'key to the pickup truck', with which you can
unlock both of the car's doors. The strange thing is, even after you've
used it twice, it won't disappear from your inventory! (unlike several
other items that will.) It doesn't matter which door you use to enter the
truck, because the end result is the same in either case. (Kyoya sits on
the driver's side, etc.)
It's the game's first FPV-location. As with others like these, you
can't die or get damaged. The bullet that hits the windshield is only for
show. It may hit the glass either when you first get in the car, or after
you've ignited the engine. After you've entered the truck, you can't get
out any more.
Other things of interest:
- This place is visited only once during the whole game, which is a
shame because it's got a wonderful BGM. There's even a map available.
Technically, one of the later locations in this game is also called
'Upper Arato', but it looks very, very different...
- Unlike anywhere else in the game, the screen doesn't flash red or
anything even if your enemy gets alerted or suspicious.
- There's a small translation mishap. THe magazine in the car is said
to be on the floor, while it's clearly on the bench!
- Notice how the clock says "Day 1 - 00:00" at the map? I guess
"Yesterday" didn't fit in there...
- There are two posters at the back of this area. Other one says "Cleanliness
Is Next To Godliness" and the other says "Safety First".
- There's a List Menu message error with the shed's door. Get inside the shed
and lock the door. When you open the List Menu to unlock it, it says "Unlock
car door". Credits go to TheSorrow48 for noticing this.
- The river's water is not yet red.
Video stage: Kyoya's Day 1 - 00:00 (23:59:24)
- You can see construction machinery on the other side of the river.
Kyoya's Day 1 - 02:00 (02:28:13)
MO1 = "Reach road to Karuwari with Hisako Yao."
MO2 = "Find a letter."
Level details:
Lower Arato is a small region with lots of houses, but none of them are
open for you this early - the dirty alleys are where you'll stay most
of the time. The level begins with an in-game cutscene.
Lesser objectives:
- picking up the storeroom key
Kyoya Suda:
He isn't really in a bad condition, he only looks like that. He has a
special running animation that's only used in this level of this game,
in effect slightly slower than normal running. He also gasps and
breathes heavily all the time, as if extremely exhausted. He won't get
any more exhausted no matter how long you run.
His inventory still consists of a sole flashlight.
Hisako's Presence:
Yes, it's Hisako herself hanging out with you. She can die just as
readily as any other of this game's sidekicks, even though you might
think otherwise.
Hisako is an unique sidekick. Unlike any other, she is the one
in control. You can't call her over, or order her to do anything for
that matter. She isn't very manipulable by other means either. She sets
the pace and you're helpless to wait for her to follow her slow, set
route. If you get in front of her, she pushes you forward like you were
nothing but flustered, Kyoya-scented air.
She has some long speeches reserved for you, for tutorial
purposes, and as far as I know they're all unskippable. Kyoya must be
close to her in order for her to start talking, whenever necessary.
She'll continue talking like normal if Kyoya leaves her side, but she
usually stops doing anything if Kyoya is too far away after she's
stopped talking. If you turn the sightjack-menu on (for a moment) at
any time, her voice is cut short, but she won't immediately continue
her next phrase, instead opting to wait a set amount of time. So
there's no winning time with this. If an enemy attacks her while
she's talking, the voiceclip is not cut short, but she usually stops
talking (or moving) altogether until the threat has passed her by.
She unleashes some additional soundclips if you mess around
too much. You try to leave too early, and she says "Wait. Where do you
think you're going?" or "Please listen to me!" or "You can't just
leave". If you don't instantly follow her, she may say "What are you doing?"
or "Over here" in an angry tone of voice. You put your light on after the
crouching bit, and she'll say "Don't put on the light. They'll find us!".
You wait around too much, and she'll scold you: "Come here, now!" or "Please!"
As a sidekick she's moderately tough. She'll take about 2.5
strong hits by a shibito without dying. But the bad part is that with
her unusual sidekick behaviour, she gets completely paralyzed by them,
even more paralyzed than your usual sidekick. She has to follow her
set route, which usually doesn't permit her to run away from anything.
It's up to Kyoya to distract the shibitos if it gets up to that.
At the beginning of the level she excepts you to wait at the
sightjacking-menu for some amount of time. You don't even have to do
anything at the menu. After the clock's hit 14 seconds, (with you
having spent a couple of seconds in the menu) she can start a 20~ seconds
long speech. Then she'll run over at the steps and ask you to wait until
she tells you to 'come over'. She stops at the gate next to the cafeteria
and continues to move further only after you've waited near her for a
second or so. Then it's more running by the alley - and then there's a
tedious crouching bit. (look further down for an own section on this)
After that she'll get up and talk to Kyoya even more. A bit of waiting.
Then she runs to the bus stop, where she wishes to be pulled up. (look
further down for an own section on this)
After you've pulled her up, she'll walk to the exit by her own
volition, in fact, even against your volition. If you're lazy, you may
make her push you to the exit by getting in front of her.
The crouching bit:
Hisako beckons you to crouch with her. If you don't actually crouch you
do get noticed when walking through the route (which means bad news for
Hisako who'll be crouchwalking well up to the next year...). You may
crouchwalk beside her in a sort of quasi-romantic unison. Or, if you
prefer, you can crash the party by getting a shibito to approach and
attack her from behind - she skips this segment by normally walking
the rest of the path, and you win a decent amount of time. But this
is really, really, really risky. The commotion usually wakes up the
shibito watching you from the street, and Hisako gets her ass kicked
twofold.
An interesting thing to note is that the shibito at the street
will not (always?) notice Hisako even if she walks through her view.
She only notices Kyoya.
The bus stop:
Hisako expects you to pull her up here - for some reason this can be
very hard to do fast. First of all, you need to be on the ground � or
have just started climbing - in order to get her to say the "I need
your help", which seems to be a prequisite for being able to use the
'Pull up'-command. As you remember, during the first playthrough you
receive a short tutorial on pulling up sidekicks right there.
Afterwards it's just a question of some strict positioning and
patience: sometimes the option of 'Pull up' simply doesn't appear
quickly. Tapping up the menu repeatedly might help with this. It's
easy to fall back down, which is a very bad idea if you're in a hurry.
If you don't pull her up right away, Hisako says "Please!" in
a hurried voice. She'll also start to follow you around the level like
a normal sidekick. But unlike normal sidekicks, she may still not be
pushed around or manipulated. Also, she'll never automatically face
you like normal sidekicks.
During the time she expects to be pulled up she may also say "Give
me a hand. Are you okay?"
Other things of interest:
- There's something wrong with Hisako's eyes. Look closer with the
R2-button.
- The barbershop's sign has fallen down and now whirls alone at the
ground. Check it out if you feel like it.
- If you listen carefully, you'll hear the announcement Harumi does at
school at the same time some time during this level.
- If enough time passes, Kyoya may start running normally. A glitch?
Amusing things to do:
- At the beginning of the level Hisako will always face Kyoya. If you
run around her, she follows suit.
- Well, landslides are always fun. (there's one at the north end of
the level, going up from the cafeteria.) If you try to run up the
edge of it, you'll be treated with a special 'backing away'-animation
that's only available in a couple of places. And more power to Kyoya:
if you do the 'backing away' with Hisako right behind you, she'll
actually get pushed by you! That's the only way to push Hisako, ever.
- You may lead Hisako to her own death by jumping repeatedly off the
Rokkaku's house's shed's roof to the shores below. (with her
following you, of course)
- For some ironic amusement, you should get a shibito to strangle her
while she's telling you how she's "watching over our surroundings" and
how YOU should be careful.
- Start strafing right over the sharpest angle between the first stairs
you encounter and the ground. Kyoya's leg bends inhumanely out of
place!
Video demonstrations:
1, "Kyoya's leg bends inhumanely out of place!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54d9ZKj6IIc
Video stage: Kyoya's Day 1 - 07:00 (07:13:29)
Kyoya's Day 1 - 08:00 (08:10:24)
MO1 = "Reach road to Tabori settlement with Miyako Kajiro."
MO2 = "Find grave of Takeuchi family."
Level details:
The large, ethereal forests of Arato. This is a very large area, and
unlike the more townish areas of this game, there are no houses that
would be locked for you, etc. Nope, the entire area is free to roam
right from the start - well, after you close the floodgate. There's
one locked gate, 'Iron fence' which you must whack open with the poker.
There's a checkpoint that activates as you enter the other
half of the stage (after the Iron fence), but only if Miyako is close by.
Lesser objectives:
- opening the floodgate
- picking up the screwdriver
- overturning the marker
Kyoya Suda:
So, where did his flashlight go all of a sudden? He now carries nothing,
unless you had picked up 'Key to storeroom' from the previous level.
Miyako Kajiro and her blindness:
A new sidekick. Her problem is that she can't see anything herself,
being blind - but she can sightjack into your eyes and see via them
nonetheless. (or so they claim)
How this effects the gameplay? She'll have more trouble than
normal sidekicks in keeping up with the PC. This is how her blindness
works: at certain intervals, the game does a check on how close Kyoya
is and what direction he's facing. You can see how during this check
Miyako stops running. If Kyoya's too far away, or not facing Miyako,
she is declared 'lost', which is when she'll say "I can't see. Look
at me properly." or "Walk slowly, will you." or "Look at me." And then
you must turn back and actually face her direction. You don't have to
look anywhere in particular, it's enough even if you use the FPV and
stare at the ground while facing her direction! You must face her a
certain amount of time, close to 2-3 seconds. Any less than that, and
she'll probably not react to you. If you leave her 'lost' she'll not
move from where she's situated, but instead does one of these things:
1, stands around while doing something similar to the sightjacking
animation the PC has, or 2, stays crouched down.
She has other phrases as well. If you get separated from her
for a moment, (if you order her to 'Wait' and later return, etc.)
she'll say "Hurry up and lead the way!" or "About time." If you
encounter shibitos, she'll shout "No!" If you wait for long periods
of time, she'll ask "What are you doing?" If you make her wait and
then leave her, she'll periodically say one of these comments:
"Never! I never want to end up like that...", "Never ever, never...",
"I hate every single one of them!" If she expects to get pulled up,
she'll say "Your hand." or "I can't climb up on my own!" or "Pull me
up!"
Poker:
The weapon you'll find for Kyoya at the abandoned campfire, and
which'll follow him for a very long time in this game. It's range is
hauntingly short. Sharp timing is required for quick kills, but
there ARE worse weapons in this respect, though. It's only
moderately strong, but easily better than nothing.
You are required to get this weapon, as there's a gate in
your way which will only open after a few whacks to the head.
Other things of interest:
- About the generic sidekick command 'Come here': It's function is
dictated by the 'blindness check'. This means that if Miyako is lost,
she'll not find you how many times you make her 'Come here'. But 'Pull up'
works wonders, always overriding the blindness check.
- There's another bug available with the 'Pull up'. Try this: go far
away from Miyako and 'Pull up'. She'll start running towards the pull
up-location - until her blindness check makes her stop. Either 'Pull
up!' again or run back to her, so that the blindness check is sated
and she can finally start moving again. You'll see that she moves
like a zombie, walking carelessly, not caring at all about Kyoya,
pushing him away from her route if he comes too close. Even if you
strike her with the poker, she'll continue her strange act... After
Miyako reaches the pull up-location, she'll either get pulled up (if
Kyoya is at the right spot) or she'll start complaining "I can't do
it by myself!", etc. and everything is back to normal again.
- You can get Miyako stuck in the small puddles of this area. I'm not
sure what do you exactly have to do to activate this bug. She just
occasionally gets stuck, doing an insane little dance, turning around
and around constantly. She'll stop periodically, again with the
'blindness check'. Then she'll continue going 'round and 'round. This
glitch may require you to be on a different level of height than she
is. Bonus irony points if you get her to say "What are you doing?" to
Kyoya while she's doing what she's doing.
- KurtKokaine4 recalls a story about Miyako completely disappearing from
the level. He was playing through the level slowly, enjoying all sights
and wonders around. In a matter of seconds Miyako, who had followed him
around, was gone. She could not be found even from the sightjack-menu.
- Check out the small silhouttes of some shrines that lay atop the
mountains.
- The old, rotted tree before the church gate has very poor wall
properties. If you move towards it, your character will shake and
sink inside the tree.
Videos:
1, "Miyako with zombie-like determination" - the 'Pull Up'-bug:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQpm4fgnx-I
2, Miyako stuck in a puddle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuCKJkDI13c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dzv9Cds39Y
A video stage, Kyoya's Day 1 - 18:00 (18:03:03)
Kyoya's Day 2 - 01:00 (01:11:11)
MO1 = "Escape from abandoned house with Miyako Kajiro."
MO2 = "Find scythe embedded in wall."
Level details:
The abandoned house. Only about half of the rooms are available, with
most of the upstairs locked up and a couple of the rooms downstairs
too.
The house accomodates two shibitos, a patroller and a pistol
shibito. They're right at the main hall. There appears a new shibito
in the house, an 'old lady shibito', after you've picked up the pliers
upstairs. Also, when replaying there's a new pistol shibito inside the
cottage. He'll only appear if you shut the lights off from the cottage
- you can't reach to him by any other method.
There's a checkpoint that activates as you exit the house.
After you've exited the house, there's no way to get back in.
Lesser objectives:
- visiting storeroom with Miyako
- taking the sake bottle
Kyoya Suda:
Now infused with Kajiro blood, his powers have grown to a frightful
climax with wild energy running amok from his every pore! Watch how he
incinerates everything he merely looks at! Nope, sorry. He's the same
ol' Kyoya with his mediocre poker..
His inventory is: a flashlight, poker, screwdriver (if you had
picked up at the previous level) and a key to storeroom (if you had
picked it up at his Day 1 - 02:00).
Miyako Kajiro:
Yep, she's here. This time you don't have to make her follow you much
- not at all inside the house, and only for a fleeting bit outside. So
this is a much easier level in that respect. Of course you can ask her
to come with you and proverbially tug her along, but there's absolutely
no need for the most part.
Most of her comments are the same. New comments: If you lose
her, she says "I can't see, do it right!" or "Ugh... I can't see." If
you wait around too long, she says "Hurry!" or "Time to get moving."
or "We got to get moving." If you meet her after a long period of
separation, she'll say "About time." or "You're late! We have to hurry!"
When you activate the small cutscene in the storeroom, she'll
call Kyoya a "dummy". After she's lost her beaded doll, she says "Forget
it."
The storeroom and it's cutscenes:
In the first one Kyoya steps on a rotted floorboard and breaks it. The
cutscene activates as Kyoya moves to a certain spot in the storeroom.
After the animation has passed, Kyoya's position and direction have
changed accordingly. You can see Kyoya flicker very quickly when this
happens.
In the second one Miyako jumps over the hole on the floor and
then notices she has lost something. The cutscene activates as Miyako
enters the storeroom. After the cutscene ends, Miyako teleports to the
other end of the room. If Kyoya is in the way, he's noticeably pushed
aside.
The patroller shibito inside the house:
He goes relentlessly up and down the main corridor, only occasionally
entering the rooms nearby. His movements can probably be manipulated
- by keeping the flashlight on, by opening urelated doors, by moving
Kyoya around. Either that or it's random.
Many players have complained about his ability to find Miyako
while Kyoya's away exploring the house, even though I've never had
this problem myself (until I tried to activate it on purpose). A way
to ease this is to hide Miyako inside the storeroom - there he'll
never look.
The revolver shibito inside the house:
He appears both inside and outside of the level, for some unbeknownst
reason. If you knock him out inside the house, he'll still be knocked
out when you meet him outside. While you're in the house, he never
revives after you've knocked him out once.
The old lady shibito:
She awakens when you pick up the pliers. You can sightjack her sight
at the next possible moment to see how she's nastily coming out of
the toilet. After that she unlocks the bathroom door like shibitos
usually do, banging it, then goes to patrol at the corridors, where
the other patroller is too.
Other things of interest:
- You may shout out to the shibito that hangs in the yard through the
bathroom window. He'll get suspicious, but you're safe and nothing
happens since he can't find you.
- Examine the feces-smeared toilet by which the old lady shibito
entered the house. "It would be too hard to get Miyako out this way."
Unfortunately Miyako says no comment when you get her there, it would
be interesting to hear her opinion about it.
- There's a hiding bug in this level. Go to the room with the table-top
lighter. Go past the lighter and into the cramped space between the
sofas and the nailed up window. Get Miyako there too, then ask her to
'Hide'. If all goes well, she walks past Kyoya and proceeds to hump
the drawer for no good reason at all. Bonus humor points if she says
"Got to get moving" while she's doing it.
- There's an 'invisible wall' at the bottom of this house's main
stairway. If you run down the stairs at full speed (having ran already
a while) you just slap into something invisible, as if you ran into a
wall, even though there's nothing like that there...
- If you don't have the screwdriver with you while at the house, the game will
give you the fake option of "smashing the case" while at the lights breaker of
the small cottage, which, when opted, will only give a message that it would
be too dangerous because of the noise.
Videos:
1, a speedrun of this level:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHU17uWC8C8
2, the mentioned hiding bug:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQyMtjWVRPI
Kyoya's Day 2 - 07:00 (07:03:41)
MO1 = "Drive away Shibito Brain."
MO2 = "Acquire 38 calibre police-issue revolver."
(yes, it says "38 calibre" in the game, not ".38 calibre".)
Level details:
The half-buildingy, half-foresty Janokubi Valley. Fear this level, as
it only has two different paths to cross the river. There's a
checkpoint that activates as you light Miyata's car on fire.
Kyoya Suda:
His inventory is: the poker, a sake bottle (if you had picked it up
at the previous level).
Miyako Kajiro:
Yeah, she's here too. The last level featuring her as your sidekick.
Some of her comments have changed since the last time. If she
gets 'lost', she'll say "Just keep looking at me!" or "I can't see! Do
it right." or "Ugh! I can't see!" If you wait around a bit, she'll say
"We got to get moving." or "Hurry!" If you meet her after a long period
of separation, she'll say the same things as before, except also "We're
late. We have to hurry!" When you approach the puddle with sake in it
she'll ask "What's that smell?"
The shibito brain and his crawler:
One large attraction of this level is the whole ordeal with the shibito
brain and his trusty bodyguard, the crazed-up crawler. Let's first
dissect the crawler.
There's something wrong with him. First of all, your poker will
not make him budge when you attack him. Second of all, Kyoya dies if he
gets hit merely twice (unless he can heal before that). Thirdly, the
bastard takes at least 4-5 strong hits with the poker before he goes
down. Also, he runs much faster than the normal crawlers. One final
anomaly with him is the fact that he's completely deaf: you can shout
at him all you want and he won't react. (this is probably persuasion
from the programmers, so that you couldn't mess up their level designs
by shouting at unexpected places, etc.)
So, the brain. He lays near the place where Shiro starts his
first mission. You can't get him alerted by shouting at him from the
lower parts of the area - the only way to him goes through where the
crazed-up crawler sits. He runs faster than anything else you've seen
in this game so far. His route works like this: he starts running
whenever Kyoya is near. He runs a short segment forward, and stops. If
Kyoya is near enough, he continues the next short segment forward. And
so on - he can run throughout the whole area indefinitely, in a lap of
sort. If he's not chased by Kyoya anymore and some time passes, he may
sometimes go back to the original place from where he left. Sometimes
he will not do this, though: it depends on his location. Sometimes he
simply moves around the area by himself and aimlessly.
The creators have given you a barricade for catching him, it's
inside the ore processing plant, near the entrance. In my opinion,
it's actually better to leave it untouched rather than start moving it
around. That way he'll at least get momentarily stuck in it. You may
use Miyako as an additional barricade, by making her wait at some
cramped path or in the middle of the wooden bridge. But it has it's
risks, read on.
He'll never consider Kyoya as a normal target, and thus will
never try to attack him. But, sometimes the screen flashes red as he
encounters Miyako - and when this happens she may very well end up
dead. He can attack perfectly well if he wants to, especially if Kyoya
is not there to drive him away.
Miyata's Car:
You're supposed to light this car on fire in order to lure the crazed-up
crawler away from his precious shibito brain. Simultaneously you'll
activate this level's checkpoint. But you may complete MO1 even without
doing this.
After the cutscene activates, the crawler (and only that
particular crawler) is attracted towards the fire. His new route is now
nearby the car, sometimes staring at the flames, but he'll still
respond to you if you go and whack him with your poker or if he sees
you.
A bug I once encountered: I escaped from the crawler when he
emerged from the woods near the burning car. I got hit once, thought
I was a goner. But soon I noticed that the crawler had stopped chasing
me and was now staring at the flames docilely. I started attacking him,
and he didn't respond in any way, he just kept staring at the flames!
I won the fight, but to this day I don't know why it happened.
The puddle:
It's a specific location on this level, a small body of water which you
make electrified (or unelectrified) with the simple pull of the lever.
When it's electrified Kyoya regards it's edges as some sorts of walls,
not being to able to reach the water at all. Miyako too will avoid it
instinctively (meaning: she can't walk into it), but will nonetheless
die if she hits it's a certain edge carelessly - as do all the enemies.
A trick with the crawlers is to have them die at that certain edge �
when they wake up, they'll die instantly again if they're still
touching the puddle's edge. Or you may even kill them inside the puddle
and keep it solely electrified after that.
The police officer:
Another appearing shibito - he enters the level as you approach the
puddle from any direction. In this part you must conform and actually
do what the game recommends you to, luring in him with booze and then
electrifying him. I mean, it is possible to kill him with your poker �
he's weak and dies of two strong hits - but he'll not drop his pistol
unless you shock him up properly.
The police officer dies if you shock him up with the puddle,
but the cutscene of him dropping the weapon only activates if he's
very specifically drinking from the puddle at that time. If he's just
standing there for no reason (but not drinking the puddle - this will
not actually happen unless you've previously killed him in that spot
and he's just getting up) he dies again, with possibly a juicy
graphical glitch, but no weapon. After you've shocked him the proper
manner, he'll never get up again during this level.
Other things of interest:
- This is one of the few levels in this game where there are needless
enemies at the exit - for example, beyond Miyata's car. They are only
there to illustrate a point, "Run, and they'll just catch up..." In
normal circumstances, you'd never have to go there. In fact, you'd
never want to go up there. For some reason, these crawlers are even
more beefed up than the one guarding shibito brain, killing Kyoya in
one friggin' (strong) hit! The ultimate fighting challenge of this
game?
- The flames of the burning car do not hurt you.
- There's a landslide here too! (near the starting location) Too bad
you can't lure the shibito brain there to make him marvel its
naturalistic glories.
- The sub-goal message you get after picking up the lighter is
sometimes empty.
- Miyata's Car's registration plate is completely blank. Some fishy
details about our good doctor...
- There's a slight overlook with the level comments. If you examine
the car after you've lit it on fire, it'll say "Raging flames consume
the car, producing clouds of billowing, black smoke." Then, if you
die or retry and return to the 'car lighted up'-checkpoint, examining
the car yields only "Gasoline is dripping from the chassis.", as if
the car wasn't lit at all.
Videos:
1, a minimalist speed run of this level, completed in 00:49:76
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPoro8MHoCo
2, defeating the crazed-up crawler in melee:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ5umVE1izc
3, the glitch which happens when Tetsuo awakens in the electrified
puddle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlGHehMlXu4
4, electrifying crawlers with the puddle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUdMdaFVDVs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5239q99fu4
A video stage: Kyoya's Day 2 - 09:00 (09:57:58)
Kyoya's Day 2 - 20:00 (20:31:33)
MO1 = "Infiltrate The Nest with Yoriko Anno."
MO2 = "Create entryway for Harumi Yomoda."
Level details:
It's Arato again, but radically changed. Gone is the clear street view,
instead there is some artificial blockage all around from the shibitos'
chaotic nest buildings. Most of the houses are still available, though.
Some new routes have shown up, some old routes are gone. But it's
overall a less interesting place than what it sounds.
There's a checkpoint that activates as you get behind cafeteria.
Yoriko is now with you even if she wasn't a moment ago.
Kyoya Suda:
Inventory: a flashlight, the poker, a .38 calibre police-issue revolver
(only available if you have completed Kyoya's Day 2 - 07:00 MO2? I'm not
certain.).
Yoriko Anno:
An unique escort for Kyoya. Some of her comments are different now when
she's apart from her dear professor. For example, she'll not complain
if you leave her waiting. Some of her more natural sounds are missing
too, though. For example, if she falls down from high places she won't
make a sound.
If you make her 'Run', she'll say "Ugh! Don't come near me!"
If you wait around uselessly, she'll ask you "What are you doing?" If
you make her 'Wait', she'll sometimes ask "What are you doing?" If you
meet her after a long period of separation, she'll say "Where were you?
The professor's waiting... I think." or "Well that took forever! What
were you doing?" As you take the manhole cover opener, she'll say
"What'll you do with that?" As you take the cutting saw, she'll ask
"What are you going to do with that?" When you enter the sewer, she'll
say "Hey, wait a minute! I think we might be able to break this!" or
"What are you doing?"
The locked up gate:
You must hit it with the poker until it collapses open, as was the
case with the 'iron fence'. The gate needs three hits, no matter weak
or strong. In this level the difficulty is raised, though, as there's
a sniper nearby who'll hear your whacks - unless you time them right
with the lightning's sounds.
I can't go on without mentioning that you can complete this
level without touching this gate. There are several poles on the ground
behind which you can go and strafe to avoid getting hit by the sniper.
When he's out of bullets you can run to the cafeteria or just go and
kill him to death!
Other things of interest:
- The precious landslide is still here! Run up and down it's rocky
slopes while you still can, this is the last time you'll visit this
place chronologically.
- You may get Yoriko killed by making her jump down from the Rokkaku's
house's shed three times. For some reason you can't get her killed by
making her jump from an even higher location (there's one right after
you've climbed up to the nest buildings from on top of the Rokkaku's
shed), unless you damage her first.
Videos:
1, abusing the checkpoint here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGyOpBMTQHw
2, speedrun of MO1 (also: a new trick to avoid the ground-level sniper)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gun9JiY76Y
A video stage: Kyoya's Day 3 - 02:00 (02:13:17)
A video stage: Kyoya's Day 3 - 09:00 (09:48:21)
A video stage: Kyoya's Day 3 - 18:00 (18:08:59)
A video stage: Kyoya's Day 3 - 20:00 (20:57:55)
Kyoya's Day 3 - 23:00
MO1 = "Defeat Datatsushi."
MO2 = "Decapitate Datatsushi."
Level details:
The official final boss-stage of this game. There's no map available,
but I'd say that the navigation is easy enough to justify it's lack.
This level is divided into several parts, two of them which have
distinctively different graphics. There's a checkpoint available, it
activates after the cutscene where you *Uryen* Jin into atoms.
The level begins with an in-game cutscene. If you look closely,
the very end of it has a slight glitch in it, showing Jun appear behind
Kyoya spastically. There's a sub-objective message after it, but it
often doesn't show for some reason.
Kyoya Suda:
He starts the level with a hunting rifle (a total of 15 bullets), and
a suspicious 'Uryen'.
Jun Kajiro:
The last shibito you'll ever face in this game. He starts the fight
getting alerted, after which he'll eternally remain alerted, knowing
miraculously where Kyoya is at any given moment, with some magical
means one could guess.
In the first part of the fight: he wields a rifle that holds
an unknown amount of bullets within. The fight takes place at a
roughly round pillar formation. Jun's normal route is this: he hides
behind a pillar. Then he strafes to either left or right, out of the
shadows and into a location where he has a free view to Kyoya � and
likewise, from where Kyoya can shoot him. After Jun has shot once, or
Kyoya has shot him once, he starts running. He runs a long way to the
next pillar, be it at either left or right, it's a bit arbitrary.
If Kyoya runs near him his route changes. He abandons his
tactic of hiding behind pillars, and instead simply strafes and
shoots very quickly at Kyoya. If he was running while Kyoya approached,
he stops and starts shooting back. If Kyoya is behind a pillar, Jun
strafes around aimlessly in hopes of getting a clear shot. If Kyoya is
behind Jun, he makes a short running spurt to a location where he can
reach Kyoya better. If Kyoya goes far away again, he'll continue
following his 'normal' route. Fighting him head-on is not a very good
idea because he can shoot more efficiently than you - in addition, his
strafing can make him impossible to hit. Jun turns slowly enough for
Kyoya to run around him infinitely without getting harmed, though, in
case you were hoping for SOME way to stick near him without dying. All
in all, he takes 4 shots to go down.
The next segment of the Jun fight is where he'll unsheathe his
Homunaragi. He strives for close-range combat, running at you as fast
as possible and then swinging at the air. These slices are very deadly,
killing Kyoya in only two hits. After an attack Jun runs a short while
forward, then stops. Then he'll turn towards Kyoya and start running at
him again - that's the only route he's got. But the sword is a clumsy
weapon. Kyoya remains safe by simply running away from Jun, or even
running towards Jun while he's running towards you.
Kyoya's rifle has grown useless at this point, not making Jun
even flinch if he's shot at. After waiting a bit Uryen becomes
available - only one hit is required to kill Jun. After that, a
checkpoint activates, and then it's up to Kyoya to pick up the sword
that's stuck to the ground. Note this moment of serenity: if Kyoya
sightjacks, it becomes obvious that there are no enemies in the
vicinity. The sightjack-menu is completely empty, for once! (note:
this isn't completely true until you reset from the level's checkpoint.
Read the a section below for more info.)
Datatsushi:
He flies invisible above Kyoya's head, moving in a slightly fluctuating
pace, even though always slightly slower than what Kyoya can run. His
route is simple: he approaches Kyoya from some direction. When Kyoya is
near enough he'll attack. After this he's transported to a random
location in Kyoya's vicinity, where he'll once again start approaching
Kyoya. In effect, he can only be damaged with the Uryen. You may hit
him with both the rifle and the Homunaragi, but they do nothing else
but make him become visible for a moment and then change location. He
takes three hits by Uryen to go down - or two hits by Uryen and one
with the Homuranagi. Datatshushi may be hit only once at a time � even
if he's obviously hit more than once (by shooting with the rifle for
example), he'll not respond to the attack but instead just teleports
away as expected.
Datatsushi has two different types of attack. the first one is
a sort of special strangle: when it begins, both Kyoya and Datatsushi
are thrown into an animation in which they're stuck as long as the
animation lasts. Datatsushi has two different animations/strengths for
this attack. Unlike strangle, the attack will not automatically aim in,
and it lasts a fixed amount of time. Datatshushi must be exactly above
Kyoya's head for this move to start, so it'll always fail as long as
Kyoya is moving with at least a walking speed. When the move fails,
Datatshushi turns visible for a moment and then he teleports to some
random location. The other attack is a simple tail whip. It either
hits or it doesn't - in either case Datatsushi leaves the scene
quickly afterwards.
Datatsushi's elevation fluctuates quite a lot. Whenever he
appears after teleporting somewhere, both his location and his
elevation are random. As he approaches Kyoya, he descends slowly -
then stops - then descends more quickly in order to attack. If there's
some obstacle in the way, (such as the red pyramid) he gets stuck in
where he is, unable to descend and somehow unwilling to move out of
the obstacles path.
Miyako Kajiro:
A mere shadow is left of her, a reverie, which looms behind Kyoya's
shoulder and points her finger towards the local red pyramid. She
appears only after Datatsushi's around.
The red pyramid:
The only landmark in the area now. It's surface is dimly reflective,
allowing you to see Datatsushi's movements when he's close to Kyoya.
Also, it's a nice obstacle for Datatsushi, if that's what one requires.
Jun's post-mortem sightjack-view:
Even after Jun's disappeared, it's pretty easy to find his camera view
floating invisibly in the air somewhere in the area. Simply go to the
sightjack-mode and press either R1 or R2, to see the closest view that's
available. There appears a view that's for the most part directed towards
the sky, with pretty normal human breathing audible. This is Jun's normal
breathing sound you never get to hear during the game since he's always
alerted during the fight. It seems to appear wherever Jun had disappeared.
If you reset back to the checkpoint, you lose this view until you completely
replay the level. I think this is because the game doesn't remember the
variable of Jun's last remaining location after the reset and the camera
doesn't have a location to appear to (or a reason to appear anyway). The
camera remains even after Datatsushi's appearance, even though it becomes
very difficult to find.
Thanks go to ARMOR15 for finding out and reporting this trick!
Other things of interest:
- This level is wrapped so that you'll eventually return to where you left
if you just start running straight in any direction. An interesting
thing to try out in the fight against Jun is running into the vast
landscape of emptiness around the pillar formation. Sightjack him
quickly - you can see his red cross shining in the distance. Run to
the opposite direction for a moment, then sightjack him again. The
cross is again at your front, instead of behind you as it was a moment
ago! If you reach the exact point where this change happens, you'll
be eternally safe from Jun, as he will never leave the pillars to get
close enough to be able to shoot you. He just runs around, knowing
where you are but unable to do anything about it.
- I wonder what would happen if you could attack normal enemies with
Uryen...
- If you sightjack during the last, decisive Uryen-blast which
evaporates Jun, you get to see a humorous graphical mistake in
which the red cross of the sightjack view remains during the
cutscene.
Video demonstrations:
1, getting the final boss stuck at the pyramid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKtjussEk7E
2, dealing with Jun during the swordfight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjsTCzMO6ZY
3, Jun's empty camera view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvpkDQpDYaY
A video stage: Kyoya's X days later - 00:00 (00:13:33)
A video stage: Kyoya's X days later - 04:00 (04:44:39)
A video stage: Tamon's 1976 (23:59:54)
Tamon's Day 1 - 02:00 (02:18:34)
MO1 = "Reach road to Karuwari with Yoriko Anno"
MO2 = "Listen to in-school annoncement while on top of fire tower."
Level details:
The townish area of Haraydori. Most of the houses are locked shut, and
unlike Arato, you'll never get to visit most of them anyway.
During the first playthrough there are two shibitos less in
this area. Later on it'll get two pistol shibitos, one to the north of
the starting location and one near the storage shed. Other than that,
there are three patrollers and a sniper at the Takaya's house's roof.
Lesser objectives:
- unlocking and turning the valve at the river bottom
- shooting a shibito down the well (not mandatory)
Tamon Takeuchi:
Your bad-ass teacher character. His inventory is: a flashlight and a
.38 calibre revolver (with a total of 16 bullets).
Yoriko Anno:
Today's sidekick. She's pretty normal, unlike many of them.
If she expects to get pulled up, she says: "Ugh... can you pull
me up?" or "Can you pull me up?" If you meet her after a long period of
separation, she'll say "Professor Takeuchi? I've been waiting for ages!
What were you doing?" or "Is this going to take a while, professor?" If
you wait around needlessly, she says "Don't you think we should get
moving?" If she's made to run, she says "No! Don't come near me!"
She starts the level by saying "So, I'm supposed to concentrate,
and listen to your voice? W-well, I'm seeing something kind of
strange..." If you pick up the broken radio, she'll ask "What are we
going to do with that peace of junk?" When you unlock the valve,
she'll say "It's not very polite to go through other people's things."
When you turn the valve, she'll say "Uh-oh, don't blame me if we get
into trouble." When you shoot the shibito down the well, she'll say
"Right on, professor!" When the school announcement is rung out, she
says "What's that? A child's voice?"
The broken radio:
You know it's close when you hear it's static. At Yoshimora's house,
where it's found, it doesn't do anything to any shibitos in the area.
It stops making the noise while you're carrying it. When in the well,
it affects one of the shibitos - read more in the next section.
Shooting the shibito down the well:
First you must pull up the bucket and put the broken radio down there.
Both of them are actions which require you 'to have time' for them.
After you've dropped the radio down the well, one of the male
patroller shibito's route changes. He shortly arrives at the well and
then starts docilely leaning over the edge, in hopes of hearing the
staticky words of wisdom more clearly. If you kill him while he's in
this position, or anyhow very close to the well, a cutscene will
activate - the shibito drops down the well and disappears from the
level thereafter. If you fail to kill him this way the first time,
he can be shot down the well any time when he's next to it on later
occasions too.
He'll only approach the well after doing a short walk at
Takaya's house's yard. Even if he was shot to death right in front
of the well, he'll ignore it and go to the yard, before returning
and checking out the well. It's a part of his route and it can't be
helped?
The shibito won't drop down the well (and you won't activate
the cutscene) if you hadn't previously dropped the radio down it, even
if you shoot the shibito to death right in front of it. The shibito
won't drop down the well if he hadn't leened over it at some point,
even if you shoot him in front of the well and the radio is in the well.
The male patroller shibito is the only shibito you'll be able
to drop down the well. But I've heard about some script-issue in which
several shibitos had looked down the well... this has never happened to
me, though.
Other things of interest:
- Sure, this place has no landslides. But a close competitor to its
splendours is the gappy wooden bridge which forces Tamon to
funnily 'hop' over a part of it whenever he passes. On a more
austere note, Yoriko doesn't say anything when she hops.
- If you listen carefully, you'll hear the announcement Harumi does
at school at the same time some time during this level.
Videos:
1, a speedrun of this level:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJB33R_dH8s
A video stage: Tamon's Day 1 - 12:00 (12:27:08)
Tamon's Day 1 - 22:00 (20:41:18)
MO1 = "Drive away Shibito Brain."
MO2 = "Find item dropped by Yoriko. Drive away Shibito Brain."
Level details:
The idyllic Hirunotsuka with it's ithyphallic mysticity. Lots of roads,
quite a lot of climbing. Stairs, shrines, a whole ocean. A small cave.
What else you'd need to have a fulfilling romantic vacation?
There's a shibito brain about. His minions are four crawlers
and a flying revolver shibito, scattered around the route 333 and its
stairways.
Lesser objectives:
- finding a piece of cloth with Yoriko.
Tamon Takeuchi:
Inventory contains the flashlight and the revolver. Tamon has a total
of 9 bullets at the start of the level. You are advised and given the
chance to pick up extra bullets during the level, though.
Yoriko Anno:
She's apparently driven insane by the events that happened while Tamon
was gone, and now can't keep her mouth shut. This is the level where
she's at her most talkative. If you tell her to 'Wait', she'll
periodically say "I'm totally freaked out, professor!" or "Is this
going to take a while?" or the snotty-voiced "Umph, is this going to
take a while, professor?" If you ask her to 'Run!', she'll say
"Professor, help me! I can't take this any more!" or "Professor, help
me!" or "No! Don't come near me!" Most of her other comments are
carried on from the previous level.
The shibito brain: (possibly a woman but nonetheless referred as 'he')
The plaintive antagonist of yours in this level. He has a weapon, but
he never once uses it.
His behaviour is - weird. Like most brains of his type, he
escapes from you if you get close enough or if he gets alerted. But
because of the geography in Hirunotsuka, or for some other reason, it's
possible to make him do all sorts of strange things, including making
him not run away from you at certain places or manipulating his running
routes to complete nonsense.
He starts the level from the location of the small shrine.
He'll usually stay there until Tamon is close enough or he hears any
loud noises (gunshots). Sometimes he simply jumps down to the large
shrine without any apparent reasons. If disturbed, he goes running
through the various paths of the Hirunotsuka, and eventually goes to
rest at either the large shrine, small shrine, the bottom of the
broken bridge, the north-west path of the level, or the 'house'. There
he'll again lay until Tamon comes, or enough time has passed. In
effect, the routes he takes are quite random, sometimes even turning
and running back against Tamon.
His running domain is all of Hirunotsuka. Some of the routes he
just takes more rarely.
The brain seems to rarely 'phase out'. Tamon's presence doesn't
bother him at all, and he does nothing if you try to walk against him or
even shout at him. Damaging him makes him move, but seemingly lazily: if
he's at the large shrine, he takes a short walk to the back door and then
may even return to the shrine's porch. This may happen if he rises up to a
different elevation than Tamon at the large shrine?
Another interesting thing to do is to follow him around as
closely as possible. His mechanism for detecting Tamon somehow makes
his running routes highly erratic and senseless. My guess: it's the
same thing as making a sidekick 'Run!' two times in a row. The alert-
independent Tamon-detection mechanism gives him the order to run away
from Tamon, but as he physically gets alerted by Tamon he gets another
order to run away - resulting in him, instead of running away, running
towards Tamon!
He dies off three shots, and after he's down you've completed
the level.
The small shrine:
When you smash its lock, you get a cutscene where Tamon shoots it open
- you lose a bullet during it. If there are no bullets, you can't open
it. If you hadn't smashed the lock with the rock while being Kei Makino,
it won't open - the cutscene shows the lock not breaking, Tamon
concludes that there's no point wasting any more time with it. If you
open it - as you have to, in order to achieve mission objective 2 �
Yoriko is suddenly teleported right next to you, no matter where she
was previously. (to the great confusion of the shibito brain, if he's
still near the small shrine)
The flying shibito:
This is chronologically the first occurence of this type of enemy in
this game. As it's already been mentioned, depending on where they fall
down where they die, they may activate some erratic glitches or
twitches in their bodily composure. They fall inside a cliff and they
twitch and tumble the way down. They fall inside the police car and
it coldly spits them out. There's at least one particular spot in
this level which provides unique results: near the broken bridge.
(see one of the video demonstrations further down)
The police car:
This is a FPV-location, with some extra bullets inside. There are other
options too, 'start the engine', 'toggle the switch', but they won't work.
The small cave:
A sinister location in which an altar is situated. Tamon finds an
archive examining it. It's also necessary for Tamon to make Yoriko hide
in there in order for her to find a piece of cloth which will prove
invaluable at Kyoya's Day 2 - 22:00.
There's a bug which activates if you're changing elevation
while the cutscene where Yoriko finds the cloth activates. With correct
timing you can get Tamon to sink in the rock foundations so that only
his head is bulging out! This effect lasts only for a moment, then
he's suddenly back to normal again. (this was first seen at one of Shin's
videos.)
Other things of interest:
- In this level your sidekick has a problem coming to you if you're
standing on a different elevation than her when you ask her to 'Come
here!'. She won't budge, but instead just looks towards you, doing
nothing. If you sightjack her, you can see that her vision tvitches
ever so slightly... who knows why. Only after you get close enough,
or to the nearly same level of elevation, she'll start moving. This
happens at some other places with large elevation differences too.
- If you want to have some peace and quiet hanging out with the
shibito brain, you can clear the level almost completely of it's other
enemies. First, kill the flying shibito in the way that's shown below,
so that he gets stuck in mid-air. After that, go and lure at least two
crawlers inside the small cave (using yourself as the bait). Kill them
in there and then lock the door. Voila! Only two crawlers remain...
Videos:
1, the bug with the flying shibito:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDQMvfu9SG8
2, a speedrun of this level:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXCID5DhCQA
3, "hanging out with the brain":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zikrlQPKehE
Tamon's Day 2 - 10:00 (10:29:56)
MO1 = "Defeat sniper."
MO2 = "Remember Akira Shimura."
Level details:
The half-buildingy, half-foresty Janokubi Valley. The roads for
crossing the river get reduced to only one during this level, so we can
be glad there'll be no more visits to this stage (chronologically).
There's a checkpoint that activates when you fire up the wooden bridge
- when retrying, your bullets are brought up to a full '34'.
The level starts with a short in-game cutscene.
Lesser objectives:
- picking up a hose
Tamon Takeuchi:
He has a total of 34 bullets in this level. One for each of his living
years!
Yoriko Anno:
She's present, but not as your sidekick any more. This is the last time
she'll be available at any Tamon's level. You can't manipulate her in
any way. She'll only lie where she lies, dying from the slightest of
damage. She occasionally says "Oh, professor... I'm scared *sobs*" or
"Ugh, professor!" or just gasps around.
Akira Shimura:
He's your antagonist in this stage. He takes six bullets to go down,
more than any other enemy in this game. He wields a sniper rifle.
You'll notice that he runs with the speed of some accursed shibito
brain. A lot faster than you, even though he stops sporadically to
turn or for some other unknown reasons.
His 'route' is this: he stays put in some pre-set location.
First he watches straight forward - usually to a large length of road
by which he can easily see if Tamon is approaching. After a long while
of surveillance he'll look slightly to his right, then to his left.
Then he starts the route anew, sometimes after turning 180 degrees.
(it depends on the location)
If he sees Tamon, he'll start to shoot at him. He fires a
couple of shots, usually two or three, before leaving instantly with
his amazing spurring speed to the next pre-set location. He runs a
full circle in this level, if you let him: from the phone booth to the
northern side of the level, to the ore processing plant and from there
again south and from there to the phone booth. Or the other way around,
depends on where you approach him. The game recommends you to set the
other bridge on fire: after he's escaped from you the first time, he'll
get stuck and the fight ends, one way or another, at the burning bridge.
But the level can be finished without setting it on fire anyhow.
He never heals! You can shoot him 5 times and wait an hour �
he'll still die by the last shot.
The wooden bridge:
When you light the bridge on fire, you'll lose one bullet during a
cutscene. Tamon'll shoot at the planks even if your gun has no bullets
in it - however, if you have no bullets at all, even outside the gun,
you're not able to activate the cutscene. If you had unequipped the
gun before the cutscene, it'll be re-equipped after the cutscene.
After the bridge is burning you've activated a checkpoint. As you
might've guessed, the bridge lays unpassable as well. As with the burning
car in one of Kyoya's levels, the flames do not hurt the PC or anyone
else.
Other interesting things:
- Beyond Miyata's car there still resides the beefed up crawler I
mentioned earlier. He kills Tamon in one hit, and takes 3 shots to go
down - and he'll not budge between any of the shots, constantly running
towards you with his formidable speed. But he's not that difficult to
kill with a gun.
- After MO2 is open and doable, in the opening cutscene Yoriko will show a
picture to Tamon.
- Before MO2 is open and doable, the ending cutscene will have the Akira
recognize Tamon, but have Tamon say nothing but "what?"
Tamon's Day 2 - 18:00 (18:37:11)
MO1 = "Pick up Yoriko Anno's trail."
MO2 = "Find album."
Level details:
The hospital. There's a checkpoint that activates when you take the
'key to the courtyard'. When retrying, your amount of bullets is
brought back to a thin '8'.
Lesser objectives:
- picking up a record player needle (not mandatory)
Tamon Takeuchi:
He starts this level with his flashlight, the usual .38 calibre
revolver (with a total of 16 bullets) and a hose (if you picked it up
at the previous level).
Mina Onda:
She's situated at the underground lab from where you enter via the
courtyard. She's noisily fiddling with Yoriko's glasses, you may
sightjack her and see for yourself. You can't reach her or turn her
attention towards you until you've activated the cutscene in which you
meet her (opening the lab door).
She still has a shovel as a weapon. It kills Tamon in only one
hit. Her strangle is bearable this time, because unlike in Risa's Day 1
- 22:00, she'll step away if you shake yourself off her grasp.
If you suddenly escape the fight and return to the courtyard,
Mina'll not follow you. Instead, she'll stay down there, turning her
head around erratically and making the evil bubbling noises she always
makes. She'll never follow you up.
She takes five shots to go down.
Yoriko's glasses:
You must examine the table where these are in order to pass the MO1.
You can't examine them as long as Mina is alerted. In the ensuing
cutscene, you'll hear the name "Yoriko" pronounced as it is in the
japanise version - it's a piece of undubbed dialogue.
The forceps:
Unlike other special one-time use items, these do not disappear even
after you've got the key with them.
Emergency alarms:
You see these lining up the corridors, but none of them work. Not even
the one Risa used... I guess it's warranty just expired.
Tamon's Day 3 - 03:00 (03:03:27)
MO1 = "Arrive as Kyoya Suda, at the gate to The Nest's core."
MO2 = "Penetrate gate to The Nest's core as Kyoya Suda."
Level details:
It's Arato, after Datatsushi's remodeling.
The only level in this game where you'll play with two different
characters. There's a checkpoint available at when you switch characters.
This is the only level in the game in which you can't do Time Attack in.
There's an in-game cutscene at the start.
Lesser objectives:
- open up a floodgate
Tamon Takeuchi:
He has a... record player needle. Not suitable for poking shibitos, I
fear. And even that's only if you had picked it up at his Day 2 - 18:00.
Steel pipe:
An adequate replacement for Takeuchi's bygone revolver. The range is
not bad, as is not the damage.
A revolver shibito at the beginning of the level & phones:
There are two phones in this level, one in the clothes shop, another
one at Matsukawa's shop. You have only one phone number available,
(you'll see it through sightjack) and it coincidentally leads to the
Matsukawa's shop. Consequently, you may only make this call from the
clothes shop's phone.
You can't use the phone without the flashlight. After you've
chosen to 'Make phone call', you'll be treated to a model of an
old-fashioned phone. After dialing the correct number, you'll start
hearing a telephone ring at the other shop, and the nearby revolver
shibito's route is changed: he'll go check the ringing phone out. He
eventually picks up the receiver, but he'll not speak there endlessly.
He'll stick for a minute or so, before politely hanging up and leaving
back to his post.
If you try to call to the phone again while it's already
calling, the game says "It's ringing", or "Someone's speaking from the
other end." and prevents you from doing anything further.
An interesting thing with the revolver shibito is that he'll
follow your route to absurd lengths, even after his alerted state of
mind calms down. You can go to the room with the record player, and
then find out that he's still coming after you! This tends to happen
only if you pass the shibito by without making the local call.
If you wish to witness some interesting things with the phone,
try sightjacking or using the FPV right after you've chosen to 'Make
phone call'. If you sightjack, the game will keep the camera angle the way
it was before Tamon used the phone, now only showing an empty room with
the phone's numbers shining mysteriously by themselves. In addition, you
can move around with the invisible character model - looks especially cool
if you have the flashlight on. Unfortunately the game prevents you from
leaving the phone. (NOTE: the game doesn't have an invisible boundary
around the area, but instead, the PC is 'nailed' down to the ground...
There may be something more to this. You know, Tamon can still move by
gliding...) If you are in FPV, the angle in which you're stuck using the
phone is the same one as it was during the last frame of FPV, usually
very crooked and even worthless. Whenever you press the circle, this mode
ends. Note that nothing interesting happens even if you call the number
succesfully and activate the cutscene while you're invisible, etc.
The record player:
You need the 'Record player needle' to operate it. You may attach it
even while a shibito is alerted. As well as you can activate the
record player even while a shibito is alerted.
After this, a cutscene activates. The nearby revolver shibito's
route is changed: he'll come straight away inside the house and check
out the record player. After that he'll turn and examine the poster of
the pop singer for an eternity.
You can get past the aforementioned revolver shibito without
touching the record player at all, so no worries.
Kyoya Suda:
He starts the level only carrying his flashlight. Yes, no poker! What
a drastic turn of events...
You could consider his segment as a separate level altogether:
most (if not all) of the sightjackable shibitos are different, your
sightjacking hotkeys are cleared, your inventory has changed.
Hunting rifle:
The glorious weapon you get to acquire during this level. It's
different from Akira's rifle, holding only 5 bullets within. It's just
as deadly, though. With it comes a generous amount of "7.62 x 51mm
bullets". (35, to be exact)
The large warehouse at the end:
Before you enter far enough to activate the cutscene, you can shout
outside it and lure at least one of the crawlers outside. Unfortunately
the enemies of the next special section (on MO2) are completely different
from those you have there now, and this random act of violence serves no
purpose.
When completing MO2, you'll encounter a darkened up part in
which you're supposed to run between two crawlers to a green cross that
shines in the distance. Kyoya has utterly lost his flashlight � the
shameful fact can be verified by entering the inventory and seeing for
yourself. At this part you may not use the sightjack, even though
you still have in-game menu options such as 'Shout'. You can also
whip out your rifle and start shooting at every lighted up target you
see. But you can leave the area to only one direction, so just finish
the level when you feel like it...
Video demonstrations:
1, the phone glitches:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dziC_cHIdqI
A video stage: Tamon's Day 3 - 18:00 (18:09:06)
Tamon's Day 3 - 22:00 (22:13:33)
MO1 = "Find charred remains."
MO2 = "Reach Takeuchi residence."
Level details:
It's still Arato. It would be the best to rather call it "Someplace
inside The Nest", but the game insists on keeping the title Arato, so...
There are no checkpoints available, even though this is a pretty
long level.
Tamon Takeuchi:
Even though the preceding cutscene showed him somehow in deep confusion,
he's really not harmed and instead functions just as well as normally.
His inventory is: a steel pipe.
In general about the boss fights:
- Both of the shibitos in question exist in the level even before you
encounter them. You just can't attract their attention in any way.
- At the beginning of the battle there's a small cutscene after which
both the enemies' locations and Tamon's direction is changed.
Naoko Mihama:
Naoko's turned into a dog shibito while no one was looking. There's a
small cutscene after which the fight starts.
It's possible to avoid this fight completely. You never have
to fight her - it's just a matter of convenience, as there's a large
height to climb before you can exit the area. With some luck you can
climb up nonetheless. It's best to climb up from the left side of the
box, because that's where Naoko can't easily reach you with her attacks.
She tends to get stuck at the garbage near that place. It's good to
note that while she can easily follow you over the high box, she'll
never come to the other side. Instead, she turns around and drops back
down.
She takes four strong hits with the steel pipe to go down.
After you've defeated her, she'll rise again eventually. But it tends
to take several minutes. After rising up she goes to feast on the
scraps of food near the empty cylinders or just runs around happily,
in any case not bothering you for the rest of the game.
Reiko and the crawler:
The second match of this level takes place in a large playground of
sorts. There's a short cutscene before the actual fight. As the fight
starts, Tamon's direction is changed towards the playground, and both
Reiko and the crawler are teleported to new locations.
Reiko's wielding a small handscythe, it seems. She doesn't run
but instead walks with very small and quick steps - a creepy sight for
sure.
After you've damaged her enough and she gets knocked out, a
cutscene will activate. Afterwards she's dropped dead in the middle of
the playground, having teleported both you and her there simultaneously.
The crawler dies at the same instant if he's not already dead, Reiko
being a sort of semi-brain after all. The crawler is the only enemy
that gets knocked out with her. You can see a pickable cassette tape
laying on the ground. She'll too eventually get up from her knocked
out state, but additional defeats yield you nothing of importance.
You can lure the crawler away from Reiko before you witness
the cutscene. Go as near as possible without activating the scene,
then shout away. The crawler emerges behind the corner soon, and you
can finish him off there and then, separately. (but as I said, his
location changes when the actual battle with Reiko starts. He's soon
at the middle of the playground, still dead.)
You don't have to fight Reiko at where she's found. Some
strategy guides advise you to lead her away from the large playground,
and instead fight her at some more cramped space where the crawler is
rendered ineffective. (such as: the staircase of the car parts shop)
Another good place is beyond the playground, behind a small fence. You
can attack Reiko through it, but the crawler can't hit you. And Reiko
occasionally wastes some time trying to go around it, instead of trying
to attack you.
Like Naoko, Reiko will never pass the box near the car parts
shop. She'll not even climb it. She just meanders around futilely,
eventually getting inside the car parts shop and then leaving again.
If you're out completing the mission objective 1, you needn't
bother with actually fighting Reiko. You can simply run past her and
reach the small, hard-to-find alley where you'll find the 'charred
remains' and instantly finish the level. For mission objective 2 - well,
it too can be completed without fighting Reiko and acquiring the
cassette. So if you don't wish to bash Reiko's head in for some reason,
you're totally luck-stricken.
The sign you must drop, a bug:
In order to reach the central crossroads, you'll have to break the
ground by dropping a sign down. If a shibito is under the sign when you
drop it, he drops down to the sewer level with the breaking ground.
(NOTE: he won't even die in the crash.)
If you retry or die after dropping the sign, the shibitos on
this level still think that the ground is broken. They'll not step on
the 'brittle planks', but instead just meander by the side and start
dancing in a small fit of desperation. Try it out with Reiko.
The central crossroads:
It's Tamon's destination during MO2. There are a crawler and a sniper
there, so being able to climb to the exit is not possible without
distracting or killing either or both. The game has provided you a
knockable signpost for this purpose. You have two options, they are
shown via the in-game menu: you can knock it over like that, or tie
some cassette tape tape to it (if you have some cassette tape tape)
so that you can knock it over from down the sewers. They both have a
different outcome: in the first one you'll attract both the sniper's
and the crawler's attention, but the sniper doesn't move away from his
location. In the latter one the sniper moves away from his post, as
does the crawler, and they both go examine around the fallen sign.
After a minute the sniper comes back to his position, the crawler
stays near the sign forever.
You can finish this objective without acquiring the cassette
tape or touching the sign. It's just one sniper and a crawler after
all...
"FRESH MEAT SOLD HERE"
says one of the signs on a house at the end of the Sanja Bridge. After
3 days with electricity cutouts and who knows what, I wouldn't be too
certain about it's veracity.
Videos:
1, a speedrun for MO1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZF64ASk32c
2, a speedrun for MO2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8yTQzYC5LM
3, the bug with dropping the sign:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvNnzmbg1L0
4, a bug where Reiko was stuck in an obstacle at the playground:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEh-pbu96jc
A video stage: Tamon's Day 3 - 23:00 (23:56:36)
A video stage: Kei's X days ago (16:45:21)
Kei's Day 1 - 05:00 (05:03:07)
MO1 = "Reach road to Karuwari"
MO2 = "Find Hisako's veil."
Level details:
It's the Arato area again. Now both the Ishikawa's house and cafeteria's
back room are open for you. You may climb the fire tower, you may climb
the Rokkaku's house's shed, you HAVE to climb up either the bus stop or
Ishikawa's house's shed to pass this level.
Lesser objectives:
- getting a rope
- finding a face towel and freezing it (not mandatory)
Kei Makino:
He's carrying nothing!
The tape deck:
There's no eject button. WTF.
The digit where the cassette is at the beginning is random, as
is the code you get from the position of 0705. Both of them change
whenever you start the level anew, and this counts dying.
While examining this thing no time runs. It's pretty much like
a common FPV-location in any way. When you press circle to exit, the
tape deck stops by itself (if it was running).
The Ishikawa's house's shed:
You unlock the dial lock that seals it with the message you hear from
the cassette tape that's inside the Ishikawa's house's back room. But
you should already know that. Remember to get the rope, it's mandatory
for passing this game.
You may not have noticed, but it's possible to get inside the
shed and then close the door behind you. It's the smallest room in the
whole game!
The face towel:
It's description says "A cotton face towel, found in the cupboard of a
house." But that's where it's absolutely not found... Maybe it's where
the creators originally intended to put it? Would've been a lot easier
that way.
The whole ordeal of putting it in the freezer, etc. is not
necessary to pass this level, or even the Shiro's level where it's
supposed to do it's thing.
The odd part at Ishikawa's house's shed's roof:
Afetr you've climb up there using the 18-litre can, there's a short
special event. Kei's standing around, you can see Hisako's veil at the
background. After about 2 seconds the segment ends and you've completed
MO2. During this thing there's no way to get off the roof, and probably
no way to make it end faster. You can't examine the veil, the cutscene
of Kei examining it activates automatically after the required time
has passed. During Time Attack, the clock is not stopped here - that's
why I'm wondering whether it could be skipped faster.
Notice that you may open both the in-game menu and the pause
menu during it. Also, as you can climb on top of the shed even while
shibitos are alerted, it might be amusing to lure a cluster of shibitos
right on your trail as you get to the shed. Soon you'll be safe on top
of the shed, still hearing the angry shibitos from the ground level,
bickering futilely...
Other interesting or amusing stuff:
- Ishikawa's house's back door is infamous for it's ability to scoop
shibitos inside. Close the door right after they've opened it, and it
might just happen that one glides inside to your lap!
- Play a game of 'how many shibitos you can lure in the fire tower
before you get killed'? My record is 3.
- The barbershop's sign has fallen down and now whirls alone at the
ground.
- There's the landslide again.
Kei's Day 1 - 12:00 (11:59:33)
MO1 = "Reach road to Hirasakai."
MO2 = "Find item dropped by Tomoko. Reach road to Hirasakai."
Level details:
Hirunotsuka. There's a checkpoint which activates if you get near the
small shrine with Tomoko. There's one new shibito more during your
later playthrough - the one you have to follow in order to pass MO2.
Lesser objectives:
- hitting small shrine's door with the fertility stone fragment
- having Tomoko find a key (not mandatory)
Kei Makino:
He's still carrying nothing, unless you picked up a rope at the previous
level.
Tomoko Maeda:
Today's escort. This is the only level she'll be anyone's sidekick,
you should feel yourself privileged for having this honor. For some
reason, maybe to add or balance difficulty, she's weaker as a
sidekick than when you actually get to play with her in her levels.
She dies from only one sniper shot, unlike when she's the PC.
She starts the level by saying "What are you waiting for?
Leader?" And she'll say it again if you wait around needlessly or if
you make her wait. If you ask her to run, she'll shout "Help!" or
"Help! Leader Makino!" If she expects to be pulled up, she says
"Leader! Please help me here!" or "I can't make it by myself!" or
"Please give your hand, please!" As you pick up the fertility stone
fragment, she says "What are you doing?" or "What's... that?"
After you've watched the last cutscene on this level, she'll
completely disappear from the world's map, and you'll be unable to
sightjack her or meet her again.
After the cutscene:
Other than Tomoko disappearing for good, two interesting things happen.
First of all, the sniper responsible for Tomoko's disappearance has
lost most of his potence. He'll not be able to shoot Kei if he stays
just a few meters away - it's probably not a glitch, but a friendly
gesture from the creators. (slower players could still get shot after
the cutscene unless this kind of mechanism was implemented?)
Secondly, a new shibito appears in this level, and following
him is necessary for completing the mission objective 2. His route is
this: he walks slowly up to the large shrine, where he'll open up a
certain locked door behind which is the item of interest. He has no
weapons, so all his normal physical attacks pass through you
harmlessly. He can still kill you by strangling, though.
Other interesting stuff:
- In this level it's easy to notice a certain bug where your sidekick
won't come to you even if you make her to 'Come here'. Your PC has to
be on a different elevation from your sidekick, maybe something else
too. But since here you have so much elevation differences, it has
a larger-than-average chance of happening.
A video stage: Kei's Day 2 - 04:00 (04:44:39)
- What's the small thing Miyata steps on?
A video stage: Kei's Day 2 - 06:00 (06:44:51)
A video stage: Kei's Day 3 - 07:00 (07:42:44)
Kei's Day 3 - 12:00 (12:21:08)
MO1 = "Drive away Shibito Brain."
MO2 = "Acquire explosives."
Level Details:
Haraydori. No large changes from what it's previously been. The last
time you'll visit this place chronologically.
Kei Makino:
Or is he? From his badass way of holding and reloading the revolver,
you can already guess that something's not right...
His inventory consists of a flashlight, a rachet wrench, .38
calibre revolver (which Tamon had... with a total of 16 bullets),
rope (if you had picked it up at his Kei's Day 1 - 05:00) and a hammer
(if you had picked it up at Shiro's Day 2 - 00:00).
The shibito brain:
He starts the level by cooping up in a fire tower, guarded by a sniper
and two crawlers. If you get a shot at either him or the sniper, the
sub-objective changes to 'defeat shibito brain'. Then he'll start
climbing down. He'll first run to the east exit, descending down to
the river bottom. Then he'll run north and after that his routes are
more or less arbitrary.
Unlike his brethen at other levels, he has no especially odd
quirks in his behaviour. He often tries to climb up the cliffs instead
of using any of the conveniently situated paths nearby, which is of
course foolish. Also, he has a couple of spots in the level where he'll
stop without any reason, even with Kei very close to him. (for example:
near the well.) This is probably for the sake of the players' mental
healths.
He takes 5 shots to go down. After that MO1 has been completed.
The well:
Once you enter it, it's impossible for you to leave. Your location is
still in the area of Haraydori: you can see Kei's blue cross through
the sight of the enemies on the level. So it's not some separate map
altogether.
There's a spot where you're forced to take some damage: as
you climb up the long set of ladders, you come up to an alerted
shibito who attacks you before you can do anything else. You can't
stop him from harming you. He won't hear you from the bottom of the
well, not even if you shoot with your revolver.
I've heard a reported case where a crawler came down the
well, possibly following after Kei. This has never happened to me,
though, and I'm not sure if it's actually possible. I've had the
crawler on the surface alerted by shooting at the area near the
explosives, and he instinctively knew to come at the well, never
actually coming inside... just ramming his head to the stone ring.
Akira Shimura:
You may've not noticed him, but he's flying around here somewhere. You
get nothing from defeating him, and as with other flying shibitos, he's
become quite frail, requiring only 2 shots to kill. (nothing from the 6
shots it took when we last time saw him.)
He has a tendency to land unexpectedly around places, unlike
other flying shibitos. One of his favorite locations is a pole near
Kawasaki's house (or another pole further away) - unfortunately nothing
interesting happens even if you kill him while he's on top of it.
Sometimes he lands after he sees Kei and becomes alerted. If he sees
Kei or just becomes suspicious at certain places, he makes a flight
straight to the northern bush formations and he keeps on jamming up
towards them until he's disturbed, it's a bug of sort.
Unlike other special shibitos, he doesn't seem to have any
taunts.
Video demonstrations:
1, Akira's glitched-up flight route:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVYB0a6zLlI
Kei's Day 3 - 16:00 (16:00:58)
MO1 = "Reach road to floodgates."
MO2 = "Defeat all Shibito and reach road to floodgates."
Level details:
The mines, the last time you'll visit this place chronologically.
Kei Makino:
This time carrying the most items any character will have in this game
at once: a flashlight, .38 revolver (with a total of 6 bullets), a
ratchet wrench, type 99 hand grenades (if you picked them up at the
previous level?), Uryen (sword version), a hammer and a stake. You even
get more items later during the level! I wonder what would happen if you
could somehow get more than 8 items at once in your hands...
Mina Onda:
She's looming inside the Shaft No.3-East, acting as this level's
shibito brain. She still has her shovel, but it's at it's weakest now:
Kei can withstand up to 2 hits in a medium period of time without dying.
She's not very tough to kill either, requiring only 3 bullets.
She's a very light sleeper, getting up after about 10 seconds
has passed. But Kei can keep her down permanently by detonating the
Shaft No. 3-East with her inside...
Her area of movement is semi-restricted. She can't enter the
Mine Office (or any of the open areas beyond it) until you've detonated
Shaft No. 3-East - if you try, you see that she instantly stops and
turns around, also ignoring Kei all of a sudden. And as such, she can
be killed extremely easily - this behaviour trait should be abused, no
question about it. After you've detonated the required shaft, she'll
easily follow you wherever you want her to, even to the tracks of the
Tunnel No.1, where the trolley will eventually bring her to her
gruessome, momentarily end. Other than that, if you lead her near the
siren shack, with an unlocked door near, she'll opt for entering that
place and staying there indefinitely with no reason at all instead of
continuing chasing Kei. (fortunately she's not intelligent enough to
operate the switch for explosives by herself.) A small final note: she
can't climb anything as high as she herself is.
You can lure her to climb ladders this time around, which can
sometimes produce humorous results. Her climbing animation is slightly
glitched up and her character model can rarely look as if it's sideways
for a moment until it pops out to the normal climbing animation.
Risa Onda:
She's lost her umbrella, which is a shame because she obviously had a
thing going with it. She's as strong as her sister, resisting 3 pistol
shots before dying. Her movement has its restrictions too. She is
unable to exit the mine shaft where she resides - if you try to lead
her out, she stops at the exit and turns around, like Mina in her
respective situation.
After you've defeated her once, she's nailed to the ground for
the rest of the level. (if you had the stake) Even though she still
looks very lively, she's registered as a knocked out shibito. She drops
the 'spare key to the siren shack' while she's at it.
The trolley:
Allegedly, a spider shibito pushes it at you if you get too far up the
Shaft No. 1. It will kill Kei or anything else living or unliving
instantly with mere contact. Fortunately Kei can outrun the trolley �
it's possible to complete MO1 by simply avoiding it at the exit,
leaving both Mina and Risa alone to rot in their respective shafts.
After you've witnessed it tumble down the mine shaft, your map's
'Trolley'-section gets grayed out. The trolley physically lands near
the mine office's south entrance, and if there was something in it's
way, (such as crawler corpses) it gets pushed aside.
If the spider shibito is knocked out, the trolley will not
start moving when Kei approaches.
About MO2:
I'm not sure if it's possible to win by luring Mina inside the Shaft
No. 1 and killing her there right before reaching the exit. From what
I've experienced myself and heard from others, it's not possible. (but
it's not 100% certain)
Spare key to the Siren shack:
It only disappears from your inventory after you've unlocked BOTH of
the shack's doors with it. (unlike many other similar items)
The siren:
Ah, the forbidden siren! ...sorry.
Anyway, it won't work in this level.
Other things of interest:
- After starting the level, run right to the spider enemy that's on the right
side of the area. While its still on the stairs and attacking downwards, no
attacks will it does will hit Kei. Unfortunately this trick does not work on
(at least some) other stairways and also not to the other direction (upwards).
- There's an invisible wall at the lowest floor of the Mine Office. Run down
the stairs after a while of running, and you'll slap into something invisible,
as if a wall... (thanks Stevo99801)
- If you explode the mine while Mina is unconscious, she, when coming
back to her senses, and returning to her original route, will start
pushing towards the barren and collapsed entrance... aww, she looks
so sad then.
A video stage: Kei's Day 3 - 18:00 (18:05:28)
A video stage: Kei's Day 3 - 18:00 (18:39:58)
Shiro's Day 1 - 03:00 (03:31:17)
MO1 = "Escape from Janokubi Valley."
MO2 = "Find nurse's shoes."
(yes, the game says "nurse's shoes", even though you only find one...)
Level details:
It's the Janokubi Valley, for the first time chronologically in this
game. The whole area is free for you to roam right from the start.
This level holds a record number of sniper/revolver shibitos
in the entire game: 4 sniper shibitos, 1 revolver shibito. For the most
part, they're situated so that crossing the river or other long paths
of roads becomes difficult. Other than that, there are three patroller
shibitos too, two at the side where you start, one at the ore
processing plant's side. (except during the first playthrough, when
there are only two patrollers.)
This level also holds the record for the amount of checkpoints:
there's a whole 3 of them! There's a checkpoint after you've passed the
suspension bridge - if you retry, your inventory is reduced to a mere
flashlight and a wrench. Then there's a checkpoint after you've started
the generator at the ore processing plant. If you retry from the spot,
Shiro'll receive both a flashlight and a wrench. In both of the
checkpoints the game acts as if you had never used the phone card or
even picked it up, in addition to acting as if you had used the flare.
Also, your flashlight in rudely turned on.
Lesser objectives:
- overturning a marker
Shiro Miyata:
He carries nothing.
The flare:
When used at the scrap barrel, it causes the nearby revolver shibito's
route to change: he predictably leaves his post and goes to examine the
barrel. Afterwards he never leaves unless he becomes alerted or dies,
but even then he returns to the barrel soon.
The phone card:
It's effect is similar to the flare's, distracting a nearby dangerous
shibito, but it's effect is only half-temporary. This means that the
shibito in question will eventually leave the scene back to his post,
where he'll again notice the phone card's beeping, returning to it...
The generator and it's fuel:
To activate the generator, you need fuel in a jerry can, from Miyata's
car. If you activate it, you see a short cutscene of the lights turning
on. After this, the nearby sniper follows a pre-set route of entering
the mountain hut and staring intensely at the newfound light.
The puddle:
It's electrified, and I've heard that stepping in it is dangerous.
Shiro personally can't test it's effectiviness by stepping in it, and
neither can his enemies. Apparently, you can't kill anything with this
thing this early. The enemies avoid it, and even when hitting that
infamous deathly edge (read more in Kyoya's Day 2 - 07:00) they remain
unharmed.
The signs:
At the forest area there are four different signs. The east one says
"No trespassing"... that's right where Shiro starts the game. You can
see yellow rope lying on the ground, shoddily cut to make way to the
area. The west one says "Forest reserve", it's right next to a larger,
fallen sign. (which you can't examine) Again the cut rope. Did Shiro
break both of them? The westmost sign says "Gojaku Peak-> (a line
break) <-Oribe". The northernmost one (at the middle of the path) says
"Only you can prevent forest fires!" (in all caps).
Shibitos of interest:
- The patroller near the plant/bridge is harmless to you. If he notices
you, he'll start running to a different direction and hollers � usually
alerting the snipers in the area, but not attacking you himself. It
seems he has no weapons. If you shout at him you can manipulate his
routes, but he never becomes 'officially' alerted or even suspicious
this way.
- The sniper guarding this level's exit kills you in only one shot.
- There an unnecessary sniper beyond Miyata's car. If you go that way,
there's a message "Too dangerous over there..." right before you get
shot at.
Other things of interest:
- Unlike every single time you visit this place later, this place has
no music. Only the atmospheric rain-effects, etc.
Shiro's Day 1 - 07:00 (07:22:49)
MO1 = "Reach upper waters of river with Risa Onda."
MO2 = "Acquire notebook."
Level details:
It's Arato. There's an in-game cutscene at the start.
Lesser objectives:
- finding a hammer
- making Rokkaku's house enterable
Risa Onda:
The second weakest sidekick in the whole game, dying from only two weak
hits of your wrench. If you leave her alone wherever for too long, she
automatically leaves for some other place where she feels more safe
(e.g. the bus stop).
If you wait around too long, she'll ask: "What are you doing?"
or "What are you... doing?" If she excepts to get pulled up, she says
"I can't." or "What should I do? I can't." or "Can't you pull me up?"
If you leave her alone for a longer while, she says "Please don't leave
me alone anymore!" or "I'm scared. It's not good to think about (that
thing?)." or "I was so frightened!" or "(Shiro), I'm frightened!" or
(with an angry tone of voice) "You're not going anywhere, are you?"
If a shibito threatens her, she shouts "Help! Please!" When you
approach the Rokkaku's house's back door, she says "Oh... it's open."
If you tell her to go inside, she says "What? You want me to go inside?"
When you pick up the hammer, she says "What are you going to do with
that?"
I think she has a set of comments to say if Shiro is just too
far away from her, but I can't make sense of them because the level's
BGM is way too loud.
The police officer:
The police officer will not be alerted in any way unless you open the
front door or have the biggy bank broken. Even if you shout outside
his front door, give the backdoor some violent wrenching or hammering
- he'll never notice you in any way until you've alerted him once.
After that he gets alerted like normal shibitos.
He wields a revolver, different than Tamon's, maybe different
from the other shibitos. His shooting pace is more hasty than with
other shibitos, to your special detriment. Shiro'll have extremely
hard time reaching him straight away, say, from the front door of the
cafeteria if he's not reloading his gun (even though it's somehow
possible, I succeeded in it only once and then never again!).
After you break the piggy bank or have him alerted, he'll stare
at the door he last saw you at until the cows come home (never in this
game, so - it's forever.) or until you show up again (then his
attention is focused on you). You can never get him to leave from
beside the table he's at, not by shouting, not by nothin'.
He uses certain 'taunts', like all the special shibitos. "I'll
find you, wherever you are!" seems to be one.
Frozen face towel:
Part of a scheme to get the police officer leave the cafeteria. As
the game says, it will defrost eventually - whether it is in your
inventory (where it turns into a "Wet face towel") or balancing the
piggy bank between the tables.
Ishikawa's house's shed:
You could close its door at Kei's Day 1 - 05:00... here you can't! As
I mentioned before, it's the smallest room in the whole game, and
therefore it would be very cool to practise some dying in cramped
spaces there.
Other interesting stuff:
- If you try to pull Risa up from the rightmost spot on top of the
bus stop (what a tongue twister!) she will start running or walking
against the nearby wall, unable to get close enough to Shiro.
- The Rokkaku's house's shed is still at large and ready to kill any
sidekick who dares to jump off its edge. Risa dies in just one a drop.
A video stage: Shiro's Day 1 - 19:00 (19:14:31)
A video stage: Shiro's Day 1 - 23:00 (23:03:48)
Shiro's Day 2 - 00:00 (00:49:33)
MO1 = "Defeat Mina Onda."
MO2 = "Acquire Uryen."
Level details:
It's the hospital. There's a checkpoint which activates as you pick up
the 'key to the basement' - if you restart from it, your weapon has
changed to the wrench and your flashlight has been thoughtlessly turned
on.
There's an in-game cutscene at the beginning of the level.
Lesser objectives:
- unlocking one the men's rooms
- acquiring a stake
Shiro Miyata:
Now apparently stuck in a two-thirds undead love triangle. He carries
a flashlight and a wrench as a default, also the hammer if you had
picked it up at his previous level.
Risa Onda:
You knew it eventually had to come to this. She wields no weapon, and
thus can't harm you in any other way than choking.
Her behaviour is different from the other shibitos. Instead of
attacking you, she sometimes just stands still and doesn't do anything,
even when alerted. If you back away from her while she's attacking,
she'll stop approaching for a moment. She screams with a very
high-pitched voice every now and then, but at strange intervals.
Her normal route goes up and down the first-floor corridor
where Shiro starts this level. There's a locked door there which she
courteously opens, enabling you to get an archive and an EEG-machine
from inside, you just have to wait a bit for this to happen. After
you've unlocked the basement door she eventually enters there too,
naturally visiting different rooms and leaving the doors open after
she leaves, even the one with Mina inside! I think if you wait enough
she will go to the other side of the hospital and even to the courtyard
with the sniper. I don't know if she would enter the basement if Shiro
had moved the statue earlier.
She's a very light sleeper, getting up in under 5 seconds after
knockout. You know that in the japanise version the scream she emits
with her death throes is banshee-esque and extremely loud and
disturbing? The same calls for Mina. I wonder why they changed it to
the boring hiss she does now...
Mina Onda:
Here she is again. She's located at the hospital's boiler room,
hanging out at the roof level for some reason. If the door is closed
beforehand, she'll drop down as soon as you open the door. You can't
make her drop down any other way, not by shouting outside the door or
even by making Risa scream outside the door. But: if the door is
already open, she drops down the first moment she sees you, probably
while you're approaching the door. An interesting thing to note is that
she's de-alerted the while it takes for her to fully rise up after
dropping down.
She takes 5 strong hits or 7 weak hits with the hammer to die.
After she's down you've completed mission objective 1.
The garbage chute and the sniper:
It's a scheme to knock out the sniper at the courtyard. You get a
'fluorescent light bulb' and a 'EEG-machine' to carry out this vile
task.
Whatever you drop in the chute will make the sniper check it
out. But if you drop the stuff inside in the right order (and timing),
you get two cutscenes and a knocked out sniper as a bonus. When you
drop the fluorescent bulb in you get a cutscene of the sniper noticing
it. In the cutscene he'll appear in the middle of the courtyard, even
if he was somewhere completely else at the time. After that, his route
is changed and he goes to the garbage chute and checks out the
shattered bulb. He enters into a special stance for a short while, then
leaves and goes back to his own businesses. If you drop the EEG-machine
in the chute while he's in the 'special stance', you get an additional
cutscene of him getting knocked out.
The EEG-machine:
Just an interesting tidbit, proving that Shiro may not be an actual
licensed doctor at all. When you examine the machine, it says "It is
some sort of heavy medical device." Shiro doesn't recognize it...
The room with the coffin:
It has a one-of-a-kind camera angle. Pay attention to how insanely your
character's left hand moves if you make sharp turns.
If there's an enemy nearby, the 'battle camera' is deployed, and
you'll lose the special camera angle *eternally* (until you retry).
A video stage: Shiro's Day 2 - 16:00 (16:03:07)
Risa's Day 1 - 04:00 (04:00:04)
MO1 = "Escape from abandoned house."
MO2 = "Discover Mana cross."
Level details:
It's the spooky abandoned house! In an act of unspeakable cruelty, the
game forbids you every other room in the house other than the kitchen.
Additionally, you may enter the cottage at the yard, but you may not
enter the storage shed or the doghouse. You may climb up to the roof if
you fancy, or are simply completing the mission objective 2.
In this level there's one patrolling shibito less during your
first playthrough. It'll later get one patroller more at the front
yard.
Lesser objectives:
- overturning a marker
- finding a key to the Siren shack
Risa Onda:
The second weakest PC in the entire game, losing only to a harmless
10-years old girl. She dies from one sniper shot, and she's totally
unarmed. (she refuses to use the trowel with the lame excuse "It's
too small to use as a weapon". The shibitos themselves have much
smaller weapons! Geez... besides, the trowel is a weapon in Siren 2.
How do you explain that, then?) Her countenance is that of someone who's
just about to burst into tears.
She carries nothing at the start.
The sniper:
The sniper cooping right at the level's exit is an actual problem you
will not be able to avoid without activating the cutscene at the
kitchen (cupboard falling down) or gliding. The path is just narrow enough to
prevent you from running past him by his side, and even if you could,
you wouldn't most likely survive that far down the road as Risa dies
from only one shot.
The other shibitos:
I've already mentioned the one to two patrollers at the yard. But there
are also two other shibitos in this level, ones whom you can't reach by
any way, and with whom you can't even interact in any way. They're
inside the house, somewhere farther away than where your voice can
reach. (other one is approximately at the children's room, the other
one in the corridor outside living room, somewhere north of the dog
house.)
The kitchen:
There are several things of importance here. You can't meddle with any
of them if a shibito is alerted, though. A way to override this
momentarily is to lock the room's door. More on this soon.
Mission objective 1 requires you to activate the room's
ventilation system. As you activate it - the whirring noise begins and
the cupboard falls down in a minute - the locations of the shibitos do
not reset. If you have a shibito ramming down your locked door, he'll
still be there when the ventilation starts. But you do get a full
health, and that's enough compensation already (or is it?). Ramming
the cupboard down will only alert the sniper, but he's the one you
really need.
Then there's a marker to push in order to help Reiko and Kyoya
later. When you do this, you lose a considerable amount of floor space
in the room. But that's of no consequence...
A funny challenge for MO1:
Stay inside the kitchen after the cupboard has crashed down. Escape
only after the sniper (or some other shibito) has opened the door for
you...
The spare key to Siren shack:
It's found behind the dog house. You can see it on the ground if you
look with FPV, otherwise it's lost behind the dog house (because of the
camera angle).
Other things of interest:
- The small step-up at the kitchen is an interestingly cramped space.
If the door is closed in front of Risa when she dies, standing there,
she'll not have the space to get on the ground, and her head enters
through the door! In some other cases, her body jumps through the
ground and lands further in the kitchen, where there's more room.
- There's a small message error in the kitchen. If you haven't tied
the ventilator up yet, you'll get a message when examining the
cupboard. But if you've already tied up the ventilator, the cupboard
examination messages will not appear.
Video demonstrations:
1, super fast completion of MO1, using gliding:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SzWROay1Kqo
A video stage: Risa's Day 1 - 10:00 (10:38:58)
Risa's Day 1 - 22:00 (22:52:57)
MO1 = "Warn Miyata and Makino of approaching enemies."
MO2 = "Find angel statuette."
Level details:
It's the unhospitable hospital. The area in which you can move around
is not very large, featuring most of Ward 2 and hints of Ward 1.
Lesser objectives:
- unlocking a garbage chute (not mandatory)
Risa Onda:
Starts the level with just a modest flashlight.
Umbrella:
The beautiful weapon Risa manages to acquire in this level. Such
bountiful slaughtering capabilities! Actually, it's the weakest weapon
in the game: 4 strong hits are needed to take down a normal spider. It's
not too fast either, but the range is extraordinary. You can easily hit
several enemies at once with it!
Mina Onda:
Risa's undead sister who's the 'boss' or at least the 'brain' of this
level. She has a nasty shovel with her, with which she'll kill Risa in
one hit. Additionally, she may start strangling Risa if they both are
close to each other. This attack is particularly deadly because of the
fact that Mina will not budge if Risa shakes herself off - and she'll
start another strangle the very next instant, killing Risa 100% certainly.
I'm not sure if this is a bug. It is something unusual anyhow. Because of it
you'll not get past her in these cramped hospital corridors (for example, for
MO2) unless you do something highly unseemly and additional.
Her single largest weakness is the fire extinguisher and its
gush. If you pull the pin, Mina experiences a momentary change in her
behaviour: she won't notice Risa even if she's right in front of her.
Secondly, she starts attacking away at nothingness inside the cloud of
gush. She loses her alerted state and will not regain it until the gush
dissolves - this means that every hit Risa makes is a critical one.
For some reason Mina's pace stops to a crawl if she comes out
of the room with the umbrella while alerted. She doesn't attack Risa
even if she's right near her, only frisking up if she's physically
attacked.
She has several taunts, but tends to use them very rarely.
I've only heard these: "Risa, join me.", "*laughs*, "Risa? Risa?".
Dealing with Mina:
If you're doing MO1, you won't have to. You can just escape like normal
and nothing bad happens. (yes, there's the garbage chute at the courtyard
but it's really of no consequence.) But with MO2, now that's a more
interesting case! You can either avoid her or defeat her. There are several
different ways to achieve either (or both) of these outcomes, documented
here:
1. Using the fire extinguisher. In order to do this, you must
pass her once already because it's so far away, though, so let's look
over the other alternatives as well.
2. Using umbrella. If you do a normal attack with the umbrella
with Mina close enough, you provoke her to attack Risa normally - and
that's when she's at her slowest and you can easily run past her. A
more completist effort is beating her to death, just like that! It's
not impossible, even though the fire extinguisher of course makes things
a lot easier.
3. Using a door. Get to the other side of the stairway corridor
door and close it. Wait for her to come closer, then open the door
straight to her ugly face, then run past her. So simple it's ingenious!
4. By gliding. If your speed is high enough, she can't catch
you while you pass by. This is the fastest method, but by far the hardest.
5. By stealth. Escape her normally and wait until she calms down.
Then sneak behind her until you can get to the umbrella or the extinguisher.
The ward 2's stairway corridor door:
You can lock it from only one side - the side from which you start the
level. I don't know, seemed kind of ironic that you can only lock
yourself in with Mina, instead of being able to lock the door and prevent
her from following you (which would make a lot more sense design-wise).
Windows:
At the middle of the level, you have a chance to pass one of the
corridors via a small ledge on the hospital's wall - you get there
through the window in the Room 203. You may've not noticed, but if you
examine the window after unveiling the curtains, you yield a still
picture of Risa looking outside the window (in addition to a text
message).
During the time you're outside, some elements of this game
work differently. First of all, you can't open the in-game menu.
Secondly, you can't use the FPV or control the camera by other means
either (except... read further). Thirdly, you can't crouch or run or
turn or generally move to any other directions than left or right.
Strafing is not allowed either, even though that's what you technically
end up doing anyway. Lastly, the Time Attack-display disappears - you
genuinely don't lose time during your stay outside.
There are three windows that are of importance to Risa: the
first one, the one you came from. It's in Room 203 - you can't go
back inside once you're out, for some reason. Your movement is highly
restricted, forcing you to get towards Room 202 in any case.
The second window lays in the hallway between 202 and 203, this
is the trouble spot. There's a spider nearby who periodically looks at
the window. If you're passing by at the wrong time, some very bad
things happen - the ensuing events do not work as if it was a normal
alert, rather, it's a full-blown special effect which coerces both of
the spiders go and wait at the room 202's entrance (or insides) for
your eventual appearance. They stay there even after their alerts fade
away, eternally, which mean that Risa's royally screwed if it gets to
that.
The last window is where the breezy journey untimely ends.
After just walking far enough, a cutscene will automatically take place,
and afterwards Risa's inside 202. You can't escape back outside... Just
to note: if there are spiders inside the room, watching at the window,
they'll not notice Risa even though she's right in front of them on the
ledge. Some inconsistency...
After coming back inside from the outside, if you retrace your steps
back to the first window inside 203, you see that that window is now
inenterable as well. No going outside or inside a window in this session ever
again! Why did they do this to us? Monsters...
These kind of special events are not without their bugs. First
of all, you can die while you're on the ledge. Climb outside at the
very last moment before a spider hits you. The screen fades out � after
the cutscene you're outside, but you die instantly. Risa's death
animation pushes her upper body through the wall, not to mention that
there's something twisted going on with the spider's head's angle
afterwards, it's something pretty funny to check out.
Secondly, you can switch the camera angle to a more inconvenient
one by sightjacking right about when you're about to emerge onto the ledge.
This also works by mashing the first-person view-button.
Thirdly, if you have umbrella with you and equipped, Risa emerges
out from the window holding it (in a funny way). If you remove the umbrella
now, her hand is still sticking out as if it was holding the umbrella. W_W
Fourthly, if you crouch right before emerging, Risa will stay
crouched at the ledge, but only for a bit. (if you try to move, she
instantly rises up, as well as de-crouching very soon even if you don't
do anything.)
A facetious music glitch:
It deserved its own 'chapter' after all. I first mentioned that it
required sightjacking to do, but it turns out this wasn't the case.
The only place where it happens is the window ledge, and I'm still not
sure why. But its effect is this: all in-game music disappears, except
during the times you enter the menu, where it's booming abnormally. Also,
the loop of the rain sound starts sounding strange. If you restart, this
glitch resets too. If you exit the ledge, the glitch continues, even if
for a while it doesn't seem like it. If you enter the map screen, the
glitch ends. There's probably nothing more to it.
If you want to try it out, walk around casually, flick flashlight,
enter sightjack every now and then. Press start during a step, and
if you're lucky, this glitch activates. It may just have something to
do with opening the start menu on certain frames or stuff like that.
Kei & Shiro:
They're hanging out at Ward 1's Examination Room, blissfully ignorant
of what's threatening them and most importantly Risa. While they're by
themselves, they have a meaningful conversation to which you can
sightjack and eavesdrop - it clarifies a couple of things about the
plot. After they've had their 'long' conversation, they switch on to
two shorter pieces of shallow small talk which repeat on indefinitely.
You may not reach the location where they're at as all the
doors are either broken or locked. They left Risa intentionally outside,
didn't they? You may reach their window via the courtyard, but to no
avail: they won't hear Risa's shouts. Even smashing the window
violently with your umbrella will not help.
Opening the garbage chute:
One of the lesser objectives of this level. You may leave it undone, as
it's easy for Shiro to do his mission objective 2 later on without it
anyway.
Other things of interest:
- Look closely at Mina's face. Her new shibito eyes are actually
located at her forehead..
- The fire extinguisher's gush has no effect on the nearby spider.
(thanks to Surrealgamer for mentioning this)
Videos:
1, gliding speedruns of both MO1 and MO2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrMmhF_AiqU
2, dying while on a window ledge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgSThANO1BE
Harumi's Day 2 - 15:00 (15:19:59)
MO1 = "Escape from abandoned house."
MO2 = "Find beaded doll. Escape from abandoned house."
Level details:
The abandoned house, for the last time chronologically. This level is
filled with waiting, but it has a lot of interesting possibilities and
things in general you can mess around with.
There's a checkpoint which activates after you've passed the
locked door upstairs.
Lesser objectives:
- getting a toy monkey (not mandatory)
Harumi Yomoda:
Your hapless 10-years old protagonist. She runs at a slower pace than
your other characters and dies without actually getting hit. I believe
the mechanism to be this: she dies after an enemy has targeted her and
she stands in the attack range and the attack is just about to begin.
(it would take place if it weren't interrupted by the 'mission failed'.)
Good luck getting out of this one alive!
None of the enemies in the whole game exert violence against
Harumi - in normal circumstances. If there are several enemies at once,
especially at some cramped space, it might just happen that one of them
tries to do a physical attack at Harumi. But it doesn't matter in any
case, as she turns just as dead from an evil shibito glance as from a
physical attack.
She has a flashlight and no other items as her inventory.
The Maedas:
Your enemies in this stage are the Maeda family. They move around the
house in an extremely predictable and sharply timed manner, once in a
while making stops at certain locations, becoming pre-occupied and
looking helpfully to the 'other way' for extended periods of time. They
won't skip segments from their routes ever, as far as I know, but they
can be stalled via some bugs or just some expected Harumi shenanigans.
If you disturb them right before they start doing something, they abort
starting the procedure and instead search lazily for Harumi for a
moment, after which they go and finally start their things. If you
disturb them while they're doing something, they usually return to
their deed for a diminished period of time before moving on to the
next stop.
All the members' events are timed to work at the same time, for
the most part. If you wait enough, you'll see that they move in cycles,
always doing the same routes and always at the same time the other
family members are doing their things. It's not a coincidence that if
you lure one of the family members outside the house, the others will
stop on their tracks and remain doing what they were doing for an
eternity. Casual disturbances usually disrupt the cycles momentarily,
but do no further harm.
They all have unique taunts. Unfortunately I haven't heard many.
The only one I can write accurately is Tomoko's "We-eee want Harumi..."
How does she know her name anyway? Oh, another one: "Let's play!" The father
seems to say "Bad girls get punished, you know..." and/or "Who's little girl
are you? My daughter has parents you know". The mother says "What a naughty
girl for walking into someone's house uninvited!" (thanks scissormon for the
two last ones)
The Maedas' weapons:
The mother wields a kitchen knife, which is the only one I'd actually
acknowledge as a weapon. You can see a pencil in Tomoko's hand or that
strange, stagnant cigarette with the father, but I highly doubt they're
weapons of any kind.
Closets:
Harumi can hide in these. There are four available, scattered
conveniently around the house. They're like normal FPV-locations,
meaning you can't die or be found while you're in one. Unlike other
FPV-locations, time still passes normally while you're in there. Also,
you can't enter one if a shibito is alerted. (read the section on
"locations with FPV" from the glossary for more information.)
You can 'Hide' in a closet even though it's door is closed � it
would seem then that Harumi goes through the door as if it had some
small flappy dog-entrance at the bottom. After you exit the closet it's
door will always be open. While Harumi can't manually open or close the
closet's door while she's inside (it's closed as a default), her
enemies can. With some devious manipulation of the Maedas, you can
witness an amusing scene of them opening the door and seeing Harumi
right in front of them - and then promptly ignoring her in favor of
taking a mundane lap around the household. Some interesting kid she is.
An useless trick you may want to try out here is the fabled
"double 180". First, get in front of a closet. Flick the left analog
stick quickly down, but open the in-game menu before actually turning
around. Choose to 'Hide' in the closet - now, if things work out as they
should, Harumi does a 180 instead of the normal hiding animation, as well
as an additional 180 when you finally leave the closet.
Whenever you hide in a closet, your flashlight turns off.
Level's events:
So, the level begins with Harumi hidden in the closet. The first
possible moment Harumi can leave the closet without instantly dying
is at the very first instant you can exit the closet: the Maeda's are
still getting up from the table, and Harumi can escape from the room's
back exit. The first possible moment Harumi can leave the closet
without anyone noticing is at about 7:40. But leaving prematurely
doesn't do much good for you because there's a necessary-to-get key
behind the kitchen's locked door. The mother opens up the kitchen
late during her route, and if you disturb her before that it's only
going to cost you additional time.
A rough draft of the Maeda's routes is this:
- Mother: Gets up from table, goes to storeroom door via the outer corridor,
looks at door's lock, moves to the TV via the inner corridor, sits down and
watches TV, goes to kitchen door, unlocks it, goes to the table to hack at
nothingness for a moment, leaves kitchen and locks door, goes to the boarded
front door and looks at it for a while, then it's back to the storeroom door.
- Father: Gets up from table, goes to do a prayer at the Buddhist altar. Then
he comes back a slightly different route and goes to play with the broken
table lighter. Then he goes to toilet to relieve himself. Then he goes to
the bathroom to scratch his head. (head lice? I guess...) After that it's
back to the altar...
- Tomoko: Gets up from table, does doodles to the floor right in front of the
stairway upstairs (does this a while), gets up and goes upstairs to draw, then
she unlocks her room's door and enters to draw on her desk. Leaves, locks her
room's door. (likes her privacy, doesn't she?) Goes downstairs. Repeat ad
infinitum...
The beaded doll:
It doesn't show itself as an item in your inventory. You can see if
you have it via the archive, though.
Reiko Takato:
She doesn't walk, instead opting to walk in short, quick steps (if she's
alerted). Very creepy. Not to mention that she has that interesting smile
on her face...
She has taunts. "Megumi...", "Harumi...", but she only says them
during sightjack? Am I mistaken or does she also say "Harumi, please
forgive me?", "Where are you hiding, Harumi? Come to mommy..." Some parts
of her speech are just not very audible.
Other things of interest:
- Just for some weak giggles, get yourself locked up in the kitchen by
staying there when the mother leaves. Apparently, the creators didn't
intend you to stay in the kitchen any longer than what it requires to
get the 'key to red padlock'. If you try to take the back door out,
the game will give you no message. Also, there's no message for the
now-closed compartment (where's the marker) in the kitchen's floor.
I'm guessing it's not impossible to escape after you've got locked in,
because even though the mother will *always* see you when she enters
the room next time, she stops to shout at some point - and that's
when you can run past her.
- For some more formidable giggles, you may get Tomoko to sit down on
nothingness. Disturb her right before she sits down on her desk.
After she calms down, she'll not quite reach her desk, but instead
starts drawing on nothingness before the table. And she sits in
mid-air. (thanks to KurtKokaine4) I'm guessing that this works on
other family members and their activities too, but it hasn�t been
tested yet.
- For the most excuisite of laughs, start luring the Maeda family
members outdoors. Get one chasing you, get to the balcony, and when
they're close to you, jump down. Then climb back up via the boxes
nearby. A thing to note is that none of the Maedas will ever get back
inside the house after you've lured them out. (they seemingly can't
climb boxes? Try hanging out at the lowest box to see how they're
unable to hurt you or climb.) After you've lured one family member
out, the rest of the family inside the house get stuck doing what
they were doing for an eternity, unless you disturb them, of course.
This makes moving around the house much easier.
- There's a graphical glitch available at the balcony area: after
descending the first step from the balcony, go to the right-most
corner, face the storehouse and crouch. Sightjack, un-sightjack.
Mess around enough, and Harumi becomes invisible until you stand up
or move away from the particular area. The enemies can still see her
perfectly well during this fleeting bit of invisibility, though.
(thanks to Steveo99801)
- There's an 'invisible wall' at the bottom of this house's main
stairway. If you run down the stairs at full speed (having ran already
a while) you just slap into something invisible, as if you ran into a
wall, even though there's nothing like that there...
Video demonstrations:
1, Tomoko sitting in mid-air:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgixfHFQ2qI
2, Harumi turning invinsible on the shed's roof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7-6XRKgvbk
Harumi's Day 3 - 00:00 (00:14:26)
MO1 = "Escape from the Nest."
MO2 = "Reach central intersection."
Level details:
There's a checkpoint which activates as you reach the Nakano family
house.
Lesser objectives:
- unlocking Kondo's house's back door
Harumi Yomoda:
Even though a lot of time has passed, she hasn't grown up enough to
actually be able to defend herself. Sorry...
She carries a flashlight and a toy monkey (if you had picked
it up at her previous level).
The sign:
There's a sign hanging on a wall near the first shibito you encounter
on this level. You have a chance to turn it to point to the other way �
if you do it, the aforementioned shibito's route will eventually change
(as he happens to stumble upon the sign), and you'll get him out of
your way. He goes to feast on some garbage... yuck.
You can't re-turn the sign. You don't have to turn the sign in
order to pass this point of this level, but it's probably the easiest
way around.
The Nakano family house:
It's the broken down structure where you can find the bag o' laughter.
It's an interesting piece of level design, with it's useless set of
door, stray bathroom and lots of small step-ups.
The bag o' laughter:
You activate it by simply 'picking it up'. The nearby shibito's route
changes after the cutscene - she appears to first check the bag, then
the nearby perimeters. It seems that she never goes back to sharpening
her knife any more after that. She stays at the yard and does a sort
of semi-circle around the house.
After you've activated the bag once, you can't activate it
again.
The frail bridge:
If you lure the nearby crawler on it, he will crash down to the red
waters and die (for no reason. An overdose of red water?). You can
pass this part of the level without doing that, though.
If you stand on the bridge's 'frail' spot, with the crawler
having noticed you, he'll not follow you to the bridge but instead
acts completely insane and runs around the area erratically, getting
stuck at corners and bushes, etc.
Route 333:
A quaint little spot. Check out the large sign above!
"Central Arato 1 km"
"Manakawa gate (?) 8 km"
The alarm clock:
The only option is to set it to ring 1 minute later. After that, it's
true to its word and starts to ring. Eiji rushes from Sanji bridge down
to the room where the alarm clock is, and subsequently examines the
whole area thoroughly - he looks even behind the set of stairs Harumi
is probably under. After wasting enough time he leaves back to where
he was before, the bridge.
"FRESH MEAT SOLD HERE"
says a sign at the Sanja bridge. If you repeat a lie long enough...
The central crossroads:
Nothing interesting to do here, but it's a pretty place. The small sign
near the flashing light says 'Kamiarato'.
A video stage: Harumi's Day 3 - 23:00 (23:43:21)
Reiko's Day 1 - 02:00 (02:18:34)
MO1 = "Escape from the school with Harumi Yomoda."
MO2 = "Unlock door to gymnasium fire exit from within. Help Harumi
Yomoda escape from the school."
Level Details:
The fateful elementary. There's a checkpoint which activates as you
enter the faculty room.
Lesser objectives:
- getting the friggin' candles
Reiko Takato:
Your sympathetic teacher character. She carries a flashlight and nothing
else.
Harumi Yomoda:
If you're reading this guide in order, you already know her. She runs slower
than other characters, dies without even getting hit, can't be pulled
up from anywhere and causes all sorts of trouble in general ways. Her
death animation is unusual in that she'll never actually die: she only
has a sort of mental breakdown, maybe falling in some sort of catatonic
state. (come on, just 'getting scared' isn't a good excuse for a
mission failed.)
I believe that Harumi dies after an enemy has targeted her and
she stands in the attack range and the attack is just about to begin.
(it would take place if it weren't interrupted by the 'mission failed'.)
Aside from that, she'll die from the least bits of damage - if a
shibito hits Reiko and Harumi gets hit simultaneously - she's KO'd. If
Reiko punches her, by some accident one'd hope - she's KO'd.
She speaks, like all other of your sidekicks. If you make her
"Run!", she'll say "Help, mrs. Takato!" If you meet her after being
separated for some time, she says: "Mrs. Takato, let's get out of here."
If you wait around needlessly, she asks "What are you doing?" or sobs.
As you get to the faculty room (and the cutscene occurs),
Harumi will no longer be your sidekick for a while: she'll turn mostly
unmanipulable. She'll still die if you go out of your way and get some
enemy to touch her, anyhow.
After the first cutscene in gymnasium she has disappeared from
the faculty room, and you will find her from either the one of the
toilet closets (the rightmost of the most northernmost toilet), or
from where you started this level, the library. You can tell in which
one she is by either doing a quick sightjack (which shows you the green
cross afterwards, by which you can deduce her location), or watching
out the shibito placement in the first floor corridor: If there's a
shibito outside the girl's bathroom, Harumi'll be inside the bathroom �
otherwise, the shibito is in the toilet closet and Harumi is at the
library. When you find her this time, she'll be again just like a
normal escort.
Eiji Nagashi:
He's the 'boss' shibito on this level. Unlike many other shibitos, he
tends to move very aggressively, running at even faster pace than you.
He wields a baseball bat. You'll not be able to sightjack him until he
physically appears in the gymnasium - indeed, he's an appearing shibito
if there ever was an appearing shibito. (read the glossary if you need
more information)
After the second cutscene in the school gymnasium, there's a
serene moment when he hasn't discovered you yet - you're too far away.
(even though the cutscene implied that he has noticed you.) He has no
route at this point, he simply looks at one direction and does nothing
else. When you've defeated him the first time, he stays down until you
unlock the gymnasium door, after which he'll soon recover. After that,
his route consists of getting inside the faculty room, waiting there a
bit, and then moving in and out of the various rooms of the area. Then
he'll get upstairs and examine the rooms in there too.
He says: "Harumi, where are you?", "Harumi!", "Are you ready?"
or "Come out and play!" as some sorts of taunts.
His name is mispelled twice in this game. Right before you have
to fight him and the message appears, he's called "Nakoshi". As is the
case when checking out the key he drops in the menu.
Small closets:
There are four of them, two upstairs, two downstairs. Reiko can't hide
in them, but Harumi can. During the animation in which Harumi enters
(or exits) one of the closets, she's completely substanceless, meaning
that Reiko or any enemies can walk right through her and the closet
door. She's also not harmed if she's simultaneously attacked at �
however, her body still emits the 'whump'-sound which you hear when
someone attacks someone, in addition to actually slowing down for an
instant.
While Harumi's inside a closet, she's completely invinsible.
If you sightjack her, you see that she doesn't do anything else in
there but looks towards one of the back corners - in a quite abnormal
way too. Her sight's movement doesn't match the animation she does
when exiting the closet.
The faculty room:
As soon as you enter it, you activate a cutscene. The cutscene is
different depending on how close Harumi is - if she's right next to
you, both Reiko and Harumi walk in together. Otherwise Reiko walks
in alone.
After the cutscene, Harumi is teleported right next to you.
This is good, because you can skip the first part of the level almost
completely.
There are photos on this room's wall, you get an archive there.
If you look more closely, you can see that there are a total of 3
pictures to see on the wall, even though you can see only one of them
in the archive.
Interesting things:
- After you've killed Eiji for the first time, he'll never get up until
you've unlocked the gymnasium door. So take your time to play with
the ball that lies at the gymnasium's floor. Admire it's cardboard
cut-out physics simulation!
- For some reason, critical hits are not possible with Eiji. (thanks to
Surrealgamer)
- Shout around with Reiko. She has a really tortured voice.
Videos:
1, a speedrun of this level (completed in 01:43:60):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MS9t49lkDQ
Reiko's Day 1 - 23:00 (23:45:18)
MO1 = "Help Harumi Yomoda escape from Karuwari."
MO2 = "Light lanterns in order. Help Harumi Yomoda escape from Karuwari."
Level details:
There is one patroller shibito less during the first playthrough.
There's a checkpoint which activates as you reach the graveyard
(which is past the church gates) if you have both the lighter and Harumi
close by.
Lesser objectives:
- getting a cassette tape (not mandatory)
- releasing the abandoned car's handbrake
Reiko Takato:
Her inventory is: a flashlight, a crowbar and a set of candles (if you
had picked them up at her previous level).
Harumi Yomoda:
Same old. Or should I say - same young? No, I shouldn't.
When you pick up the lighter, she'll say "Mrs. Takato, what did
you do?" When you pick up the abandoned car keys, she'll ask "What are
you doing Mrs. Takato?" If you tell her to 'Run', she'll say "Where are
you Mrs. Takato?!" or �Nooo!� or �Help, Mrs. Takato!� If you stand
around uselessly, she'll say "What are you doing, Mrs. Takato?" If you
leave her to wait somewhere, she'll say periodically "Hurry up...
Mrs.", "Miyako hasn't turned into a monster, has she?" or "It's okay
Harumi, you'll be alright."
While you're inside the abandoned car, she'll start sobbing
(with no reason) "Please help me, mrs. Takato! Please!" �What are you
doing Mrs. Takato�, "Help me mrs. Takato!" and she won�t stop until
you get out.
Even though there are several suitable sized cliffs on this
level, you can�t pull up Harumi. She�s just too short...
If you make her �Run!� near the abandoned car (before you�ve
removed the hand brake off it), she'll get to the road's dead end and
run left and right until she�s exhausted and looks completely
ridiculous, not being able to get to the shed. Also, she spouts out
loud the various �Run!�-comments while doing this.
Crossroads:
If you go left at the crossroads, you'll receive a message which will
complain that Harumi isn't with you (if she isn't. Otherwise, a
cutscene ensues and the level proceeds). If you look closely, you can
see three shibitos there, doing their odd work. You can't have them
notice you in any possible manner. You can sightjack them, though.
End level:
So, three shibitos are threatening Harumi. You'll notice that Reiko's
running is exhausted and slow, like Kyoya was in his second stage. If
you fail to rescue her in time, (or try to approach the gang of
shibitos or try to escape the other way) you'll be treated with a special
cutscene where a shibito grabs Harumi. After that there's a small
instant of gameplay where the shibito gets alerted by Harumi and he
does his thing - and it's a mission failed afterwards. The only rational
thing you can do is to honk the horn (of the car).
After that, the shibitos start approaching you. But only two
are coming at you - so even if you beat them in melee (as you easily
can), you'll be left with a mission failed by the last shibito who
can still reach Harumi. So you have to take the unorthodox way out:
open up the valve of gasoline and light it up the next available
instant. Interestingly, even by blowing up the car and the two
shibitos, the third one should logically remain where he is to cause
an untimely game over. But nonetheless, it's level over with Reiko - 0,
the shibitos - 0, and Harumi - 1.
You probably didn't notice it, but during this section one of
the map's location points is grey'd out: the 'cart'.
Other things of interest:
- After you've lit all the candles and seen the cutscene, the candles
aren't lit any longer. The game says they are, though.
- The rotted tree near the church gate has strange wall properties. If
you walk/strafe/run towards it, Reiko vibrates in a strange fashion...
Also, her character model seems to sink in the tree at some spots. If
you get her head inside the tree and then 'Shout', her voice is heard
very dimly. If you strafe to a certain spot, the camera angle goes
completely insane and flickers about erratically.
Akira's Day 1 - 08:00 (08:19:59)
MO1 = "Reach road to Hirasakai."
MO2 = "Reach road to Dousojin stone."
Level details:
The abominable mines.
Lesser objectives:
- switching a track
- overturning a marker
Akira Shimura:
From the way he runs, you can already deduce you're in for a ride. His
recovery times and animations are quite slow, being 70-years old after
all. Fortunately he has a Type 22 Murata Rifle lugged everywhere he
goes, making him an offensive powerhouse. (unless you can't aim for
your life or your controller's left analog stick is broken, in which
case you drop from heavy-weight to hopeless, Risa and Harumi awaiting
sullen next to you.)
His rifle is practically welded to him. He never lets go of it
during his life, not even during his death animation! It's just
interesting to note that you can't unequip his rifle manually, unlike any
other weapon with any other character in the game.
He starts the level with 20 sniper bullets. The rifle holds 8
bullets at a time. He has no other items but the rifle and its bullets.
If you leave him alone for a moment, he starts coughing!
The sniper near the Custodian's shack:
He's just a completely ordinary sniper, except that after he's dead
(no matter whether the perpetrator was the trolley or you) a key is
pickable on the ground near him. After you pick up the 'Rotten-handled
pickaxe" inside the Custodian's shack, he is revived for no reason.
The trolley:
It works just like every trolley you've encountered in the game so far
- which is none - but in this guide, progressing chronologically and
character by character, one has already been met! In effect, it's just
a rolling object which kills anything instantly, including you, even
though in this level it's impossible for you to get crushed by a
trolley. In fact... I'm not certain if a trolley is in fact ejected to
slide through the level (as it is in the other levels where it's up)
or if just something in effect similar happens. You never actually see
the trolley in normal gameplay!
You get two cutscenes: one of Akira pushing the trolley, and
another of the sniper (at the end of the line) getting his ass trashed
by it. If the sniper is already dead, the second video is omitted.
The siren:
When you set it off, it alerts all of the shibitos to gather 'round the
yard in front of Siren shack. It's effect is not as tangible as it is
on Naoko's respective mines-level, the shibitos not really sticking
near the shack too long and eventually getting back to their mundane
posts. A thing of interest is that after you've set off the siren, some
of the shibitos (probably those whose route is affected) suddenly
revive back to life.
After the siren is on, you have the chance to shut off siren.
It's effect is not as simple as you think. Most of the shibitos
suddenly revive again. Afterwards they return to their normal routes,
unless they're too busy chasing Akira all of a sudden. If you turn
off and on the siren, they usually forget about Akira's existence.
There's some additional mechanism which seems to alert all the
shibitos once the alert is heard.
All of the snipers seem to be untouched by the siren's call,
except that the one on siren shack's roof, who sometimes, on cue,
invites himself down to the ground level.
Other interesting things:
- There's an invisible wall at the lowest floor of the Mine Office.
Run down the stairs after a while of running, and you'll slap into
something invisible, as if a wall... (thanks Stevo99801)
Videos:
1, a speedrun of MO1 (01:07:56):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwXSwwKPRXQ
2, a speedrun of MO2 (01:52:72):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NiU-0dKbTA
Akira's Day 1 - 16:00 (16:53:37)
MO1 = "Reach road to Hirunotsuka with Yoriko Anno."
MO2 = "Reach road to Hirunotsuka with Yoriko Anno within 1 minute and
55 seconds."
Level details:
During the first playthrough, there's one shibito less in the area. On
subsequent visits there's a new patroller shibito hanging around right
beside the fire tower, unless you shot the shibito down the well during
Tamon's Day 1 - 02:00.
- having Yoriko find a certain photo
Akira Shimura:
He starts the level with his usual rifle and 24 bullets with each of
the shibitos names written on them. No other items with him.
On this level there's the highest ladder drop in the entire
game, and Akira has a very special animation for it. Check it out by
jumping down from the fire tower's ladder at the start of the level.
Yoriko Anno:
Tamon�s familiar (sidekick). Yoriko has either taken steroids for a
temporary health-boosting effect, or everyone's rifles are shooting
duds: she doesn't die instantly if shot, unlike everywhere else.
When Akira meets Yoriko, she says "Thank god! A regular human
being... I dropped my school ID somewhere, and got attacked while
looking for it. Thank you so much." If she expects to be pulled up,
she'll say "Thanks! (in a sarcastic tone)" as a new comment in this
situation. She dares not to be acerbic against her dear professor,
only against Akira! If you wait around uselessly, she says "Mind if I
ask you what you're doing?" or "Hmh... mind if I ask you what you're
doing? (in a facetious tone)" or "Mm... mind if I ask what you're doing?
(in a high-pitched voice)" When you approach the place where Yoriko
hides the photo, she says "Looks like we can climb our way up here."
After you've witnessed the cutscene at the end of the level, she says
"I'll act as a decoy. But don't shoot me."
Yoriko Anno's dilemma:
She starts the level standing south of Kasawaki's house. She soon
starts running, because there's a female patroller shibito coming from
behind, but she won't make it too far because she soon encounters a
male patroller shibito up her front. After she's trapped between the
shibitos, they just exchange hits until Yoriko dies. They kill her
under 20 seconds unless Akira intervenes.
Under normal circumstances, you'd probably shoot both of the
shibitos from the fire tower. In this case Yoriko continues towards
the Yoshinora's house, and eventually hides inside there. There's a
chance that she gets shot at this route, even to death, since there
are two snipers nearby: one at Takaya's houses roof's north side,
and another one at Nakajima's house's roof. If you only shoot the
female patroller, Yoriko'll change her route and survive a lot
longer, even up to 30 seconds as a whole.
Once you meet Yoriko up close, or shout to her when she's close
enough, she stops and starts following you like a well-behaved sidekick
should. So you don't have to meet her up at Yoshimora's house and can
instead save a lot of time.
Yoriko as a decoy:
In the end of the level you have the option to make her 'Act as decoy!',
which will make her run past the sniper's view. Yoriko will not die
during this because the bullet sniper shoots will never hit - if you
look carefully, it always strikes the ground in front of her. After
that she automatically enters the wait-mode, hiding behind the nearby
cliff.
If you didn't shoot one of the shibitos down the well with Tamon:
There's an additional shibito right under the fire tower, and he'll
start attacking Akira as he descends the ladder. He only appears when
it's the time to start the MO2.
Other interesting things:
- LiveThruThis reports that the time constraint during MO2 is more lenient
than it would seem: she theorizes that the game would cut you some slack up
to one second of time over the supposed limit.
Video demonstrations:
1, getting stunlocked to death by the shibito that's below firetower:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1PVKQbKvyo
A video stage: Akira's Day 2 - 00:00 (00:11:26)
Tomoko's Day 1 - 17:00 (17:54:51)
MO1 = "Escape from Hirunotsuka."
MO2 = "Escape from Hirunotsuka within 1 minute and 55 seconds."
Level details:
Hirunotsuka at sunset! A romantic doomsday evening, unfortunately
Tomoko doesn�t seem to appreciate it much.
Tomoko Maeda:
Five hours have passed since her separation with Kei, and she's still
hanging around Hirunotsuka. What's up with that?
Rising up from her previous status of exclusive sidekickness,
she's now a normal PC with updated abilities and health as well. (for
example: while as a sidekick, she died from one sniper bullet. Now she
overlives one sniper bullet!)
As with other shorter characters, she can't climb anything
that's as high as a normal PC. So the exit she reaches is the only one
she can even get to.
She carries a flashlight and a key to offertory box (if you
activated a cutscene at Kei's Day 1 - 12:00).
The bell and the offertory box and it's coins:
As you exit the shrine, there's a chance to ring a bell or throw some
coins at the ground. Ringing the bell summons the sniper at your
location. If you hadn�t flinged the coins, he, after noticing there�s
nothing wrong, leaves promptly back to his post. If you ring the bell
again while he�s leaving, he won�t respond and instead just goes back
to his post like normally. If you had flinged coins, you can see some
coins on the ground, and at least three shibitos will be interested in
picking them up. When they�re picking them, they'll not notice you even
if you shout at them or run and push against them. Tomoko can't push
them, though, so if she somehow gets in the middle of their odd circle
of three, she may even get stuck in there. While there are shibitos
picking up coins, you can�t ring the bell. If you fling the coins
without ringing the bell, no one comes � but everything works out as
normal if you ring the bell even then.
The police car:
The police car is a FPV-location with an archive item inside. The only
thing you can do besides leaving the car is 'toggling the switch'. If
you do this you get a cutscene after which Tomoko has left the car and
you can hear the car's sirens howling. The pistol shibito nearby gets
a new route: he'll leave his earlier post, examine the patrol car, and
then go walking the circle of mountain paths near the stone cave.
Other things of interest:
- Tomoko says nothing if you try to examine the creepy statue at the
small cave. Just a note.
Videos:
1, a speedrun through the level:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y45Wy3LgA2o
2, getting stuck inside the circle of shibito:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEFoWK_WV7s
A video stage: Tomoko's Day 1 - 21:00 (21:27:13)
Tomoko's Day 2 - 06:00 (06:06:01)
Notice how the clock strikes 06:06:06 as the image starts in the video? Was
it an omen?
MO1 = "Reach road to church."
MO2 = "Reach road to church without being discovered by Shibito."
Level details:
The ghostly Karuwari. Nothing special here, except that there�s a
special effect of some sparkles all around during this level. Also,
it�s the last visit here chronologically.
Lesser objectives:
- finding and picking up a toy monkey (not mandatory)
Tomoko Maeda:
She has literally lost everything. Nothing in the inventory...
By this point you probably have noticed her very unprofessional
shouting voice.
Your enemies:
They won't attack you during this level. They get alerted, they shout,
they sometimes follow you, even off the highest of ledges, but they
never attack. Great, isn't it? Well... unless you realize why they
won't attack you. It's a pretty grim reason... but, eh. Just enjoy your
safety while it lasts.
Naoko Mihama:
She has a small hand-scythe or something similar equipped. The same
weapon Reiko has later... Unfortunately you won't get to see her in
action because there's nothing she wants to attack during the level.
Like other special shibitos, she has taunts. "Won't you look
at me, please. (sometimes said twice)", "Everlasting youth...", "Tell
me I'm beautiful!" and a couple of insane laughters. Also, she has the
most grotesque normal breathing voice (you hear during sightjack) of
any shibito in this game.
Naoko tends to follow Tomoko around if she gets too close to
her and doesn't run away too fast. She will jump down the large chasm
(where the shibito brain is) if you jump first, what a conformist! But
even she has her limits: she won't follow you over the felled old tree.
Old tree:
You have the option to push it over. In fact, if this is your first
time around, you probably have to push it over. Afterwards the small
gap on the ground is crossable and the nearby crawler alerted. So you
can't complete MO2 if you push the tree.
The scooter:
No, you don't get to drive with it. It has a 'toggle switch'-option
which will alert all the level's shibitos nearby. Some of them take
their time, some are faster. Afterwards Naoko isn't as interested in
following Tomoko as she used to be, in addition to all of the shibitos
staying near the scooter indefinitely.
An interesting thing to note is that if you hadn't felled the
old tree earlier, Naoko is the one who will do it. Sightjack her the
instant you have toggled the switch. She has teleported next to the
old tree, and she pushes it over as if she had pushed old trees over
all her life.
Other things of interest:
- If you check out your map, you see that there's a conspicuous red
mark on the southern path leading to the church after you've gotten
near/examined the chasm. It disappears after you fell the old tree.
But! It never disappears if you let Naoko fell the old tree!
- Unlike in Reiko's Day 1 - 23:00, the old tree is a completely functional
wall now.
- You get to see the elusive Tsuchinoko during this level. While standing
on top of the abandoned truck's roof, turn towards the trench's northern
side and examine it with X. You hear a strange sound. Look down and
you'll see the creature hopping around for a moment, before disappearing
again. If you hadn't got the archive 064 before, you get it while doing
this. (thanks to Mintydreams7 for bringing this subject up.)
A video stage: Tomoko's Day 2 - 06:00 (06:32:56)
A video stage: Naoko's Day 1 - 11:00 (11:02:46)
Naoko's Day 1 - 19:00 (19:27:21)
MO1 = "Reach road to Janokubi Valley."
MO2 = "Reach road to Janokubi Valley after defeating all Shibito."
Level details:
The stone cold mines. The level starts with an in-game cutscene.
There's a checkpoint which activates as you grab the revolver
from the Custodian's shack.
Lesser objectives:
- picking up a library card
Naoko Mihama:
Your PC. She belongs to the cast of medium-tough characters, not being
able to pull herself up any obstacle that is the height of a normal PC.
She starts with the flashlight equipped, with no other items available.
Type 26 revolver:
The kick-ass weapon which Naoko acquires. It comes with a formidable
amount of 24 bullets too.
The siren:
You can use it to move most of the level's shibitos to the front of the
mine office. After you've used it once you can't use it again. (the
mechanism is different than in Akira's level.) The shibitos who gather
to the yard do not leave to their normal routes again during the level.
Mission objective 2 success prequisite:
It says that you have to finish the level with all the shibitos knocked
out. But that's not all - a hidden prequisite is also that you push the
trolley away. So, if you finish the level with all the shibitos knocked
out, but not having pushed the trolley, you'll nonetheless get only the
mission objective 1 completed.
The trolley:
So much of it has been said already! As you know, it kills everything it
touches instantly, even your PC. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending
on how you look at it, you can never touch it on this level simply
because it's too fast for you. Maybe with gliding, but... nah. You can
easily guess what would happen.
If the shibitos have grouped out on the yard, the trolley, when
pushed, kills a couple of them.
Other interesting things:
- There's an invisible wall at the lowest floor of the Mine Office.
Run down the stairs after a while of running, and you'll slap into
something invisible, as if a wall... (thanks Stevo99801)
Naoko's Day 1 - 22:00 (22:11:08)
MO1 = "Escape from the school."
MO2 = "Find Book of Hanuda Folk Tales. Escape from the school."
Level details:
The last time we visit the school. It's been heavily dressed up by the
shibitos, probably as an intented surprise "Welcome Back"-party for Reiko.
The overall area is now smaller than it was before.
This level inhabits Eiji, alongside with 7 spider shibitos.
Naoko Mihama:
This level she starts with the 'Type 25 revolver' with a total of 16
bullets, as well as her flashlight. There's also a library card if
Naoko found it at the mines.
Eiji Nagashi:
He's here, acting as the level's shibito brain. He takes three bullets
to go down, and he's yet wielding his trusty baseball bat.
His behaviour is the mixed-up type. At the first part of the
level he'll escape you as well as he can, with also the additional
trait of only scarcely getting alerted by you. At the second part
(after you've got the key) he'll start attacking you like a normal
shibito does.
After you've picked up the key with the compass, he'll rise up
if he was knocked out before, and both his route and behaviour changes.
He is *teleported* at the bottom of the stairs where he endlessly then
waits for Naoko to come.
The spiders in the gymnasium:
There are two. They slowly circle on the ground until Naoko alerts them,
in which case they'll do one of the following: 1, they go and wait her
by the ladder - the only exit from the place where Naoko starts. 2,
they come and hang on the string-laden walls. They can attack Naoko
through the net, but their attacks are all very weak in this position,
so no worries. 3, they try to climb up the wall but somehow do not
succeed. This results in a bug of sort where the spider dances around
insanely, stopping only when Naoko gets near the ladder.
The fire alarms:
You can see them at the walls and you have the option to set them off.
But none of them work.
Other interesting things:
- A japanise site reports that it's possible to get the two spider shibitos
glitched up into the air. This has something to do with their wall-climbing
mechanism, but I know nothing further.
A video stage: Naoko's Day 2 - 03:00 (03:33:33)
4. List of items
----------------
.38 calibre police-issue revolver
"A .38 calibre revolver used by the police.
Holds five rounds."
.38 calibre revolver
"Tamon Takeuchi's .38 calibre revolver.
Holds six rounds."
18-litre can
"A steel container used to store and transport
seasonings and cooking oil."
38sp bullets
"Ammo for the .38 calibre police-issue revolver."
7.62 x 51mm bullets
"Ammo for the hunting rifle."
8mm bullets
"Ammo for the Murata rifle."
9mm bullets
"Ammo for the Type 26 revolver."
Broken radio
"An old radie found inside an abandoned house.
Only receives static."
Candles
"Set of four candles found by Harumi
inside the school."
Cassette tape
"A cassette tape found inside the abandoned car.
Nothing is written on the label."
Crowbar
"A metal tool for removing nails or for leverage.
Can be used as a weapon."
Distress flare
"A signaling device used to indicate an emergency.
Found inside the trunk of Miyata's car."
EEG machine
"A medical device used to measure brain
waves. Extremely heavy."
Empty jerry can
"A metal tank fitted with a pump, used to
hold gasoline. Nothing inside."
face towel
"A cotton face towel, found in the
cupboard of a house."
Flashlight
"A hand-held light for outdoor use. Can be turned
on and off using the 'Square' button."
Floor jack
"A device used to lift cars."
Fluorescent lightbulb
"A tube-shaped fluorescent light bulb
that has burned out."
Folding saw
"A small saw that can be folded in half.
Too fragile to be used as weapon."
Frozen face towel
"A face towel soaked in water and placed in the
freezer. Will defrost after some time."
Jerrycan filled with gasoline
"A metal tank fitted with a pump,
containing gasoline."
Hammer
"A metal hammer with a claw for removing nails.
Can be used as a weapon."
Homunaragi
"A Kajiro family heirloom, said to possess
mystical powers. An extremely powerful weapon."
Hose
"A 5 metre length of rubber hose.
Found in the mountains."
Hunting rifle
"A popular long-range rifle used for hunting.
Holds five rounds."
Library card
"Hanuda Elementary School library card
found inside the school bag in the mine."
Key to basement
"Key to the stairwell on the first floor of
Hospital Ward No. 1, leading to the basement."
Key to chain lock
"Key that unlocks the chain
securing the drain valve."
Key to custodian's shack
"Key giving access to the custodian's shack
found in Shaft No. 3-East in the abandoned mine."
Key to desk drawer
"Key to the drawer of the writing desk.
Found at the bottom of the bathtub."
Key to gate
"Key that opens the steel gate
near the custodian's shack."
Key to gymnasium
"Key to the door connecting the hallway and
the gymnasium. Found inside the faculty room."
Key to offertory box
"Key to the offertory box at Mizuhiruko Shrine."
Key to pickup truck
"Used by workers shoring up the riverbank."
Key to power distribution box
"Key that opens the power distribution box
in the ore processing plant."
Key to red padlock
"Key that opens the red padlock on the second
floor of the deserted house."
Key to 2nd floor men's toilet
Key that opens the door to the men's toilet
on the second floor of Hospital Ward No. 1."
Key to Shaft No. 5 East
"Key that opens the gate to Shaft No. 5 East.
Found inside the custodian's shack."
Key to small storage room
"Key that opens the small storage room next to
the stairs on the first floor of the school."
Key to storeroom
"Key that unlocks a storeroom
in the Tabori settlement."
Kite twine
"Thick cotton twine from the dog house.
Used for flying kites."
Lighter
"A lighter with a little fluid left inside."
Lighter
"A disposable lighter found in the
abandoned storage house."
Padlock key
"Key that opens the gymnasium door that
Nakoshi locked from the inside."
Pair of compasses
"Large pair of compasses used as a
teaching aid in math class."
Phone card
"A magazine giveaway, decorated with a picture
of a pin-up girl."
Pliers
"A tool found inside the writing desk. Can be
used to cut thin pieces of wire."
Poker
"A metal poker found near the rice paddies. Can be
used as a weapon, but not very powerful."
Ratchet wrench
"A sturdy metal tool found in the trunk of
Miyata's car. Can be used as a weapon."
Record player needle
"A cartridge-style needle taken from the
broken record player in the hospital."
Rope
"A piece of rope found in the cupboard of a house.
Sturdy enough to support one adult."
Rotten-handled pickaxe
"A metal tool used for mining. Cannot be used
as a weapon because the handle is rotten."
Rusty key
"Key to the storehouse. Used to be
part of a peculiar statue."
Sake Bottle
"A sake bottle found in the storeroom
of an abandoned house."
Screwdriver
"A well-worn tool found on the ground near
Tanada. Too fragile to be used as a weapon."
Spare key to Siren shack
"Key to the Siren shack in the abandoned mine."
Stake
"A metal stake found in the
heart of the mummy."
Steel pipe
"A steel pipe found inside The Nest.
Can be used as a weapon."
Tool to open manhole cover
"A safety device used to open manholes.
Found inside a house."
Toy monkey
"A broken battery-operated doll.
Batteries still have power left."
Trowel
"A small gardening trowel found inside a potted
plant. Too small to be used as a weapon."
Type 22 Murata rifle
"An old hunting rifle used by Akira Shimura. Not
as powerful as newer models. Holds eight rounds."
Type 26 revolver
An old revolver found in the abandoned mine.
Holds six rounds.
Type 99 hand grenades
"Explosives found hidden at the bottom of the
well in the abandoned village."
Umbrella
"An umbrella found inside the hospital. Can be
used as a weapon, but has very little power."
Uryen (shield version)
"A statuette of an angel holding a shield."
Uryen (sword version)
"A statuette of an angel armed with a sword."
Wet face towel
"A face towel soaked in water."
Wirecutters
"A tool used in mining. Can be used to cut the
wire securing the trolleys."
5. Legal information, contact info, etc.
----------------------------------------
====================================
Copyright � 2007 Hannu Ratilainen
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation
License.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html#SEC1
All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by
their respective trademark and copyright holders.
The newest version of this guide is found at GameFAQs. So check there
if you're not certain.
====================================
If you need to contact me with suggestions, criticism, new strategies,
etc. then message either my Youtube-account or come to discuss at
Gamefaqs's Siren board.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=AKheon
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopic.php?board=918848
For further reading, check out this blog with info on my other (even non-gaming
projects) too.
http://akheon.wordpress.com/
For PMs/E-mails:
1. Don't ask me questions you can easily find an answer elsewhere.
2. Don't ask me things you personally wouldn't want me to answer to.
3. Stay true. \m/
4. "think before you post", the classic rule of many a forum in the net.
5. We can talk about music too.
Additional thanks for this FAQ's content go to: (not in any order)
------------------------------------------------------------------
KurtKokaine4 - My first fan. Started a Youtube-account for the sake of
watching my videos more intensely! His humorous comments and discourse
gave me some motivation, not to mention his contribution of info, which
of course helped too.
(I'm being concise for a reason: if I listed every single thing I was
helped at during the making of this FAQ, you'd be only about halfway
through the document right now.)
Shin - His site was extremely inspiring during/before this project. Some
extraordinary speedruns there. ( http://homepage3.nifty.com/shin3/ )
MintyDreams7 - Showed some considerable enthusiasm for this project.
I browsed through her Deviant Art-account and mustered up many smiles!
LiveThruThis - Gave some language tips, and some info on some levels.
Mysteriously disappeared from the boards before long!
Aidrenne - A funny person with the most glitched up version of Siren
I've ever heard of.
Stevo99801 - A gliding enthusiast. Contributed information... information.
"You won't get it!" "By hook or by crook, we will!"
Surrealgamer - Overall a knowledgeable guy with a cool username. Has
covered Siren 1 with a series of walkthrough-videos. They are situated here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Surrealgamer
This guy: http://www.youtube.com/user/Kazooie
for inspiring me with glitch-finding. I've actually met him in person!
Other people at Youtube - Their comments contained the most dizzying non
sequiturs I had ever encountered. It's a good thing in this context,
a worrying thing in multiple others.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
FIN.
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