Yomawari: Night Alone

Attention: I was given a code to beta test this game. By being given a code it is possible my thoughts might be bias. Of course, I’m planning on writing this in a way that doesn’t do that but I wanted to make sure anyone reading this would be informed of that fact.

The greatest fear of all has been the fear of darkness. Yogamrai takes us all back to when we were kids by following a small girl who has lost both her dog and her sister. The only way to find them is to walk around a small Japanese town. Unfortunately, the darkness in this world includes more sinister Yokai and other worldly spirits that seek to end her little quest. Armed only with a flashlight and some change she must avoid all enemies while collecting a few items to progress the story. This paragraph sums up just about the entire game. With almost no dialogue most of the story plays out visually. For example, at one point she helps a centipede spirit that ends up giving her a charm in thanks. Fairly simple yes but getting to that point is the real challenge.

Wandering around the streets at night isn’t a great idea normally but especially so in Yomawai. Just getting touched by one of the cute or horrible creatures that stalk the lonely alleyways in this game is an instant game over. Small shrines are scattered across the small open world and these will save your progress if you use a 100 yen coin. So yes it has limited saves but as the game goes on it doesn’t become an issue at all if you spend a little time looking for extra coins. Other than being able to save the little girl can use her flashlight to spot enemies that blend into darkness and can run for a short distance till she runs out of stamina. Using rocks to distract enemies is a factor too but honestly, I never had a reason to use them. Other than near the end of the game and then it didn’t work which was a bummer.

The main thing that kept me wanting to explore each new area was just to see what might happen next. What horrible thing must I avoid or help to complete each section was compelling enough to see this game to its conclusion. The overall goal of finding out what happened to her sister didn’t really factor into the story other than being a McGuffin to keep giving the girl a reason to go out after dark. Another issue that came up was the fact that all the collectibles were rather one-note. Almost all of them are lines of text that add a bit of flavor but were rather forgettable. I expect some of the items like the puzzle pieces might end up with a cool reward but I never found them all during my sessions playing this game.

Overall this had good visuals and some great monster designs even if they were sometimes cute instead of scary. Meanwhile, the gameplay was sometimes a bit of a letdown especially in a few sections that were annoying instead of actually building up any dread. Still, I think they managed to get across how creepy everything can look during the night and the short length of the game doesn’t let the repetitive monster encounters get boring. So if you're looking for a scary game to play on Halloween it might be worth picking up Yogamrai.