Technical Information
Developer: 07th Expansion
Publisher: MangaGamer
Release Date: November 13, 2015
The story follows a boy who moves to a small town in the rural small town of Japan called Hinamizawa. It’s actually more like a village than a town.
Strange deaths have been occurring for several years, and some people attribute them to a curse.
Higurashi When They Cry Hou is a sound novel divided into eight games. All reported events take place between 1979 and 1983.
The second chapter focuses on the Watanagashi Festival and explores some of the characters’ backstories.
Final Considerations – Analyzing the Work as a Whole
Graphics and UI
The game features both the original artwork and a remake.
The remake’s art style is very beautiful, while the original one can feel weird and creepy, depending on the dialogue.
Unfortunately, the characters don’t have many poses or expressions, with most of them changing only slightly, which gives the game a very static feel.
There are no interactive scenes between characters or key moments. Your imagination has to do the work here, much like when reading a book.
The backgrounds are photos with painted effects, and they feel quite rough.
Compared to the previous chapter, there’s more variety in the backgrounds.
From a functional standpoint, the menus and text are very clear and easy to understand.
However, the menu’s aesthetic is quite ugly, with an amateurish early-2000s look.
The text is displayed in full screen, often overlapping the background and characters. This reinforces the idea that the game feels more like a book than a traditional visual novel.
Soundtrack and Sound Effects
The music is very well made and successfully conveys the emotions of each moment.
If the characters had voice acting, everything would be even better!
Gameplay
The second chapter of Higurashi offers a storyline that differs slightly from the first, raising many questions about continuity.
Important details about the Watanagashi Festival and certain character backgrounds are revealed, adding more depth and offering a different perspective from what was presented in the previous chapter.
The narrative maintains the same level of quality, balancing comedic relief with moments of tension.
The game starts with a slice of life approach that lacks excitement, but as it progresses, everything becomes more engaging. I found Watanagashi’s narrative to be much more fluid than that of the first chapter.
Prepare yourself for some plot twists, they’ll blow your mind! hahaha
By the end, many questions remain unanswered, leaving me extremely curious about what will be revealed in the next chapter.
I honestly thought Mion was pretending she had a twin sister.
I also thought Mion was a psychopath putting on an act, faking possession just to justify her sadistic actions. In fact, when she came back and stabbed Keiichi, I was outraged at how much of an idiot he was for falling for such a cheap trick… fucking Stockholm syndrome, he totally deserved to get stabbed! Killers are always deceitful, you can’t give them any opening. hahaha
I was already getting pissed off at that bullshit ending, but what happened right after that was creepy as hell. I tip my hat to that.
The game offers multiple save slots, allowing you to save and load at any moment. I found this somewhat pointless, since the story is linear and, after finishing it, you can freely choose which chapters to replay.
After completing a chapter, additional content is unlocked. This material provides extra details about certain elements introduced in that chapter.
Reading it is completely optional, but it adds more context to the story.
Replayability and Game Retention
I found Watanagashi less monotonous than Onikakushi.
Maybe because I’m already more familiar with the overall concept, I found it more engaging.
