I have to admit, this was much scarier than I thought it would be – at least the first 2-3 runs, till I collected everything. Then all the following playthroughs were more of a chore than fun, unfortunately. True, if you’re only after all the endings, it’s enough if you finish the game “only” 9 times (plus one death), but if you want to complete the endings collection, on all five difficulty levels, then you’re in for a lot of grinding, let me tell you that. Honestly, I’m not sure who’s crazier – the one who came up with the idea of giving an achievement for all these, 20-25+ playthroughs (or 40+ without strategic saves), or the ones, like me, who decide to rise up to this insane challenge.

Anyway, the crazy amount of playthroughs aside, this is a solid survival horror entry in my opinion. It’s quite short, but really intense all the way till the end, with some terrifying jumpscares, truly unsettling ghost designs, and a spot-on, disturbing atmosphere. The location is one of the most common settings in Asian horror titles: a spooky high school at night, like in The Coma or Death Mark II, but in a 3D first-person view. I’m not familiar with the original version and how much of it was improved, but this remake looked quite nice, if you ask me, especially the shadows and lights, although it was nothing groundbreaking. The characters were OK, too, with some surprisingly detailed facial animations (although their arms seemed somehow off, I think they were a bit longer than they should have been). And the sound effects were amazing: the various noises like flickering lights, the rain outside, steps in the distance, something crawling near you, someone wheezing and crying somewhere, and, of course, the mumblings and keychains of the janitors… They’re all creepy as hell.

The gameplay was fine, but I’d recommend playing with a keyboard and mouse, as quite often you need quick but precise movements which are a bit more difficult with a controller. The timed events and boss fights can be quite challenging, especially on higher difficulty levels, and when the janitors are around you always need to switch into stealth mode, being extra careful and patient. There are also some complex puzzles here and there, so be prepared. As for the story, it’s a bit meh, nothing special, and there are a few plot holes in it which never get explained (or at least, I didn’t find an explanation for them). English localization was not bad, although there were some instances where the subtitles and audio had different translations.

All in all, as long as you’re not aiming for completing the endings collection, I can recommend this if you like similar entries, but yeah, it’s not for the faint of heart.