Continued by my review of the second game.

I'm genuinely conflicted by this game. On one hand it's a very nice "horror" game. Night Alone is beautiful with an incredibly well done sound design that carries the charm of a lonely walk through a town at night. It has light horror elements that are almost poetic and it really builds an atmosphere around that.

On the other hand, it tries too hard to do horror by throwing some unneeded screamers at you, some of the sounds being way too high and breaking the game's peaceful atmosphere and an absurdly frustrating difficulty at multiple points of the game.

The difficulty is really the biggest flaw of the game in my opinion. One of the things I really loved about the game at first is that it was not hard and felt very different from every horror game I've ever played. You walk around spirits and most of them are almost harmless, the remaining ones are like a puzzle and each of them have an appropriate way of being approached. You're not running, your life is not under a big threat, in many ways it reminded me of a movie like Spirited Away. It's also quite similar to Yume Nikki in the amount of weird and unique things you'll find through your adventure.

But aside from that, not only does the game throw more and more boring chase sequences at you but they're just absurdly difficult and require almost perfect timings (moving as soon as a cutscene is over, managing your stamina...) to survive. The checkpoint system contributes to making this frustrating especially late game. There's even a boss fight which feels completely out of place in a game like this.

I really wish the game had just stuck to the peaceful horror kind instead of trying more. Even the sole fact of walking in such a charming city at night makes it a one of a kind game because I've never seen any game replicate a feeling like this.

I think the game could have also benefited from being more open ended and less linear. Since we're just collecting trinkets through the entire game and there isn't really much of a narrative progression, such a structure would have been perfectly fitting and would have amplified the ingenuity of the design. But it still feels very nice to discover this small city and I really enjoyed that part.

Ultimately, the game doesn't seem to understand what it's good at and tries to appeal to generic concepts instead. Maybe it was riskier, but this game could have been great without being linear, without a "proper story" and without following horror tropes. This also raises a question: do all games that aim to be horror need to be scary? I think this game had a rather cool perspective of that and instead aimed at being spiritual more so than scary: you play a kid as if you were a cartoon's protagonist, there is no stress in regards to resource management (well except the salt, good luck finding salt) and dying isn't punished heavily. It could be an amazing, chill horror themed exploration game, but it's not.

The best way to sum up my thoughts is that Yomawari copies the weaknesses of Silent Hill, but not its strengths. Silent Hill has lackluster gameplay that mostly consists of walking from point A to point B, but it’s propped up by a uniquely holistic style of narrative presentation where every detail, from your controls to the enemy design, is relevant to your understanding of the world. Yomawari has wandering and item collection, but the plot and presentation are similarly point A to point B. While big-headed-child-alone-in-a-scary-world is a proven concept, Yomawari brings nothing but the basics to the table. There may be a workable concept here, but it’s not a unique one, so I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

the art, presentation, and atmosphere of Yomawari is amazing and is definitely something that shouldn't be understated for such a unknown and seemingly low budget game, but behind this unique rpgmaker-esque horror game are frustrating mechanics, unfair chase sequences, unclear directions, and a very inconsistent difficulty that made me want to quit the game.
This game has tremendous potential and I hope its later iterations realize that and improve on it's formula creating a truly unique horror game

played this with my bf but i had to stop b/c of how unforgiving some of the enemies that attack you in this game, like i stopped being scared + was more upset + mad b/c i have to redo a lvl 3x over just to cross a bridge

- the way i was excited to play this game when the trailer came out + 1 hour later i was so over it
-i cant even remember the plot b/c i was so mad at the game mechanics omg
-full of jumpscares, typical scary yokai monsters but you play as a 16 year old girl trying to find her sister/ friend ??
-i love my own sister but aint no way im trying to search for her alone in the middle of the night omg

Yomawari Night Alone is a top down survival horror game that was also made for the PS Vita that has you playing as a young girl that is searching a town, now inhabited by spirits and monsters, for her missing dog and sister. The game opens with a brief tutorial that will show you how to run, walk slower, and how to interact with objects, after the opening you are left alone to figure things out. You have no ability to fight enemies and must run, hide, or use items to distract, your flashlight can also be used to locate hidden spirits. There is very little in the way of music, instead you will hear sounds of the environment and the footsteps of your character, the sounds of monsters and of your heart beat will let you know how close enemies are. As you get closer to enemies your heartbeat will increase and you won't be able to run as long as you normally can. The only annoying thing about the game is that you won't always be able to save as much as you would like because of the need to go home or to find statues, and death can come quickly. This can force you to have to replay sections where you now know what to expect, making it kind of dull when you add in that most enemies are fairly easy to avoid and the fear or appreciation for a well designed area or enemy isn't going to be as strong when played multiple times. Saving at statues also requires coins but you can find them pretty easily. There are sections of the game where you will run into checkpoints as well. Seeing new types of enemies and trying to discover what happened in the town is enjoyable but a lot of the gameplay is just going to be dodging or running from enemies and it does get repetitive even without having to redo a section. The game is fairly short, being around three hours in length, with time being added or reduced based on looking for side activities, finding collectibles, and how quickly you can figure things out.