This game is a piece of art. I don't think I've ever played any survival horror game as unique as it. I pretty much like everything about it. Amazing visuals and art, great spine-chilling soundtrack, and a very intriguing but also nightmarish story that reminded me at times of the works of Junji Ito and Kazuo Umezu. There was really only one aspect of the game i didn't particularly care for, and it was the puzzles. The puzzles are just way too hard and obtuse, but I actually admire the Project Siren team for having the guts to make them that way. The whole timeloop/stage-select mechanic was extremely confusing at first, but I grew to enjoy it. The british voiceover was also quite off-putting, but after a while I found it to be a bit charming. Siren will probably be a game I'll revisit down the line, as it has easily become one of my favorites.
Dread of the highest order
I ended up liking this A LOT more than I thought I would. Sure it's got it's problems, but it's a solid horror game. If you're a fan of ps2 horror games, especially silent hill, YOU MUST PLAY THIS GAME! Be warned though, this game is pretty much impossible without a walkthrough. Awesome story, very cool characters, and yeah it's scary.
so surprised i got thru even that first obj actually gave me more hope for a second but what th e fuck is going on i really wanted to try i dont wanna be another bitch complaining but it is bad its bad and i dont have patience. i think real human faces thing is awesome tho fuck yeah for trying something
I can't not love this game. Definitely not for everyone but if it clicks with you it really clicks.
I love how the re-use of the maps throughout the game shows the town becoming more warped and strange over the course of time.
I love how the re-use of the maps throughout the game shows the town becoming more warped and strange over the course of time.
An utterly flawed masterpiece. This game was really hard to play, and finish. You can't finish this game without using any kind of help, believe me. I somehow managed to fill the archieve %100, and oh boy wasn't it hard. This game is one of the most merciless games i have ever seen. It's core mechanic is Second Person View, which means in order to play this game you have to look around your surroundings within your enemies sights. It's where sightjacking comes in, an unique game mechanic that i have never ever seen. This game is generally experimental btw, it tries many things that i have never seen or rarely saw in a game. Like the time mechanic itself, if a character achieves something in the past it also affects another character in future etc. Gameplay and battle system etc. are okay. Graphics and cutscenes are amazing. Atmosphere and music is flawless. Story is good. All characters stories get connected to the end. One of the many reasons i love this game. HOWEVER: I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone, and i mean it. This game is amazing, but don't dare to play it. If you really are a big horror game fan, than maybe you could give it a chance. But if you're not a big horror fan, just stay away from this game. It's so hard, it really is. This is probably one of the most cryptic games i have ever seen. It's just like Metroid 1, if i didn't have any guides to play them Metroid and Siren would be on the top of my "games that i hate most" list. Long story short this game is perfect, but definitely not suitable for many audiences. You could give it a try, but expect the worst.
los ponjas estos me re traumaron de chico
One of the more underrated japanese horror franchises. As a whole, it's a deeply disturbing title. From enemy designs to facial expressions (that were created using early motion capture). From music to overall atmosphere. From feeling defenseless to feeling utterly terrified. This game has it all for a good horror title. So what causes this to not be a perfect game? Well, it has some innovative game mechanics that sometimes for me, killed the overall flow of the game, and the mood of it at times. I'm talking of course about the ability to step into the eyes of the monsters chasing you. While that is a more of a subjective preference issue with me, I got one more thing I want to mention. The puzzles. There is no common sense or logical thinking that will lead you to the conclusions for lot of these puzzles in the game. It's a well known frustration of the design to this game. Lastly, I want to note that yes, the game is also quite punishing, but I think that is common with Horror titles so I'm not counting that in my critique.
At the end of day, I think Siren is a game I respect and appreciate more than I actually enjoy.
On one hand, the atmosphere and sound design in this game is superb. It’s on par with Silent Hill for me (fitting because both this game and Silent Hill 1 share the same director.) I also really dig the mechanic of sightjacking which allows you to see from the perspective of the Shibito (the main enemies of the game.) It heavily encourages stealth and lead some chilling moments, like imagine if you’re walking around, decided to sightjack and having a Shibito’s sights to your character breathing heavily. I also like the storytelling with how the story is told in a nonlinear fashion, and different events of the story shown from the perspective of 10 different playable characters.
On the other hand, the game is incredibly obtuse on what actions you need to do to make progress. In various levels, the main objective is usually to find an escape route or find and kill a certain Shibito in some cases. While playing through these levels, you have to do some actions or find items that is completely unrelated to your current main objective in order to unlock a second mission for different levels in order to progress through the game, as performing these actions creates a butterfly effect for different characters in a different level. They’re real easy to miss, leading you into a loop sooner or later until that action is fulfilled. The game doesn’t tell you any of that in your first time playing the levels, there’s no checklist on what needed to be done, and when the game does give you hints on what to do the second time you are in the same level, it is either not very well explained or also cryptic. When I am playing a survival horror game, I do not want to have to look up a guide at all times, because it gets to a point where I don’t really feel any thrills or scares, because I know what I have to do step by step in order to progress the game, missing that element of suspense for me. And if I try to play the game without a guide, I’ll get lost on what to do pretty quickly, leading to more confusion and frustration. It takes me out of the immersion for atmosphere at times. I only finished the game because I like the story and general atmosphere enough to wanna see it to its end.
Despite my incredibly mixed feelings on the game, I still wanna try out the sequel because I heard from Nitro Rad’s review that the sequel basically fixed the issues I have with this game.
On one hand, the atmosphere and sound design in this game is superb. It’s on par with Silent Hill for me (fitting because both this game and Silent Hill 1 share the same director.) I also really dig the mechanic of sightjacking which allows you to see from the perspective of the Shibito (the main enemies of the game.) It heavily encourages stealth and lead some chilling moments, like imagine if you’re walking around, decided to sightjack and having a Shibito’s sights to your character breathing heavily. I also like the storytelling with how the story is told in a nonlinear fashion, and different events of the story shown from the perspective of 10 different playable characters.
On the other hand, the game is incredibly obtuse on what actions you need to do to make progress. In various levels, the main objective is usually to find an escape route or find and kill a certain Shibito in some cases. While playing through these levels, you have to do some actions or find items that is completely unrelated to your current main objective in order to unlock a second mission for different levels in order to progress through the game, as performing these actions creates a butterfly effect for different characters in a different level. They’re real easy to miss, leading you into a loop sooner or later until that action is fulfilled. The game doesn’t tell you any of that in your first time playing the levels, there’s no checklist on what needed to be done, and when the game does give you hints on what to do the second time you are in the same level, it is either not very well explained or also cryptic. When I am playing a survival horror game, I do not want to have to look up a guide at all times, because it gets to a point where I don’t really feel any thrills or scares, because I know what I have to do step by step in order to progress the game, missing that element of suspense for me. And if I try to play the game without a guide, I’ll get lost on what to do pretty quickly, leading to more confusion and frustration. It takes me out of the immersion for atmosphere at times. I only finished the game because I like the story and general atmosphere enough to wanna see it to its end.
Despite my incredibly mixed feelings on the game, I still wanna try out the sequel because I heard from Nitro Rad’s review that the sequel basically fixed the issues I have with this game.
very ASS controls
hard af but goat
LA PEOR MIERDA QUE HE JUGADO EN MI VIDA Y UN INSULTO AL RAZONAMIENTO LÓGICO.
¿Por donde puedo empezar?
Pues tal vez por su gameplay.
A diferencia de otros juegos de horror, aquí tenemos la posibilidad de ver por los ojos de nuestros enemigos. Cosa la cual suena bien en primera instancia, pero con su diseño de niveles tan atroz, mas que ser una experiencia de terror, termina convirtiendose en un juego de prueba y error donde tendremos que repetir hasta el hartazgo nuestros pasos. Y por si fuera poco, en muchos de los casos, tendremos que repetir los niveles pero con pequeñas variaciones para conseguir escenarios alternativos. ¿Quieren saber lo peor? HAY PUTOS ESCENARIOS DONDE LITERALMENTE TIENES QUE SPEEDRUNEARTE NIVELES O MATAR A TODOS LOS ENEMIGOS DE UNA ZONA. ¿COMO SE SUPONE QUE ESTO GENERA TERROR PARA EMPEZAR? NO LO SE, PERO EXISTE POR MOTIVOS QUE DESCONOZCO.
Y ya ni hablar de las actuaciones del culo y el orden tan enrevesado de la historia que, en buena parte del tiempo te dejará con mas dudas que repuestas. Hablando de la historia, cabe resaltar que en casi ningún momento, el juego se molestará en explicar que está pasando porque, todo este trabajo se lo deja a las notas. Pero incluso para eso no vale verga porque, en primer lugar, son como 100 notas. Y en segundo lugar, muchas de estas están situadas en las peores localizaciones posibles
Y no niego que su combinación de terror lovecraftniano y folclore sea una idea genial. Si no que, el problema yace en como es que se ejecutó todas esta idea.
Y ya ni hablar de como es que unos personajes actúan como si tuvieran cromosomas demás.
¿Por donde puedo empezar?
Pues tal vez por su gameplay.
A diferencia de otros juegos de horror, aquí tenemos la posibilidad de ver por los ojos de nuestros enemigos. Cosa la cual suena bien en primera instancia, pero con su diseño de niveles tan atroz, mas que ser una experiencia de terror, termina convirtiendose en un juego de prueba y error donde tendremos que repetir hasta el hartazgo nuestros pasos. Y por si fuera poco, en muchos de los casos, tendremos que repetir los niveles pero con pequeñas variaciones para conseguir escenarios alternativos. ¿Quieren saber lo peor? HAY PUTOS ESCENARIOS DONDE LITERALMENTE TIENES QUE SPEEDRUNEARTE NIVELES O MATAR A TODOS LOS ENEMIGOS DE UNA ZONA. ¿COMO SE SUPONE QUE ESTO GENERA TERROR PARA EMPEZAR? NO LO SE, PERO EXISTE POR MOTIVOS QUE DESCONOZCO.
Y ya ni hablar de las actuaciones del culo y el orden tan enrevesado de la historia que, en buena parte del tiempo te dejará con mas dudas que repuestas. Hablando de la historia, cabe resaltar que en casi ningún momento, el juego se molestará en explicar que está pasando porque, todo este trabajo se lo deja a las notas. Pero incluso para eso no vale verga porque, en primer lugar, son como 100 notas. Y en segundo lugar, muchas de estas están situadas en las peores localizaciones posibles
Y no niego que su combinación de terror lovecraftniano y folclore sea una idea genial. Si no que, el problema yace en como es que se ejecutó todas esta idea.
Y ya ni hablar de como es que unos personajes actúan como si tuvieran cromosomas demás.
MELHOR JOGO DE TERROR DE TODOS OS TEMPOS
This review contains spoilers
Siren (or known as Forbidden Siren in the Europe/Asia markets) is a game developed by Japan Studio under the banner of Sony Computer Entertainment for the Playstation 2 console. This game is a fascination to me, in fact it’s been a fascination to me I believe since I watched NitroRad’s video on it (link below) though the truth is I’ve known about it for a bit longer than that due to the fact I’m a weird Sony exclusive historian guy so I’ve always gone out of my way to collect these. However, I originally bought it on PS4 for ten dollars or so due to Nitro’s video on it; and that’s basically the console I played it on because the game is expensive (though I’d love to collect to own it in the future) due to the fact that the game didn’t exactly sell well due to it’s gameplay concepts, of which I will discuss here in a bit. This is due to the fact that the game’s director, Keiichiro Toyama (originally of Silent Hill 1 fame), wanted to create something unique with the series, something that hadn’t been done before. Though I can’t confirm this because writing this review is off the cuff, apparently he wanted this game to be a sort of puzzle that players would have to put together with other people, preferably on the internet. Again, I don't remember the source other than a few offhand bits of info I heard from Youtubists (which could be wrong), but this stuff is kind of rare in concept (the only other example I heard being like this was Kojima’s P.T.; which in a sudden twist of fate was a Silent Hill game but that’s a whole nother bag of shit to get into) and even more rare in the fact that this game came out in 2003, so not a lot of people we’re really doing that as far as I’m aware, at least not like it is now. Because of this, the game didn’t exactly sell well, garnering two more games (the second which only sold in Europe and Japan with no way to play other than region locked PS2 consoles from those versions or alternatively emulating via PC, as well as a “Reimagining” of the first game which I heard was not so great), as well as some movie adaptations in Japan and some manga comics. Truth be told, with how this game plays out, I’m not surprised that more people didn’t play this game, and whereas I’m disappointed and sad, I also can’t really fault anyone. It took me 10 hours to beat based on in game stats but it doesn’t count the constant retrying of deaths so it was more like 15 I would make a guess, which factors into the gameplay which is up next.
So here’s the basic concept of the gameplay: you start out as one of ten characters (which range from main character Kyoya Suda, professor Tamon Takeuchi, Priest Kei Makino, his twin brother Shiro Miyata, Risa Onda (a woman who is also looking for her twin sister, who was dating Shiro), teacher Reiko Takato, student/child Harumi Yomoda, celebrity/70s sitcom mom looking Naoko Mihama, old badass/poopy diaper grandpa (as a friend called him lol) Akira Shimura and finally Tomoko Maeda, a student who ran away from home after her parents read her diary. You get placed in a random section of a map and you’re often told to do an objective, and for the first couple of loops you can do those objectives while also completing secret secondary objectives (which are basically kept secret unless you’re following a guide, look to the bottom of the page) so other people in different missions down the line can do other objectives needed in order to pass. After you beat a bunch of these missions, you’ll unlock the “Link Navigator”, which helps you choose which missions you wanna do as well as tell you which missions haven’t gotten their secondary objectives done. However, sometimes these objectives don’t even pop up properly unless you do a bunch of other missions first and get the prerequisites done, even if you already unlocked certain missions previously. For example, there’s this mission where you play as Akira Shimura and you have to protect Tamon Takeuchi’s student, Yoriko Anno, as she’s attacked by Shibito (the main enemy fodder, they’re reanimated villagers who are kind of like zombies except a whole lot more human and can be armed with anything from shovels to big ass rifles) and one of the prerequisites for a later mission (spoiler) is to “Remember Akira”. To do that, you need to tell Yoriko to hide in an area around some houses, however if you hadn’t completed some other missions (which I have no clue what missions are needed and if they even tie into anything) she won’t find a picture of Akira lying on the ground which won’t be used later by Tamon to remember Akira after he’s been Shibitofied and plugs him with some bullets. Another example, you play as Kei Makino as you have to escort Tomoko through a cliffside village area, once you get to the end and split up you’re supposed to (as a secondary objective), go back to the nearby temple, sightjack (give me a second) and watch as a nearby Shibito puts in a code to unlock the temple door so you can grab something and leave; problem is the fucker doesn’t spawn until you do a bunch of other missions beforehand.
This, while I enjoy the meta concept to the whole “Time Loop” concept that the game has (which will be explored in the story section), and whilst I understand that it plays into the “Cooperate with other players to figure out how to continue the game”, nobody was doing that shit back then that I’m aware of so it came off more frustrating than most, unless of course you use a guide which I’m gonna be honest with you, in order to understand what’s going on YOU WILL NEED A GUIDE. Trust me on this, I suck at puzzles cause I’m a dummy idiot simpleton fuck who can’t solve most puzzle games without one, but dude I doubt anyone could sit through this game and intuitively think “Wow, this game is really cohesive with what it wants me to do and I’ll snap to it like that”, it’s unique don’t get me wrong but it’s obtuse as hell, especially for it’s time period which was 2003. This is I think one of the game’s biggest weaknesses, but again also a strength with how it ties into the metanarrative it’s got going, a strange catch-22 of sorts because while I like it a lot for it, it’s really confusing and I guarantee you because of this (as well as some of the controls), not a lot of people got passed the first mission, as for some people the first impression is the only impression you get.
Hell, I’ve been kind of afraid to touch it, having wanted to but knowing I would get way too frustrated on my own, I’ve been streaming it once or twice every week for a friend as a sort of excuse to delve head first into it, and having gotten to the end and beaten it I’m glad, but I also understand. Bringing it back to the controls for a second, this game is a bit of a confusing mish mash; it’s a third person over the shoulder survival horror, except it doesn’t play all in one go. You play a mission at a time, with maybe a checkpoint here and there dependent on how long the stage is but because of these short, segmented stages you won’t get much in the way of guns and ammo, sometimes you’ll get a melee weapon and sometimes you just won’t get shit at all and have to survive only using your wits. This can actually lead to some tense moments (and frustrating moments). The more frustrating side tends to come when the Shibito have guns, specifically long rifles, if you are seen it’s a death sentence; for example there’s a mission with Kyoya where you have to escort Yoriko through a giant nest of buildings with armed guards patrolling the place, of which I was only able to get through with the IGN guide as well as a Youtube channel whose moves I replicated (thanks to P.B. Horror Gaming, link on the bottom). With this in mind, another thing I want to bring up; if I wasn’t streaming the game I would’ve gotten really pissed at this game as it’s very much trial and error; you will die A LOT in order to figure out a pattern to complete the objective and it can really try your patience so make sure to have A LOT of that as well as the guide because sometimes it’s not explained properly.
My scariest moment was playing as Harumi trapped in a house, defenseless against three other Shibito (all of them being Tomoko and her family); the only tool you have is the Sightjack ability, which you use to close your eyes and moving the left thumbstick around can sort of “tune in” to different Shibito, seeing from their eyes as they move around the area. This is both useful in the sense that you can figure out their patterns and learn to avoid or confront them and scary as fuck cause if one of those guys sees you while you’re sightjacking? Run. It’s a unique game mechanic I haven’t seen pretty much ever except one game, Atama (which takes inspiration from Siren anyways) on Steam (Link below). Other than the sightjacking, you have combat which if you can you should probably avoid unless absolutely necessary. Ranged combat should only be used for people you need to knock out in a jam (they don’t die, they WILL get back up so shoot wisely) or for certain objectives (mainly involving the Onda twin shibitos) because you could both run out of bullets quickly. Melee combat isn’t bad but can be a bit funky, if you get too close you have a good chance of getting grabbed which means you lose health and there aren’t any health packs in the slightest and you can die really quickly without button mashing; of which I don’t know which button to press whether it’s X or Square (EDIT: Just learned it was the left thumb stick, I’m an idiot my apologies). Also, for melee you have the light attack by tapping X and the strong attack by holding X; learn the timing for the strong attack not only because it knocks em’ out faster but if you’re in a shorter area like a tight hallway, the light attack is useless as your range is stopped by nearby walls, trust me on this. Along with the fact that the more the game progresses, the tougher the Shibito get: spider shibito are fast and can get in your ass quick while climbing around and fly shibito are basically mobile sentries that usually have a revolver and can blast your ass quick, along with other forms. I should also bring up the controls really quick:
Controls:
Square is the flashlight
X is to open doors, and interact with stuff in the environment like collectibles
Circle is to crouch
Triangle is to open up the interaction menu, which allows you to: Call/tell people to wait, shout at enemies to lure them to you, interaction with certain objectives, etc.
L1 is to strafe and you move left or right
L2 is to Sightjack, with the left thumbstick helping you channel to different enemies
R1 is to aim, if you have a rifle like Akira, it’s zoomed in and you move the right thumb sticks though keep in mind it’s kind of awkward
R2 is to go into First Person mode, where you can move but very slowly
Start (or right on the PS4 face pad) is to open up the main menu
Select (or left on the PS4 face pad) is to open up a map (you won’t be told where you are so you kind of have to triangulate yourself and figure it out)
As far as I know clicking the thumbsticks does nothing, but moving the right thumb stick quickly moves your camera a tad but doesn’t exactly move your character in a way that’s normal as it’s still a survival horror game. Any movement you do will be primarily the left stick, which I’ll give you some advice: the tight maneuvering (as well as the longer animations sometimes) can lead to Shibito gaining on you if you’re running away, so if you’re in an open space it’s fine to run but if you have a tight corner, slow down then move to the desired direction because I ran into so many walls and it takes a bit for your character to get out of it. Also goes for jumping off of or climbing stuff, the animations are slow and if you get hit you’re back to square one, so you have to gauge the distance/pray the shibito miss if they have a gun. It gets especially frustrating when trying to help people up whatever cliffside, as it takes a while to do so. I don’t think I have much else to put out there in the way of gameplay, except three things: as Kyoya you’ll be escorting a blind girl named Miyako sometimes, don’t run too far ahead of her or else she won’t be able to sightjack through you (because she’s blind of course) and it helps her orientation if you’re looking at her. Another thing to note is that you can get into vehicles sometimes, but when you do you’ll be first person and each section will be its own thing you have to press Triangle on to figure out what does what (mainly throwing this out there for the first mission as Kyoya), the third is to take your time with it’s game and get comfortable with repetition as if you’re trying to do the collectibles/secret objectives and you die after getting some progress done, if you’re not restarted at the beginning stage then there’s this glitch where certain things don’t actually count towards your progress and they get erased so either you’ll have to go get this stuff again or alternatively restart. Keep in mind, though a lot of it is clunky and definitely frustrating, once you get the hang of it, it all sort of clicks and there were times where I felt REALLY good playing the game. If there’s something I’m missing, feel free to let me know and I’ll put it in. I’m gonna go onto the story here because there’s a lot to unpack for me personally.
The story starts out relatively simple but gets complicated and rather confusing and convoluted quickly. You start out as Kyoya Suda, traveling to a remote village in the Japanese mountains called Hanuda, investigating a massacre that happened decades ago along with the paranormal side effects (which I didn’t even catch this, shoutout to the wiki). Of course, like all horror games, there’s a cult that is trying to sacrifice a blind girl named Miyako in a ritual, Kyoya’s presence lets her escape and the ritual is foiled, leading to the entire area to go to hell really quickly. After escaping a drunk cop (not officially a Shibito as he hasn’t died yet but drunk cops shooting at civilians? Why does that sound familiar?) and getting shot he lands in a red river and wakes up next to a village with a priestess named Hisako Yao, who helps him get his bearings. Along the way you’ll discover the motives of other people involved: Tamon was originally from Hanuda and his parents died in a mysterious landslide in 1977, Kei Makino is a priest in the local religion (called the Mana Religion) but is apparently a really nice guy and a bit of a wimp while his twin, Shiro is a bit of a sociopath who murdered his girlfriend Mina Onda, a nurse who worked with him, for telling him that she’s pregnant with his baby, and after the Shibito outbreak guess who pops out of her grave. Meanwhile her sister Risa Onda is looking to find her, like keep in mind there are so many plot details and intricacies that I can’t really put it all in this review as it would just be blatant copy paste wiki articles at this point.
What I can say is this: everything is happening because of an event centuries ago: a famine happened long ago in the late 7th century, and the people of Hanuda was suffering through a drought that really hurt their ability to consume; they perform a ritual rite calling for rain and all the sudden a decade later a creature comes falling down on a comet where it’s mistaken for a fish and is eaten; it doesn’t exactly like that so it screams and brings about a curse, specifically on Hisako Yao; that’s right the priestess is immortal and has erected this Mana Religion in this creature’s honor, named Datatsushi as everyone else dies a painful death. She’s also pregnant apparently and starts the Kajiro family bloodline, known in Hanuda as royalty and is shown to have gained the sightjacking ability as a sort of miracle and having been cursed to resurrect Datatsushi, forgets her duty. With this in mind, she interrupted another ritual in 1976/7, which sunk another part of Hanuda into a landslide (which Tamon’s parents died in) and sending that piece into an alternate dimension, or as the game would say “The dimension that’s between life and death” or something along those lines. After that she regains her memories to revive her god, and has since been determined to appease it yet again, so sacrifices Miyako in 2003. Kyoya fucks it up of course and everything goes to hell; what I liked out of the game is the interconnectivity between the characters and the plot, for example Akira’s son was apparently 1976 Miyako’s boyfriend and that’s led to a long line of depression and hatred for the local cult; Shiro has always been jealous of his brother Kei’s upbringing and has longed to become him, he’s also a bit of a mad scientist as he conducts experiments on the Shibito to learn their secrets; however he disappears after Day 2 because he grabs the Uryen (a plot macguffin that helps both harm the undead as well as representing Yin and Yang (which little note here, symbolically is represented multiple times between Shiro/Kei as well as Risa and her twin Mina Onda)) and from then on you just play as Kei Makino. But wait, his voice sounds familiar right? Well if you play one of Harumi’s alternate missions in Day 3 you learn why, out of sheer jealousy (as well as due to the fact that Kei’s stepfather gifted the entire control of the religion to him in his will) murders his own brother and dons the garb, with Shiro finally becoming the person he wanted to be all along: his brother. I love this twist, and it’s the little details like that even when out of order, if it’s brought back together correctly it makes for a fantastic twist. Again, there are so many details that sort of loop back into itself that even logically speaking make sense, like something that I got from Nitro’s video was that Miyako had a dog (until her adoptive brother killed the pup and attempted to kidnap Miyako back before getting wacked in the head with a stick), and since she’s blind and sees through sightjacking, they’re a literal seeing eye dog. Another thing I enjoy is Harumi’s bond with her teacher, Ms. Takato who takes a motherly bond with her and refers to Harumi as her daughter, and goes out protecting her in a fantastic send off involving explosives. Another detail I like, Naoko is career obsessed and worries about her beauty so a remark from Akira (in a negative light) about being immortal due to the red water (final bit here before I explain the red water and wrap up the plot) leads to her getting the idea that she can get eternal youth and beauty by bathing in the red water; that’s not the case and it leads to her transforming into a shibito. In fact, anyone who gets in contact with the red water will eventually become a Shibito, with Kyoya being the only difference due to a blood transfusion between him and Miyako, and she’s immune due to her bloodline. The titular siren the game talks about is the call of Datatsushi, which leads shibito to bathe in the red water so they can transform into more fucked up versions of themselves (which is a reason why spider shibito and fly shibito exist).
The game finally starts to close when Miyako is sacrifice and Datatsushi sort of reincarnates; shit gets even worse as the fates of Shiro/Kei and Tamon are revealed; Shiro sacrifices himself to kill off all the remaining Shibito I believe with the Uryen (of which there are two, one which he gives to Kyoya, and also he floods the shibito nest by opening up the dam) while Tamon gets a tragic ending and ends up finding his parents, to him they look the same but he’s had contact with the red water so to others they’re not. In fact, barely anyone gets out alive save (thank fuck) for Harumi, who is rescued via helicopter from the ruins of the town which were revealed to be, shock, “a landslide”, repeating the same events from the 70s (of which since it’s the same dimension both the 2003 timeline and 1970s timeline kind of merge in this one dimension). Kyoya however confronts Hisako Yao and her underling, Miyako’s brother (and piece of shit dog killer Jun Kajiro) in a difficult sniper battle that ends up in a final confrontation with Datatsushi itself; however you have someone who could help you: Miyako in spirit. After picking up the Homuranagi (an ancient sword of which only really works to decapitate if you knocked down four separate stone markers as four separate people before playing as Reiko Takato and knocking down four other stone markers in one mission in a specific order) and killing Datatsushi (of which if you sightjack the praying mantis/wasp elder god looking fucker you can see Miyako point to a nearby pyramid which will help you reveal the location/distance of Datatsushi, or alternatively you could just run a bit, do a 180 and either activate the Uryen immediately or wait between 3-6 seconds to stab it with a sword) the fate of the remaining characters are revealed: Hisako Yao grows old and falls through a time vortex with the fallen god’s head, later giving it to her past self so the time loop continues and Kyoya Suda is now trapped in the underworld with Miyako’s blood in his veins. However he proceeds to roam the dimension armed with both the Uryen, the Homuranagi and a rifle he picked up along the way, and proceeds to annihilate the shibito.
Overall, to wrap this story up; I don’t usually care for stories that make you get all the collectibles in order to understand ANYTHING about what’s going on (talking about you Outlast 2), but this game does it in a way where I LOVE it and how it goes together. It’s a fascinating take on time loops, yin and yang, good and evil; there’s a lot of stuff in there to unpack and on top of it I consider this game to be Lovecraftian horror and in that sense it’s fucking amazing too. The only complaint I have is that a couple different times when you follow certain mission paths and go from mission to mission they’ll bring you to the final cutscene out of context: Kyoya murdering Shibito while loud rock music plays (bringing his loop full circle as he was up in Hanuda investigating a massacre from the 1930s, which he’s doing right now though I don’t know where the 1930s part comes in? I’ll have to look it up), which is tonally inconsistent and funny as fuck when just viewed out of nowhere. Me and my one friend nearly shat ourselves (more me of course) trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. In fact, that’s kind of the whole game in a nutshell; it’s confusing as hell and you’re trying to unravel everything and figure out what the hell is going on and truth be told I can’t believe I’m saying this: in the words of Todd Howard? “It Just Works”. Because the more you play the more invested you get, and the more you kind of connect the dots together. I’m gonna quickly move onto the other stuff before wrapping up here:
The graphics are PS2 era but are laden with uncanny valley facial movement as the game used a strange early version of motion capture; it looks unsettling as hell in the way it moves as if it’s as NitroRad said, an actual face being projected onto the face of a mannequin. I feel like that’s a huge part of what gives the horror the unique identity it does along with everything else; on PS4 it’s upscaled so it all looks good there. The soundtrack is creepy as hell (though funny in the final cutscene); the track “Hoshingoeika” (created by composer Hitomi Shimizu) does a fantastic and unique job at bringing about all the old creepy cult chants together in a way that helps form the atmosphere, it’s not Akira Yamaoka with Silent Hill but that’s not the vibe it’s going for in the slightest. It’s honestly a lot MORE creepy whereas Yamaoka’s soundtrack is godly and can be creepy but a lot of his stuff his more melancholic and sad (again I LOVE IT) but it contrasts to what this game is trying to do. Speaking of sounds, the environmental sounds are creepy as hell; yeah the Shibito are creepy as fuck with their grey skin and bleeding eyes but dear god when you sightjack them and hear them breathing? That’s the stuff of nightmares and definitely made me feel uneasy as I went through the game. The only thing I could consider a downside is that the voice acting isn’t great; you get used to it after a while but I really wish they had a Japanese dub/English subs thing because the british voice acting is more hilarious than anything else, though it can help add levity to the game even though it wasn’t quite meant to originally. I think my favorite is when Harumi calls out “MRS. TAKATO”, mainly because it sounds like an old H3H3 bit where Ethan would get into that weird high pitched voice and say something messed up after coughing violently. Basically the VA ranges from “somewhat ok and not noticeable, to unintentionally hilarious/kind of bad.
To finish up here, I actually really love this game; however I’m giving it a 4 instead of a 4.5 or a 5 for a number of reasons; it has a lot of confusing fridge logic and jank, the VA isn’t that great, some of the enemy placements feel really unfair sometimes and it’s based in trial and error, and for some people the whole “look at collectibles to understand what’s going on” can 100 percent be frustrating. In fact I’ll even say, if I wasn’t streaming this for a friend over a period of two months once or twice every week I’d probably want to smash my head into a wall as I’m not really the patient type and I'm unsure as to whether or not I would really play this ever again. However beneath all of the dirt and grime there’s a real solid gem here, something beautiful and special that I feel deserves way more credit than it gets, even if it understandably doesn’t get a lot of points with people over it’s confusing direction and design. It makes it even worse that Siren 2 wasn’t even ported or released in the U.S. and that Siren: Blood Curse got a digital only copy (though the physical copy which I bought for 80 dollars cause I’m a collector) only released on the PSN Store. Since the release of Siren, he worked on both sequel games as well as another series I platinumed last year: Gravity Rush (of which one day I will come back and review both of these games because I have thoughts about them too). After these games he left Sony to start up his own studio: Bokeh Game Studio, which is in the process of developing a game called Slitterhead. Now I’m VERY interested in this game, however I’ll admit I still miss Siren. As always, I wish Siren had a PC port, I wish Forbidden Siren 2 had both a PS5 AND a PC port, and Siren: Blood Curse I think you can play through PSN Plus but don’t quote that but even if it’s not the best game apparently it deserves the same amount of treatment. However, as our capitalist system would incline: money talks and fuck everything else, which is sad that even for preservations sake doesn’t get more. Also I’d really like them to make a Siren 3, and if I had a choice I’d say do it with the old PS2 styled graphics and Mocap, it really seals in the unease. I’m also gonna leave some links down below for those who want to watch or listen to some stuff or read up on some of the guides I used or wiki pages I read to refresh my memory on certain things and if I ever think of something else to add to this review then I will. Thank you for reading if you did and if you would rather a single sentence summarization, look below.
tl;dr good but jank, no normal person would ever play this.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/05/31/siren-walkthrough-508738
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=114Ygup5-x4&ab_channel=NitroRad
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2019840/Atama/
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Siren/Controls
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Hanuda_Village#History:
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Hisako_Yao
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Homuranagi
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Siren_(video_game)#Playable_characters
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Datatsushi
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Harumi_Yomoda?so=search#Forbidden_Siren
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Water
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Uryen?so=search#The_Uryen_in_Forbidden_Siren
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Kei_Makino#Story
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Shiro_Miyata
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO6EgutJLqA&t=18s&ab_channel=Wiiplaya1234
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rEyCVRelds&list=PLEE2727EDFDE65968&index=1&ab_channel=Wiiplaya1234
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUoLtWQ1Pnc&list=PLd4jZRAzc5n8R0gE9U90SsUqJt4V04PHe&ab_channel=P.B.HorrorGaming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZZI968UaZw&ab_channel=Fakan
https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/topic/275063-siren-trophy-guide-amp-roadmap/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkG3DH6IZw0&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-ZcsWN_KBc&ab_channel=BoulderPunch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2wj65MimUc
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Siren
UPDATE:
Found some more sources for stuff if you want to look into it, just be careful with security of the site.
http://siren.kakurezato.com/
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/siren-arg.1636588/
Didn't know there was an ARG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOYdxGjgSrA&ab_channel=InfiniteRetry
https://web.archive.org/web/20040110033312/http://www.occultland.com/
So here’s the basic concept of the gameplay: you start out as one of ten characters (which range from main character Kyoya Suda, professor Tamon Takeuchi, Priest Kei Makino, his twin brother Shiro Miyata, Risa Onda (a woman who is also looking for her twin sister, who was dating Shiro), teacher Reiko Takato, student/child Harumi Yomoda, celebrity/70s sitcom mom looking Naoko Mihama, old badass/poopy diaper grandpa (as a friend called him lol) Akira Shimura and finally Tomoko Maeda, a student who ran away from home after her parents read her diary. You get placed in a random section of a map and you’re often told to do an objective, and for the first couple of loops you can do those objectives while also completing secret secondary objectives (which are basically kept secret unless you’re following a guide, look to the bottom of the page) so other people in different missions down the line can do other objectives needed in order to pass. After you beat a bunch of these missions, you’ll unlock the “Link Navigator”, which helps you choose which missions you wanna do as well as tell you which missions haven’t gotten their secondary objectives done. However, sometimes these objectives don’t even pop up properly unless you do a bunch of other missions first and get the prerequisites done, even if you already unlocked certain missions previously. For example, there’s this mission where you play as Akira Shimura and you have to protect Tamon Takeuchi’s student, Yoriko Anno, as she’s attacked by Shibito (the main enemy fodder, they’re reanimated villagers who are kind of like zombies except a whole lot more human and can be armed with anything from shovels to big ass rifles) and one of the prerequisites for a later mission (spoiler) is to “Remember Akira”. To do that, you need to tell Yoriko to hide in an area around some houses, however if you hadn’t completed some other missions (which I have no clue what missions are needed and if they even tie into anything) she won’t find a picture of Akira lying on the ground which won’t be used later by Tamon to remember Akira after he’s been Shibitofied and plugs him with some bullets. Another example, you play as Kei Makino as you have to escort Tomoko through a cliffside village area, once you get to the end and split up you’re supposed to (as a secondary objective), go back to the nearby temple, sightjack (give me a second) and watch as a nearby Shibito puts in a code to unlock the temple door so you can grab something and leave; problem is the fucker doesn’t spawn until you do a bunch of other missions beforehand.
This, while I enjoy the meta concept to the whole “Time Loop” concept that the game has (which will be explored in the story section), and whilst I understand that it plays into the “Cooperate with other players to figure out how to continue the game”, nobody was doing that shit back then that I’m aware of so it came off more frustrating than most, unless of course you use a guide which I’m gonna be honest with you, in order to understand what’s going on YOU WILL NEED A GUIDE. Trust me on this, I suck at puzzles cause I’m a dummy idiot simpleton fuck who can’t solve most puzzle games without one, but dude I doubt anyone could sit through this game and intuitively think “Wow, this game is really cohesive with what it wants me to do and I’ll snap to it like that”, it’s unique don’t get me wrong but it’s obtuse as hell, especially for it’s time period which was 2003. This is I think one of the game’s biggest weaknesses, but again also a strength with how it ties into the metanarrative it’s got going, a strange catch-22 of sorts because while I like it a lot for it, it’s really confusing and I guarantee you because of this (as well as some of the controls), not a lot of people got passed the first mission, as for some people the first impression is the only impression you get.
Hell, I’ve been kind of afraid to touch it, having wanted to but knowing I would get way too frustrated on my own, I’ve been streaming it once or twice every week for a friend as a sort of excuse to delve head first into it, and having gotten to the end and beaten it I’m glad, but I also understand. Bringing it back to the controls for a second, this game is a bit of a confusing mish mash; it’s a third person over the shoulder survival horror, except it doesn’t play all in one go. You play a mission at a time, with maybe a checkpoint here and there dependent on how long the stage is but because of these short, segmented stages you won’t get much in the way of guns and ammo, sometimes you’ll get a melee weapon and sometimes you just won’t get shit at all and have to survive only using your wits. This can actually lead to some tense moments (and frustrating moments). The more frustrating side tends to come when the Shibito have guns, specifically long rifles, if you are seen it’s a death sentence; for example there’s a mission with Kyoya where you have to escort Yoriko through a giant nest of buildings with armed guards patrolling the place, of which I was only able to get through with the IGN guide as well as a Youtube channel whose moves I replicated (thanks to P.B. Horror Gaming, link on the bottom). With this in mind, another thing I want to bring up; if I wasn’t streaming the game I would’ve gotten really pissed at this game as it’s very much trial and error; you will die A LOT in order to figure out a pattern to complete the objective and it can really try your patience so make sure to have A LOT of that as well as the guide because sometimes it’s not explained properly.
My scariest moment was playing as Harumi trapped in a house, defenseless against three other Shibito (all of them being Tomoko and her family); the only tool you have is the Sightjack ability, which you use to close your eyes and moving the left thumbstick around can sort of “tune in” to different Shibito, seeing from their eyes as they move around the area. This is both useful in the sense that you can figure out their patterns and learn to avoid or confront them and scary as fuck cause if one of those guys sees you while you’re sightjacking? Run. It’s a unique game mechanic I haven’t seen pretty much ever except one game, Atama (which takes inspiration from Siren anyways) on Steam (Link below). Other than the sightjacking, you have combat which if you can you should probably avoid unless absolutely necessary. Ranged combat should only be used for people you need to knock out in a jam (they don’t die, they WILL get back up so shoot wisely) or for certain objectives (mainly involving the Onda twin shibitos) because you could both run out of bullets quickly. Melee combat isn’t bad but can be a bit funky, if you get too close you have a good chance of getting grabbed which means you lose health and there aren’t any health packs in the slightest and you can die really quickly without button mashing; of which I don’t know which button to press whether it’s X or Square (EDIT: Just learned it was the left thumb stick, I’m an idiot my apologies). Also, for melee you have the light attack by tapping X and the strong attack by holding X; learn the timing for the strong attack not only because it knocks em’ out faster but if you’re in a shorter area like a tight hallway, the light attack is useless as your range is stopped by nearby walls, trust me on this. Along with the fact that the more the game progresses, the tougher the Shibito get: spider shibito are fast and can get in your ass quick while climbing around and fly shibito are basically mobile sentries that usually have a revolver and can blast your ass quick, along with other forms. I should also bring up the controls really quick:
Controls:
Square is the flashlight
X is to open doors, and interact with stuff in the environment like collectibles
Circle is to crouch
Triangle is to open up the interaction menu, which allows you to: Call/tell people to wait, shout at enemies to lure them to you, interaction with certain objectives, etc.
L1 is to strafe and you move left or right
L2 is to Sightjack, with the left thumbstick helping you channel to different enemies
R1 is to aim, if you have a rifle like Akira, it’s zoomed in and you move the right thumb sticks though keep in mind it’s kind of awkward
R2 is to go into First Person mode, where you can move but very slowly
Start (or right on the PS4 face pad) is to open up the main menu
Select (or left on the PS4 face pad) is to open up a map (you won’t be told where you are so you kind of have to triangulate yourself and figure it out)
As far as I know clicking the thumbsticks does nothing, but moving the right thumb stick quickly moves your camera a tad but doesn’t exactly move your character in a way that’s normal as it’s still a survival horror game. Any movement you do will be primarily the left stick, which I’ll give you some advice: the tight maneuvering (as well as the longer animations sometimes) can lead to Shibito gaining on you if you’re running away, so if you’re in an open space it’s fine to run but if you have a tight corner, slow down then move to the desired direction because I ran into so many walls and it takes a bit for your character to get out of it. Also goes for jumping off of or climbing stuff, the animations are slow and if you get hit you’re back to square one, so you have to gauge the distance/pray the shibito miss if they have a gun. It gets especially frustrating when trying to help people up whatever cliffside, as it takes a while to do so. I don’t think I have much else to put out there in the way of gameplay, except three things: as Kyoya you’ll be escorting a blind girl named Miyako sometimes, don’t run too far ahead of her or else she won’t be able to sightjack through you (because she’s blind of course) and it helps her orientation if you’re looking at her. Another thing to note is that you can get into vehicles sometimes, but when you do you’ll be first person and each section will be its own thing you have to press Triangle on to figure out what does what (mainly throwing this out there for the first mission as Kyoya), the third is to take your time with it’s game and get comfortable with repetition as if you’re trying to do the collectibles/secret objectives and you die after getting some progress done, if you’re not restarted at the beginning stage then there’s this glitch where certain things don’t actually count towards your progress and they get erased so either you’ll have to go get this stuff again or alternatively restart. Keep in mind, though a lot of it is clunky and definitely frustrating, once you get the hang of it, it all sort of clicks and there were times where I felt REALLY good playing the game. If there’s something I’m missing, feel free to let me know and I’ll put it in. I’m gonna go onto the story here because there’s a lot to unpack for me personally.
The story starts out relatively simple but gets complicated and rather confusing and convoluted quickly. You start out as Kyoya Suda, traveling to a remote village in the Japanese mountains called Hanuda, investigating a massacre that happened decades ago along with the paranormal side effects (which I didn’t even catch this, shoutout to the wiki). Of course, like all horror games, there’s a cult that is trying to sacrifice a blind girl named Miyako in a ritual, Kyoya’s presence lets her escape and the ritual is foiled, leading to the entire area to go to hell really quickly. After escaping a drunk cop (not officially a Shibito as he hasn’t died yet but drunk cops shooting at civilians? Why does that sound familiar?) and getting shot he lands in a red river and wakes up next to a village with a priestess named Hisako Yao, who helps him get his bearings. Along the way you’ll discover the motives of other people involved: Tamon was originally from Hanuda and his parents died in a mysterious landslide in 1977, Kei Makino is a priest in the local religion (called the Mana Religion) but is apparently a really nice guy and a bit of a wimp while his twin, Shiro is a bit of a sociopath who murdered his girlfriend Mina Onda, a nurse who worked with him, for telling him that she’s pregnant with his baby, and after the Shibito outbreak guess who pops out of her grave. Meanwhile her sister Risa Onda is looking to find her, like keep in mind there are so many plot details and intricacies that I can’t really put it all in this review as it would just be blatant copy paste wiki articles at this point.
What I can say is this: everything is happening because of an event centuries ago: a famine happened long ago in the late 7th century, and the people of Hanuda was suffering through a drought that really hurt their ability to consume; they perform a ritual rite calling for rain and all the sudden a decade later a creature comes falling down on a comet where it’s mistaken for a fish and is eaten; it doesn’t exactly like that so it screams and brings about a curse, specifically on Hisako Yao; that’s right the priestess is immortal and has erected this Mana Religion in this creature’s honor, named Datatsushi as everyone else dies a painful death. She’s also pregnant apparently and starts the Kajiro family bloodline, known in Hanuda as royalty and is shown to have gained the sightjacking ability as a sort of miracle and having been cursed to resurrect Datatsushi, forgets her duty. With this in mind, she interrupted another ritual in 1976/7, which sunk another part of Hanuda into a landslide (which Tamon’s parents died in) and sending that piece into an alternate dimension, or as the game would say “The dimension that’s between life and death” or something along those lines. After that she regains her memories to revive her god, and has since been determined to appease it yet again, so sacrifices Miyako in 2003. Kyoya fucks it up of course and everything goes to hell; what I liked out of the game is the interconnectivity between the characters and the plot, for example Akira’s son was apparently 1976 Miyako’s boyfriend and that’s led to a long line of depression and hatred for the local cult; Shiro has always been jealous of his brother Kei’s upbringing and has longed to become him, he’s also a bit of a mad scientist as he conducts experiments on the Shibito to learn their secrets; however he disappears after Day 2 because he grabs the Uryen (a plot macguffin that helps both harm the undead as well as representing Yin and Yang (which little note here, symbolically is represented multiple times between Shiro/Kei as well as Risa and her twin Mina Onda)) and from then on you just play as Kei Makino. But wait, his voice sounds familiar right? Well if you play one of Harumi’s alternate missions in Day 3 you learn why, out of sheer jealousy (as well as due to the fact that Kei’s stepfather gifted the entire control of the religion to him in his will) murders his own brother and dons the garb, with Shiro finally becoming the person he wanted to be all along: his brother. I love this twist, and it’s the little details like that even when out of order, if it’s brought back together correctly it makes for a fantastic twist. Again, there are so many details that sort of loop back into itself that even logically speaking make sense, like something that I got from Nitro’s video was that Miyako had a dog (until her adoptive brother killed the pup and attempted to kidnap Miyako back before getting wacked in the head with a stick), and since she’s blind and sees through sightjacking, they’re a literal seeing eye dog. Another thing I enjoy is Harumi’s bond with her teacher, Ms. Takato who takes a motherly bond with her and refers to Harumi as her daughter, and goes out protecting her in a fantastic send off involving explosives. Another detail I like, Naoko is career obsessed and worries about her beauty so a remark from Akira (in a negative light) about being immortal due to the red water (final bit here before I explain the red water and wrap up the plot) leads to her getting the idea that she can get eternal youth and beauty by bathing in the red water; that’s not the case and it leads to her transforming into a shibito. In fact, anyone who gets in contact with the red water will eventually become a Shibito, with Kyoya being the only difference due to a blood transfusion between him and Miyako, and she’s immune due to her bloodline. The titular siren the game talks about is the call of Datatsushi, which leads shibito to bathe in the red water so they can transform into more fucked up versions of themselves (which is a reason why spider shibito and fly shibito exist).
The game finally starts to close when Miyako is sacrifice and Datatsushi sort of reincarnates; shit gets even worse as the fates of Shiro/Kei and Tamon are revealed; Shiro sacrifices himself to kill off all the remaining Shibito I believe with the Uryen (of which there are two, one which he gives to Kyoya, and also he floods the shibito nest by opening up the dam) while Tamon gets a tragic ending and ends up finding his parents, to him they look the same but he’s had contact with the red water so to others they’re not. In fact, barely anyone gets out alive save (thank fuck) for Harumi, who is rescued via helicopter from the ruins of the town which were revealed to be, shock, “a landslide”, repeating the same events from the 70s (of which since it’s the same dimension both the 2003 timeline and 1970s timeline kind of merge in this one dimension). Kyoya however confronts Hisako Yao and her underling, Miyako’s brother (and piece of shit dog killer Jun Kajiro) in a difficult sniper battle that ends up in a final confrontation with Datatsushi itself; however you have someone who could help you: Miyako in spirit. After picking up the Homuranagi (an ancient sword of which only really works to decapitate if you knocked down four separate stone markers as four separate people before playing as Reiko Takato and knocking down four other stone markers in one mission in a specific order) and killing Datatsushi (of which if you sightjack the praying mantis/wasp elder god looking fucker you can see Miyako point to a nearby pyramid which will help you reveal the location/distance of Datatsushi, or alternatively you could just run a bit, do a 180 and either activate the Uryen immediately or wait between 3-6 seconds to stab it with a sword) the fate of the remaining characters are revealed: Hisako Yao grows old and falls through a time vortex with the fallen god’s head, later giving it to her past self so the time loop continues and Kyoya Suda is now trapped in the underworld with Miyako’s blood in his veins. However he proceeds to roam the dimension armed with both the Uryen, the Homuranagi and a rifle he picked up along the way, and proceeds to annihilate the shibito.
Overall, to wrap this story up; I don’t usually care for stories that make you get all the collectibles in order to understand ANYTHING about what’s going on (talking about you Outlast 2), but this game does it in a way where I LOVE it and how it goes together. It’s a fascinating take on time loops, yin and yang, good and evil; there’s a lot of stuff in there to unpack and on top of it I consider this game to be Lovecraftian horror and in that sense it’s fucking amazing too. The only complaint I have is that a couple different times when you follow certain mission paths and go from mission to mission they’ll bring you to the final cutscene out of context: Kyoya murdering Shibito while loud rock music plays (bringing his loop full circle as he was up in Hanuda investigating a massacre from the 1930s, which he’s doing right now though I don’t know where the 1930s part comes in? I’ll have to look it up), which is tonally inconsistent and funny as fuck when just viewed out of nowhere. Me and my one friend nearly shat ourselves (more me of course) trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. In fact, that’s kind of the whole game in a nutshell; it’s confusing as hell and you’re trying to unravel everything and figure out what the hell is going on and truth be told I can’t believe I’m saying this: in the words of Todd Howard? “It Just Works”. Because the more you play the more invested you get, and the more you kind of connect the dots together. I’m gonna quickly move onto the other stuff before wrapping up here:
The graphics are PS2 era but are laden with uncanny valley facial movement as the game used a strange early version of motion capture; it looks unsettling as hell in the way it moves as if it’s as NitroRad said, an actual face being projected onto the face of a mannequin. I feel like that’s a huge part of what gives the horror the unique identity it does along with everything else; on PS4 it’s upscaled so it all looks good there. The soundtrack is creepy as hell (though funny in the final cutscene); the track “Hoshingoeika” (created by composer Hitomi Shimizu) does a fantastic and unique job at bringing about all the old creepy cult chants together in a way that helps form the atmosphere, it’s not Akira Yamaoka with Silent Hill but that’s not the vibe it’s going for in the slightest. It’s honestly a lot MORE creepy whereas Yamaoka’s soundtrack is godly and can be creepy but a lot of his stuff his more melancholic and sad (again I LOVE IT) but it contrasts to what this game is trying to do. Speaking of sounds, the environmental sounds are creepy as hell; yeah the Shibito are creepy as fuck with their grey skin and bleeding eyes but dear god when you sightjack them and hear them breathing? That’s the stuff of nightmares and definitely made me feel uneasy as I went through the game. The only thing I could consider a downside is that the voice acting isn’t great; you get used to it after a while but I really wish they had a Japanese dub/English subs thing because the british voice acting is more hilarious than anything else, though it can help add levity to the game even though it wasn’t quite meant to originally. I think my favorite is when Harumi calls out “MRS. TAKATO”, mainly because it sounds like an old H3H3 bit where Ethan would get into that weird high pitched voice and say something messed up after coughing violently. Basically the VA ranges from “somewhat ok and not noticeable, to unintentionally hilarious/kind of bad.
To finish up here, I actually really love this game; however I’m giving it a 4 instead of a 4.5 or a 5 for a number of reasons; it has a lot of confusing fridge logic and jank, the VA isn’t that great, some of the enemy placements feel really unfair sometimes and it’s based in trial and error, and for some people the whole “look at collectibles to understand what’s going on” can 100 percent be frustrating. In fact I’ll even say, if I wasn’t streaming this for a friend over a period of two months once or twice every week I’d probably want to smash my head into a wall as I’m not really the patient type and I'm unsure as to whether or not I would really play this ever again. However beneath all of the dirt and grime there’s a real solid gem here, something beautiful and special that I feel deserves way more credit than it gets, even if it understandably doesn’t get a lot of points with people over it’s confusing direction and design. It makes it even worse that Siren 2 wasn’t even ported or released in the U.S. and that Siren: Blood Curse got a digital only copy (though the physical copy which I bought for 80 dollars cause I’m a collector) only released on the PSN Store. Since the release of Siren, he worked on both sequel games as well as another series I platinumed last year: Gravity Rush (of which one day I will come back and review both of these games because I have thoughts about them too). After these games he left Sony to start up his own studio: Bokeh Game Studio, which is in the process of developing a game called Slitterhead. Now I’m VERY interested in this game, however I’ll admit I still miss Siren. As always, I wish Siren had a PC port, I wish Forbidden Siren 2 had both a PS5 AND a PC port, and Siren: Blood Curse I think you can play through PSN Plus but don’t quote that but even if it’s not the best game apparently it deserves the same amount of treatment. However, as our capitalist system would incline: money talks and fuck everything else, which is sad that even for preservations sake doesn’t get more. Also I’d really like them to make a Siren 3, and if I had a choice I’d say do it with the old PS2 styled graphics and Mocap, it really seals in the unease. I’m also gonna leave some links down below for those who want to watch or listen to some stuff or read up on some of the guides I used or wiki pages I read to refresh my memory on certain things and if I ever think of something else to add to this review then I will. Thank you for reading if you did and if you would rather a single sentence summarization, look below.
tl;dr good but jank, no normal person would ever play this.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/05/31/siren-walkthrough-508738
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=114Ygup5-x4&ab_channel=NitroRad
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2019840/Atama/
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Siren/Controls
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Hanuda_Village#History:
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Hisako_Yao
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Homuranagi
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Siren_(video_game)#Playable_characters
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Datatsushi
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Harumi_Yomoda?so=search#Forbidden_Siren
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Water
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Uryen?so=search#The_Uryen_in_Forbidden_Siren
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Kei_Makino#Story
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Shiro_Miyata
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO6EgutJLqA&t=18s&ab_channel=Wiiplaya1234
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rEyCVRelds&list=PLEE2727EDFDE65968&index=1&ab_channel=Wiiplaya1234
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUoLtWQ1Pnc&list=PLd4jZRAzc5n8R0gE9U90SsUqJt4V04PHe&ab_channel=P.B.HorrorGaming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZZI968UaZw&ab_channel=Fakan
https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/topic/275063-siren-trophy-guide-amp-roadmap/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkG3DH6IZw0&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-ZcsWN_KBc&ab_channel=BoulderPunch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2wj65MimUc
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Siren
UPDATE:
Found some more sources for stuff if you want to look into it, just be careful with security of the site.
http://siren.kakurezato.com/
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/siren-arg.1636588/
Didn't know there was an ARG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOYdxGjgSrA&ab_channel=InfiniteRetry
https://web.archive.org/web/20040110033312/http://www.occultland.com/
Horror puro dalla trama intrigante, uno dei più terrificanti della sua generazione, partorito dalla mente del maestro Toyama (il padre di Silent Hill) per la gloriosa PS2. Geniale l'idea di rompere la tradizionale progressione della storia, passando da una narrazione lineare e consequenziale ad una intrecciata e "anarchica", passatemi il termine, in cui è il giocatore a scegliere in quali momenti della giornata giocare e con quale personaggio. Interessante poi il fatto che le azioni compiute in un livello influenzeranno il level design di quello cronologicamente successivo.
Come accennato in precedenza, in Forbidden Siren noi giocheremo dei panni di tanti personaggi distinti, che vedranno, nel bene o nel male, intrecciare i propri destini; sebbene ci sia un protagonista, le vicende di ogni persona verranno approfondite e trattate con la medesima cura, portando così il giocatore ad affezionarsi o compatire ogni singolo individuo in game.
Tutto molto bello... se non fosse per il fatto che si tratta di un videogioco ingiocabile. Movimenti legnosi, hitbox squilibrate, sistema di combattimento lento e sbilanciato (in senso negativo), carenza di checkpoint, enigmi illogici e proibitivi; tutto questo è solo una minima parte dei problemi che, un giocatore, deve affrontare in caso decidesse di portare a termine il gioco. Questo purtroppo rende Forbidden Siren - o Siren, che dir si voglia - inaccessibile alla maggioranza del pubblico ed è un peccato, dato che si tratta di un'esperienza unica e rivoluzionaria, che tutti gli appassionati di gaming (o dell'horror) dovrebbero vivere almeno una volta.
Come accennato in precedenza, in Forbidden Siren noi giocheremo dei panni di tanti personaggi distinti, che vedranno, nel bene o nel male, intrecciare i propri destini; sebbene ci sia un protagonista, le vicende di ogni persona verranno approfondite e trattate con la medesima cura, portando così il giocatore ad affezionarsi o compatire ogni singolo individuo in game.
Tutto molto bello... se non fosse per il fatto che si tratta di un videogioco ingiocabile. Movimenti legnosi, hitbox squilibrate, sistema di combattimento lento e sbilanciato (in senso negativo), carenza di checkpoint, enigmi illogici e proibitivi; tutto questo è solo una minima parte dei problemi che, un giocatore, deve affrontare in caso decidesse di portare a termine il gioco. Questo purtroppo rende Forbidden Siren - o Siren, che dir si voglia - inaccessibile alla maggioranza del pubblico ed è un peccato, dato che si tratta di un'esperienza unica e rivoluzionaria, che tutti gli appassionati di gaming (o dell'horror) dovrebbero vivere almeno una volta.
After dropping it twice before, I avenged my past self and finally beat this thing.
I warmed up to it way more than I expected, but it's undeniable how crusty and unbending its game mechanics are. The sniper rifle controls should be considered a crime.
Letting you jump around the timeline as all these characters and discover secrets that unlock more paths for them, is an extremely neat and ambitious idea that would've worked nicely with a better narrative conceit.
Somehow I ended up really liking the cast, despite their relatively low screen time, because of the push and pull approach to this fragmented narrative. I was hanging off of every single line of dialogue, reading the files in the archive, to know more about these people and their goals.
The story builds a very interesting and mysterious timeline of events that's pretty cool to unravel and piece together. I also like that it doesn't answer every single thing of its larger setting, leaving just enough questions to keep the chilling atmosphere intact.
Very tough game to recommend to anyone I'd say. If it feels oppressive and menacing, almost haunted, I'd say the game is emitting the correct vibes and that's all you need to know about it.
I warmed up to it way more than I expected, but it's undeniable how crusty and unbending its game mechanics are. The sniper rifle controls should be considered a crime.
Letting you jump around the timeline as all these characters and discover secrets that unlock more paths for them, is an extremely neat and ambitious idea that would've worked nicely with a better narrative conceit.
Somehow I ended up really liking the cast, despite their relatively low screen time, because of the push and pull approach to this fragmented narrative. I was hanging off of every single line of dialogue, reading the files in the archive, to know more about these people and their goals.
The story builds a very interesting and mysterious timeline of events that's pretty cool to unravel and piece together. I also like that it doesn't answer every single thing of its larger setting, leaving just enough questions to keep the chilling atmosphere intact.
Very tough game to recommend to anyone I'd say. If it feels oppressive and menacing, almost haunted, I'd say the game is emitting the correct vibes and that's all you need to know about it.
Great ideas bogged down by poor game structure
4.5-5/10
4.5-5/10
man the faces freak me out, and the voice acting does make me chuckle
Almost shit my pants.
the sound design is amazing, the faces are so uncanny, the atmosphere is awesome. but it's so, so difficult. i knew it would be, but i wanted to be brave & go without a guide.. some of the puzzles/things you have to do are wild. & getting stuck in areas where you have to run up to a sniper is just terrible. the game wants you to suffer, & you will. i respect it.
Easily the scariest video game that I have ever played. The music alone terrifies me to the point where I have to take breaks from playing due to the haunting music. I have so much nostalgia for Siren.
What's scary is how brutal the game is on you.
This game has no chill and no mercy for you. You either learn how to calculate every single move you make or you will end up dead or stuck in the same loop. Heck, even if you know what you're doing you will still end up dead.
The kind of experimental game high budget companies would only attempt in the late 90s to early 2000s. The title is arranged like a file investigation regarding the whereabouts of more than 15 characters over the span of three days, 10 of which you control through the adventure. Most of them are characterized with enough thematic depht to make them memorable, even if there's not a lot of development and most of their backstory is found out via background elements (the TV reporter who became older and lost her job, the medic who became emotionally distant to his brother because of growing up in another family, the anthropology teacher who lost his parents on a landslide when he was a kid...), which is what makes the game so compelling to play, to discover the story of this village.
The thing is that what one character does at his point of the story has repercussions for someone else, and this means that for the true ending, there's a lot of cryptic things these characters (because the player saw later events and replayed the earlier levels) have to do which would require having telekhinesis to know it's needed to be done and amidst all the horrific things happening no one in their right mind would do (like going to open the bathroom of a hospital on another floor despite not having anything to do there just for another character the one you are controlling doesn't even know for that one to enter it later) or if it could have been done because out of curiosity (like grabbing a cassette) it ends up being a convenient solution for another character (fighting the character that grabbed it means you can grab what she was carrying and using the cassette's tape as a string to pull down something to distract an enemy). It becomes quite ridiculous but given the fact the game takes place in another dimension between earth and hell, there's a level of macabre surrealism at work with things lining up perfectly for everyone or else everything goes wrong, even if it's still kind of contrived.
And yes, the atmosphere is excellent. No wonder this is the same director as Silent Hill 1. It's still kind of clunky in terms of current moment dialogue (not helped by the weird delivery in the english dub and the british accents) but there's so much attention to detail in how it builds up the lore that it ends up being very fascinating.
Thanks Gsar for recommending the game. The sightjacking mechanic that lets you see what your enemy is seeing and how inventively it's used here left this piece of crap obsolete
The thing is that what one character does at his point of the story has repercussions for someone else, and this means that for the true ending, there's a lot of cryptic things these characters (because the player saw later events and replayed the earlier levels) have to do which would require having telekhinesis to know it's needed to be done and amidst all the horrific things happening no one in their right mind would do (like going to open the bathroom of a hospital on another floor despite not having anything to do there just for another character the one you are controlling doesn't even know for that one to enter it later) or if it could have been done because out of curiosity (like grabbing a cassette) it ends up being a convenient solution for another character (fighting the character that grabbed it means you can grab what she was carrying and using the cassette's tape as a string to pull down something to distract an enemy). It becomes quite ridiculous but given the fact the game takes place in another dimension between earth and hell, there's a level of macabre surrealism at work with things lining up perfectly for everyone or else everything goes wrong, even if it's still kind of contrived.
And yes, the atmosphere is excellent. No wonder this is the same director as Silent Hill 1. It's still kind of clunky in terms of current moment dialogue (not helped by the weird delivery in the english dub and the british accents) but there's so much attention to detail in how it builds up the lore that it ends up being very fascinating.
Thanks Gsar for recommending the game. The sightjacking mechanic that lets you see what your enemy is seeing and how inventively it's used here left this piece of crap obsolete
This game is so good, but so fucking hard... trying to aim with a controller ripped my ass off so hard.
I wish I could earnestly say I liked going through this but the gameplay is just far too clunky and underdeveloped, you want me to deal with the cryptic progression? Wonderful. I have no problem with this. I appreciate the challenge and find it quite unique. But dealing with that AND having to go through sections where I don’t have combat options and depend entirely on the lackluster stealth or sections where I do have the option of fighting back but still lack the option to explore because every enemy is like the ghosts from SH4 and never die, all of this coupled in with the looming threat of dying = all I just did being reset only makes for a very frustrating experience. I want to like this, I really do. And maybe even somehow someday I will. But today is not that day.
bem único especialmente pra um survival horror, até hoje não joguei nada com tanta personalidade dentro do gênero. Apesar de truncadinho e bastante difícil pra hoje em dia, uma baita obra ;)
Um dos meus jogos favoritos de todos os tempos!
Amo ambientação dele, afinal, ele foi feito pelos mesmos criadores da franquia Silent Hill.
Você começa sem entender exatamente o que tá rolando, você é simplesmente jogado no meio de um caos, precisando fugir e aprender as mécnicas que, digasse de passagem, são bem incomuns e fora do que estamos acostumados com um jogo de survival horror de PS2.
Depois disso, o jogo só vai aumentando o nível de desespero e terror. Você sempre pensa que vai dar merda a qualquer momento. Tudo parece muito frágil.
Mas não se engane, ele não é um "Outlast like", você pode se defender e não irá ficar tomando sustinho toda hora. Pelo contrário, a atmosfera vai te devorando lentamente até você se ver completamente imerso naquele universo.
Sério, esse jogo é uma paixão pessoal minha. Vale cada minuto do seu tempo!
Amo ambientação dele, afinal, ele foi feito pelos mesmos criadores da franquia Silent Hill.
Você começa sem entender exatamente o que tá rolando, você é simplesmente jogado no meio de um caos, precisando fugir e aprender as mécnicas que, digasse de passagem, são bem incomuns e fora do que estamos acostumados com um jogo de survival horror de PS2.
Depois disso, o jogo só vai aumentando o nível de desespero e terror. Você sempre pensa que vai dar merda a qualquer momento. Tudo parece muito frágil.
Mas não se engane, ele não é um "Outlast like", você pode se defender e não irá ficar tomando sustinho toda hora. Pelo contrário, a atmosfera vai te devorando lentamente até você se ver completamente imerso naquele universo.
Sério, esse jogo é uma paixão pessoal minha. Vale cada minuto do seu tempo!
hard as fuck but its worth it
Toyama made the 3D survival horror game equivalent of those obtuse 1970s text-based adventure games he was fond of. The result is a game that is barely playable without either a guide, our countless hours to bumble around each individual map to find out what inane bullshit is required of you to actually progress.