A beautiful visual novel with a great and terrifying story, and, unfortunately, some minor gameplay flaws and localization issues.

I was playing it alone in the dark with headphones on… and let me tell you, after I was done, I had to turn on all the lights in the apartment for a while to calm my nerves a little. I’ve very rarely experienced this even with the most frightening horror games. There was just something about the looming dread, the unpredictability, the whispers, the jump scares… all of them creating this unique atmosphere that I can hardly compare to any other games I’ve played. Would have liked some more voiced scenes, though…

All in all, it’s unlike any horror visual novel before, highly recommended, but definitely for mature gamers only as there are some very disturbing images and topics in here! You’ve been warned!

Really good Visual Novel with hauntings that actually are scary because all of the ghosts have understandable backstories.

My only problem was that there were too many side characters that remained kind of bland because you don't spend much time with them.

Some of the characters are needed to win the boss fight of every chapter and I would have appreciated if the game had told me this. First time that happened to me, I didn't save right before the boss (yeah, yeah, I know...) and had to redo an hour of game play just to get back to the boss fight - this time with the right side character.

Some of the stuff you have to find is also really well hidden or only appears after certain scenes. So having to meticulously drag your cursors around the same four+ pics became quickly a drag. Esp. with the Forest setting. :/

But all of that was fine, when it manages again to make me shudder and not wanting to watch at the screen again because of the shit it was showing me.

I will probably have that military song from the last chapter in my head forever. It's creepy, it's effective and way too catchy. Damn. :/

There are a few scenes where they just HAD to show women in underwear while in very unsexy situations.

I don't get why people apparently like that but here we are. :/ It's not as bad as with the other Visual Novel they put out but it did take me out of the game, when it happened.

There are jump scares but they don't happen too often. The focus is really on building up the horror of the story you are playing through.

If you have the special edition, you also get a Death Mark tattoo. Non permanent of course.
Or at least I hope so! :/ I mean *I* am not gonna push my luck here!

Death Mark presents a very neat premise: people being marked to death by spirits that you need to appease or destroy to procceed the plot. Great start for a horror story that sadly stumbles on its execution.

Death Mark's story follows an amnesiac helping people get rid of their death sentence while also trying to unveil the mystery behind his own.
The mystery is actually pretty engaging, with the ghost backstories being quite neat sometimes. I just wish some characters were used more or had more content to their stories.

Gameplay (yes, gameplay) is actually pretty similar to Ace Attorney, where instead of clicking everywhere you'll point your flashlight everywhere until you find something shiny.
Puzzles are bland. All of them are pretty straightforward, just requiring you to use an item. Nothing too bad, just wish combining items was a mechanic used in stuff other than the last stand.
Other stuff similar to puzzles are the "LIVE OR DIE" segments and the partner mechanic. "LIVE OR DIE" is just a multiple choice that's really hit or miss, with some of them being tied to japanese history or culture so I kinda just took shots in the dark until I got it right. Sometimes the right answer would be either very obvious, or something completely out of nowhere, that made them feel really annoying.
The partner mechanic also bothered me. Each time you go to the ghost site, you can bring one person with you. Only some characters can perform specific actions, so bringing the wrong one can make you fail a puzzle. This wouldn't be as annoying if switching didn't require you to go back to the mansion and return to the ghost site, and if I didn't have the hope that characters would actually spout interesting dialogue if I brought them with me (which never happened).

Exploring the haunted areas is the scariest part of the game. Shining the flashlight around the room and being scared of something showing up is great but it's mostly unused. There are barely any details or events that happen when you shine the flashlight on something specific, which makes the feeling of danger wear out very quickly. I just wish the maps had more scary details to uncover or ghost appearances happened more (that weren't dumb jumpscares, which there are some).

Then there's the "Last Stand" segment and oh my god this absolutely didn't need to be in the game. This is where you face off against the ghost, which would be cool if it wasn't so frustrating. A big detriment to this segment is also that you're face-to-face with the ghost, which ruins every little bit of tension since you're seeing the monster you've been avoiding and all of them look really stupid (seriously, the difference between the CGs and their last stand form is hilarious).
Also, depending on how you resolve the Last Stand, you can get either a normal ending or a good ending. At first, I thought this would encourage replayability, giving you another chance to explore the level with another partner, until I understood that all you get if you get all the good endings is a flat "where are they now" prologue.

Also, the completely unnecessary CGs that are just "girl/woman in her underwear/naked about to die" was so fucking stupid it took me out of the experience every single time (it happens multiple times!).

Overall, it's a mid, short play if you're interested enough. It's also accompanied by a great soundtrack and great illustrations. Stumbles a lot and, personally, isn't all that scary, but it was a fine horror experience.


Edit: finished the DLC. It was ok, even if its existence ignores a very evident plothole and it drags a little.

Review on Reddit with Images

IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE:
-Visual Novel
-Very very limited JP voiced dialogue
-Fairly short game ~ 10-15 hours
-Multiple endings
-Some limited gameplay

INTRODUCTION

Death Mark is a visual novel game which is a genre that has flourished to a certain degree in Japan for many years. Despite the large number of visual novel titles in Japan, only a small fraction of them have been localized and made available to western audiences. In the past few years, there have been a steady increase in localized titles to the west. However even then, what makes Death Mark stand out among the latest localized visual novels is its focus on horror and supernatural elements.

Death Mark is the first game in the Spirit Hunter series. The second game, NG: Spirit Hunter has already been released and the third game is set to release in JP soon (no word on English Localization).

STORY

Death Mark puts you in the role of an amnesiac man who suddenly developed an unusual mark on the back of his hand. He soon finds himself in front of a mansion without any prior recollection as to why he went there. In the late night, he discovers that the mansion was uninhabited, with the sole exception of a western doll named Alice. The doll was created by the mansion's owner and was tasked to assist the main character in his journey to discover answers about himself and the mark on his hand. He quickly learns that his memory loss and his impending death is tied to the mysterious mark. Together with the help of several people who bear similar marks on their bodies, the main character investigates several paranormal events that are hinted to be in connection with their marks.

The game is divided into 6 chapters, one of which is a post game chapter. Each chapter is done in an episodic format and deals with a spirit of the day type situation. They are overall solid chapters as standalone chapters. There is a lot of background information given to the lore of the spirit which seemed to have been inspired by similar mysteries in Japan. While each chapter introduces new sets of characters, there are a few recurring ones to help connect all of the chapters together for the underlying main plot. Most of the mysteries aren't very difficult to figure out if players had paid attention to the various pieces of information discovered and given during the investigations. Despite that, the lore and story for each individual chapter were still intriguing enough to play through.

CHARACTERS

There a number of characters that appear throughout the game. They are quite diverse which includes, an occult fangirl, a serious middle school student, an anime fan, an idol, a sickly doctor and a homeless man to name a few. However, despite the interesting premise and background that these characters come with, the game doesn't make much use for most of them. Most of them only appear for one chapter or two. It is especially disappointing due to the mechanics of the game which allow you to bring only one other character with the main character for the investigations. Because of this, players can miss out on a lot of unique dialogue that can help flesh out the characters.

As for character development, they do exist, but are mostly minor and not very relevant to the story. With everything being said, the other characters do allow the main character to interact with many different people and provide different aspects to the investigation scenarios.

SETTING

There a few different locations that the player gets to travel to throughout the game such as a forest, a school, and an underground facility. However, the game reuses a lot of these locations and frequently travel to them more than it should. For example, one chapter takes place in a school, but for another chapter, the player will travel to the same school again, but just in a different area. That is not enough to make traveling to the school a fresh experience. In the end, it felt like there were only a small number of different locations in the game which takes away some excitement in new investigations.

MUSIC

Death's Marks soundtrack isn't very diverse and there's about only 10 total tracks which are reused throughout the game. Most of them are used to elevate the horror atmosphere so there isn't much range overall. The game largely makes use of the silence to increase the tension. However, the tracks during the life or death scenarios and ghost attacks are intense and heart pounding exhilaration. What little tracks the game does have, they are all well done as a result.

GRAPHICS

The graphics looks great for a visual novel and the art direction fits very well with the horror theme. The background and CG images have a distinct gritty and dark style compared to the other colorful visual novels out there. They are quite detailed (and gruesome) as well which help makes the game even more scarier.

ATMOSPHERE

This is where Death Mark really shines. The backgrounds, the music, the CGs and the ghost designs all elevate the atmosphere into a surprisingly scary one. The game has a lot of creepy and disturbing moments that are probably not suited for the faint of heart. Horror fans will likely appreciate the effort into creating a terrifying experience.

As someone who enjoys a number of survival horror and general horror games, I thought Death Mark did a good job in its horror elements.

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay consists of 50% visual novel elements (basically just reading through a lot of text), 40% of investigating rooms in point and click scenes, and the remaining 10% are on climatic "boss fights" and fatal decision scenarios. The large amount of text is expected for a visual novel game, but they don't come off repetitive or boring most of the time if you enjoyed the story. There is entertainment to be found in discovering background lore or figuring out what is going on.

For the investigation parts, you do have control of where to go and what to do in the rooms. The player's actions are mostly limited to moving a flashlight around and then selecting look or touch a glowing object which may reveal important items or information. These parts aren't very substantial and don't offer the player much to do, but they are good enough to break the large amount of text reading.

There are the occasional fatal decisions throughout the chapters which consists of selecting from a list of several options during certain key moments. Picking the wrong one can lead to the player's death and an instant game over, but ultimately, not that much of a consequence since you can just reload right before the fatal decision. These decisions often appear during intense moments which can put people on edge as they immerse themselves in the game's atmosphere.

At the end of most chapters, each spirit needs to be dealt with and are placed into the boss fight scenarios. The scenarios play out similar to a turn based RPG situation where you can select what actions the main character and his partner can do. The actions are tied to the items found throughout the chapter which may involve shooting a gun or swinging a baseball bat. Sometimes you can work in conjunction with your partner for an action such as putting together a makeshift umbrella barrier.

Depending on the player's actions in these scenarios, you'll get one of two chapter endings (not including the game over). It's worth making a second save file to see both endings.

FINAL REMARKS

The game isn't very long for a visual novel. It could be finished in about 10-15 hours which even includes obtaining all of the different endings per chapter. Outside of simply going through the story again, there isn't much replay value in the game.

There isn't much voice acting in the game at all to my disappointment outside of a few lines. The post game chapter does have noticeably more voice acting though.

Overall, Death Mark is a visual novel that has taken a different approach from many localized visual novels. The horror, supernatural and mystery elements are all intriguing and interesting. It's a good game for people who wants to try something different from the typical visual novel. Even for people who aren't necessary fans of visual novels in general, may find the game to be interesting and worth playing. Not a perfect game, but still a good game nonetheless.

You play as Kazuo Yashiki (or whatever name you wind up choosing), a man with a mysterious mark on his wrist. Soon after its appearance, he gets an invitation to Kujou Mansion, where he finds a woman who has been studying the mark. Too bad she dies before he arrives, which will also be Yashiki’s fate if he doesn’t figure out how to remove the mark by dawn. He’s joined by others who have the same mark and must work together to fight the restless spirits who have cursed them. If only they could remember who it was.

Visuals

I love the way Spirit Hunter – Death Mark looks. It’s moody and dark and creepy and oddly beautiful. There are many grotesque images, but many of them are also pretty in a weird way. For example, the first chapter involves a ghost who causes roses to bloom out of their victims’ bodies. Sure, that’s a gross way to die, but the imagery was pretty. Or I’m just weird.

There are some minor jumpscare like scenes. There’s nothing that comes flying at you, but while exploring a apparition may be uncovered in a darkened corner and then fade away. Or something might be waiting when you enter a room. I never got truly scared by these, more of a WTF was that?! type of reaction.

The spirits you face are also varying levels of grotesque, creepy, and disturbing. Most of them you never see until the final battle, but you may get glimpses of them as you explore.

Sound Effects + Music

Spirit Hunter – Death Mark has excellent background music and sound effects. In fact, I found the background noises to be more creepy than the visuals. There’s the typical groaning, moaning, and giggling you’d expect from restless spirits. But there’s also other atmospheric noises like wind, creaking floors, doors slamming, and the like which can be hiding even more disturbing sounds!

There’s very spare voice acting in Spirit Hunter – Death Mark. None of the dialogue is fully voiced, but you’ll get the occasional word or phrase from a few of the characters. As a visual novel, that was expected. I like reading, so I didn’t feel like anything was missing there.

Gameplay + Controls

Spirit Hunter – Death Mark is a visual novel with point-and-click elements. For the most part, you’ll be reading a lot of dialogue and making a few choices. Some choices aren’t important, but there are some Live or Die situations, which can give you a Game Over if choose incorrectly. You’ll also lose Spirit Power the longer you take to answer a question, or if you choose a wrong but safe answer.

The rest of the gameplay comes in the form of exploring haunted locations in order to defeat the spirits residing there. You don’t actually walk around, but you get static images of the areas and can move from one room/spot to another using the arrow keys. Then you’ll shine your flashlight around the area to find spots to interact with. You’ll find various items that can be used on different areas or on the ghosts. I didn’t find any of these puzzles to be as convoluted as in other point-and-click games. Everything seemed straight forward enough with some logical thinking.

There are even boss battles! These take the form of turn-based combat where you get the chance to use all of the objects you found on the haunting spirit. As you progress through their area, you’ll add information to your journal, which can be accessed during the battle to give you hints on what to do to defeat them.

Of course, there are also good and bad ends. Or rather, Normal and Good ends. Although the normal ones are pretty bad in a way. I’m very “bad” at visual novels, so I only got one Good end for a chapter. You will need all five Good ends to unlock the DLC chapter.

Replayability

Other than achievement hunting, I wouldn’t necessarily play Spirit Hunter – Death Mark again from the beginning. When you Game Over, you can choose to restart from the decision you got wrong to choose again or pick up from your last save point. This makes it easy to go back and get things to missed without starting over. Make sure to make multiple saves so you can get the different endings though!

Overall

It took me about 12 hours to finish Spirit Hunter – Death Mark which actually flew by! I was really invested in this story and couldn’t wait to explore new locations, or revisit old ones, to uncover more spirits. I did like the ending, as I felt smart for figuring out some of the twists. It was also nice to get updates on the characters that survived. That actually made me want to go back and replay those boss battles to get the good ends, so I can find out what becomes of those characters.

I received this game for free randomly from a key site and it sat in my backlog for a long while because I thought it was a pure VN. No, instead this is a mystery horror VN that is also an adventure game.

I really enjoyed it. The game does a good job on the atmosphere and building up those spirits you fight. I was genuinely unnerved at some points. However the spirits themselves do look goofy, except for 2 of them, I think it's just a cultural difference though. The story is alright, but pretty lack luster overall, this is one part of a three part trilogy though so this was the setup for future sequels. Great CG art too, enjoyable characters, definitely give it a try if you're a horror or adventure game fan.

Very good horror game for a glorified VN! ( More or less has game play like an Ace Attorney game. )

Likes:
-The art style is really beautiful and just down right creepy and gross when it wants to be. There's so many scenes that are just burnt into my brain and haunt me.
The spirit designs are all SO well done! Each one is so different and just MMM so scary in their own way!
Some of the best designs I've seen in years.

-The OST and sound design does a wonderful job at setting the mood. I adore it.

-And the story was such a chilling adventure!
I was really surprised how original most of the story was. There are bits that have clear inspiration from other horror stories and pieces of history, but even then, Death Mark really feels like it's own thing with how it flows! Story is one of the most important things for horror mystery games, you really gotta stick that landing!! I believe Death Mark does that extremely well.

Dislikes:
- There's quite a bit of unnecessary fan service in parts of the games that I feel like killed the mood a bit in some scenes. It didn't happen /too/ often compared to other horror games so, I wasn't too soured by it.

-The characters are wonderful but I feel like a few could have had more interaction? They can get killed off by your actions after all! I know this is a thing the second game does better, but I was still a little disappointed! Also, it can be tough to know who's talking? The text boxes don't really make that clear at times. (They learn from this in the second game however)

-This game has some trial and error learning so, there's gonna be some game overs! In horror games, it's cool to see some different death CGs, either it's you or your partner! They have some, but it's nothing too special. Death Mark kinda lacks, but hey! This is again, something the second game does way better!

Not a terrible VN hybrid, I honestly admire what it aspires to do with its different mechanics but they simply don't culminate in an interesting game.
The structure of Death Mark is composed of chapters with large areas to navigate and pick for key items, similar to Ace Attorney. This is where Death Mark particularly excels, being where it executes its style of horror quite well, with an excellent soundtrack and subtle corner-of-the-eye flourishes that unnerve better than any dough-brained jumpscare does. In between these sections are frankly terrible "puzzles" that typically amount to using key items on obvious spots, and bits where you have to choose the options in a dialogue tree that won't lead to instant death. The writing is basic and repetitious as fuck so the VN parts drag, characters literally never talk to one another, or even say anything particularly unique or interesting when taken on missions. Dotted throughout are these insane CGs of dying half-naked girls that look like they're from a completely different game entirely???

Death Mark wastes too much of your time. I'm not sure why it feels the need to completely deflate its atmosphere by forcing the player to meet very narrow item/character requirements that funnel you into asinine deaths and restarts, only for chapters to end in a hilarious turn-based combat puzzle thing. Curious enough to see if the sequel improves on these things, but I'm not hopeful!

This game has been on my mind since 2017 and still won’t let up. A stunningly dark dungeon crawler/visual novel crossbreed unafraid to make you afraid, Death Mark has earned its various mature ratings through its concepts and visuals. The characters are a little quirky and sometimes unpleasant; they’re the types of people (and children) that don’t really get along well with other people for one reason or another, which can make them relatable or not. The gameplay can be rewarding or tedious, but if you really get stuck, the Spirit Files give tremendous hints toward success.

Unfortunately, it is also horny, and in a very specific way: the sometimes suggestive visuals (almost all of female bodies) are as saturated with horror as the rest of the game. For most people, it’s going to just be unsettling or even upsetting. For some I’m sure it’s hot. I can’t say I like the female body exploitation, but it’s an undeniable facet of this game that will pop up at least once a chapter. If you think you wouldn't be able to stand this, the first sequel, Spirit Hunter: NG, drastically reduces this to the series' benefit. I'd recommend skipping to that entry.

At least the horniness is a minor part of the game. The Horrors are varied and bound to hit at least one thing you’re uncomfortable with. The original final chapter, Chapter 5, is the most terrifying scenario I’ve ever been in in a video game, and the night I completed it for the first time I was too scared to sleep. I love that chapter enough to place the game in my Top 5 of all time, despite the game’s flaws.

Ultimately, I love this game. I love playing it, and have it as a platinum on my Vita. I love watching youtubers play it, and Gab Smolders was the one to introduce me to this series, making it dear to me for the past six years.

And, most importantly, Shuuji Daimon is a dilf (doctor I’d like to

Really nice art and memorable creature designs.

About the genre: This gets called a visual novel a lot, but it's secretly a very old-school first person point and click adventure game.

I wouldn't even call it a dungeon crawler, exactly. The mini-map shows your direction within a room, but you're not able to pivot in place and usually only a hallway or crossroads can be viewed from more than one angle.

I definitely enjoyed this as more of a monster-hunting adventure game than a horror game. It IS a horror game, but it kinda feels like the point and click stuff is at odds with the horror.

Like, Death Mark is very good about not doing anything without your input. There are clearly labeled sections where you answer life-or-death questions under a time limit, but outside of those, you're free to sit and consider your next action as long as you want. That's something I really appreciate in an adventure game, but it does kinda undermine the threatening atmosphere that horror games like to cultivate.

The need to set up puzzles for the chapter-ending confrontations also limits how detailed the game is able to get when disclosing the history of the ghosts, at least until the chapter is over. Getting the good ending for each chapter depends a lot on reading between the lines of fragmentary clues and then dealing with the ghost in a way that addresses its unique history.

I feel like a dickhead for abandoning this in the first chapter, but two things happened within about ten minutes of each other:
First, dialogue that went, roughly: "That sound... it came from the east!" "You're right... perhaps we should go east..." [walks two screens east] "If we follow this corridor, it will go east!"
2: got a game over trying to open a trapdoor because i had not investigated it enough times first
It didn't make me tense due to fear it made me tense due to annoyance, which is less than ideal for a horror game