Played the tutorial on an actual arcade machine at the Namco arcade building in Osaka during my trip to Japan, and as someone who's a huge fan of the franchise, it's an indescribable experience playing the game that started it all on its original hardware. Seeing (and interacting with) Haruka's original design with brown eyes and hearing the absurdly catchy soundtrack coming out of the actual machine are sights and sounds I won't ever forget. I even got my own Producer cards now, so I can truly call myself a real iDOLM@STER fan and HarukaP! Giving it 5 stars just because of its importance and this experience alone.

An entire game designed around perhaps the worst flashlight known to history.

I played this on hard so read the rest with that in mind. Given how resource management is key here, and the lower difficulties are more lenient, I imagine you get a fairly different experience.

There are two main concepts that everything revolves around in this game: one, resources are limited so you want to conserve them. Two, to conserve resources you are going to have to deal with the monster more often. Whether that be crawling around in advanced darkness with the monster active because you aren't using the generator, or having to sneak around the monster because you don't want to have to use a grenade to scare him off. Being that if you want to sneak around him, you can't use your flashlight because it both makes noise and reveals your position by flashing light in the poor thing's eyes, that can be easier said than done early on when you are still unfamiliar with the beast.

Since the game has randomized item locations outside of key items, and very few scripted encounters with the monster, most of your interactions with him are going to be because you actively did something to get you in that situation. Combine this with limited saving, and you end up with a lot of tense situations that come up entirely through interactions between the player, the monster, and the environment itself.

A good example of this is if there's a room that's trapped, and you don't have the means to disarm traps yet. Say, you really want to get in there. Well, then you'll have to set off the trap, piss off the monster, hopefully survive, maybe explore the room if you're feeling feisty, and then still get back to save without dying. This loop of see a problem>realize you have to piss off the monster to resolve it>find a way to fix your problem while surviving is what you will be doing for most of the game.

Speaking of the monster: the monster itself is always hiding within the walls, and generally bumping around in the dark. It makes a hell of a lot of noise so you will know where it is generally, but you are not going to feel safe wandering around the spider's nest until late in the game, and even then there is still risk involved with engaging with it. I don't know if it's the most frightening design - honestly he's kind of adorable in a way - but he does do his job of keeping the player under control quite well.

Highly recommend this if you want a good, gameplay focused horror experience. The story I haven't even mentioned because it's fairly basic. It feels more like an outline to a story than anything, but what is there is serviceable. There's also new game+ features which seem to mix things up even further, so there's additional replayability if the short length is an issue for you.