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.
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.