Divi-Dead Publisher: C's Ware. Cost: $39.00 US Technical: Minimal. Windows 95 based. Graphics: Superb. Music/Sound: Very Good. Voiceovers. NPCs: Very Good. Writing: Excellent. Plot: Gripping. Interface: Terrible. Sex: Somewhat unarousing, but not ineffective. The game is trying to make something haunting as well as erotic, and succeeds fairly well. Kinkyness: Mostly vanilla. Orgy, possible rape. In Short: Ultra-linear horror story with restrictive interface trancends itself to become a gripping thriller. This is a new one on me- a Lovecraftian H-game. You know, there was a time, before 80's gorefests and 90's slasher films, where horror was actually horrifying. I speak of the time, way back in the 1940's and 50's, where fear was conveyed not in cheesy plots or gallons of fake blood, but in ideas. These were the days of Hitchcock and Serling, where vague danger, mystery, and paranoia was the order of the day. When a good horror film kept you glued to your seat- you had to watch it through until the end, because if the bad guys won, you'd never be able to sleep that night. Divi-dead tries to recapture some of this, at least in spirit. At this it succeeds beautifully. But does it make a good game? Well... Brief synopsis: The opening sequence, a rather haunting .avi, shows someone, presumably the protagonist Ranmaru, being murdered in a hospital bed. (This turns out to be a dream... or does it?) The significance of this won't be explained until much later, but right away the player has a sense of foreboding. Cut to the inside of a private high school's dorm, where Ranmaru meets a few of the characters, then takes a leisurely walk to the dean's office. Enjoy these first segments- they'll be the last time you'll be able to relax while playing Divi-Dead. The player soon finds out Ranmaru's purpose here is not quite innocent- his uncle, who runs the school, has noticed some strange goings-on within the student body, and wants Ranmaru to investigate them. The game unfolds over the course of five days, during which you'll find one secret after another after another. The plot is structered like an onion- each layer you remove exposes another layer, and things get weirder as you go. The characters seem slightly cliched at first glance, but get ready to look again. Noone in Asao Private School is what they seem- not the silent, reserved Haruka, not the S.O.B. teacher Sano, not Mami, the cute freshman who hangs out in the library, not the goody-two-shoes student body president Kimihito, not even Ranmaru himself. The same is true for their actions. On the surface, they seem easily explained, but underneath, the mysteries are abundant. For example, there's the seemingly addictive scent that's popular all over the school, the vicious rivalry between Kimihito and Nishizaki, the childhood friend who claims not to remember Ranmaru, and so on. It all ties together into an incricate tapestry which you'll uncover slowly. The story loses little in presentation. The writing is masterful, producing all the suspense and paranoia it should- more so because you're playing the main character. By the third day, I was glued to my seat. The story is very slow getting started, and the first two days will require some patience to get through. Thing pick up the third day, and the game keeps you hitting the keys from there until the end. I should know- I played the game from there until the end in a single sitting, turning in at 3AM! Graphical work is also excellant. The graphics are constructed from a mixture of CGI backgrounds and hand-drawn characters, and the two styles blend seemlessly. Music is also extrordinary, a mixture of seemingly tranquil, vaguely suspenseful, and overtly dangerous tunes that complement the mood of each scene, and never start to sound like commercial jingles. Sound effects are likewise, including a "beating heart" noise that you'll soon learn to use as a danger barometer. Even the sex scenes are suspenseful- most of them are done to the danger music, and presented very well. One exception is a sex scene where the dialogue was so cheesy I had to laugh out loud. This could be bad translation, or it could be a device to relieve some of the tension, both for Ranmaru and the player. Judge for yourself. The game comes with the standard C's Ware freebies, including 12 .bmp files on the CD (not all of them Hentai) Ten of these are only available upon finishing the game. In addition, you can view any of the CGIs you've seen so far on the Extras menu, and save them, if you so desire. You can also play the MIDIs, either from the extras screen, or outside the game, using a media player. There's also a CG hit counter, showing the percentage of CGs you've seen so far. Good I-F? Not necessarily. Here's the catch: It's great fiction, but it's not terribly interactive. The interactive elements basically boil down to three things: you can save or restore at any point, you choose which areas to explore next, and, very rarely, you make decisions about Ranamru's actions. That's it. The player's role is basically to guide Ranmaru form one location to another. And you often won't find what you're looking for without combing the entire school, sometimes several times. The game is also stiltifyingly linear, meaning you'll spend a lot of time walking around, waiting for an encounter that will advance the plot. (In fairness, though, my final CG hit percentage was only 90%, so there are subplot branches I didn't find.) (Additional Note: The game apparently has five endings, of which I only uncovered two.) You don't even get the standard options for actions- practically everything Ranmaru does aside of moving from one place to another is done automatically. As a result of this, the game slows down considerably at some points. But even worse is the fact that the player sometimes feels powerless and unnecessary. In fairness, one could speculate that this is intentional, a means of escalating the horror, but that seems farfetched to me, and the writing is so good that I doubt it would need help. Perhaps Divi-Dead is better defined not as interactive fiction, but as a multimedia novel. What we basically have here is something midway between a movie and a book. From the film genre, it has transient illustrations, music, sound, and voiceovers. (Which are in Japanese. Why can't anyone ever translate the spoken dialogue? I know anime dubbing comapanies have a bad reputation, but come on...) From the written, we have written dialogue, the ability to 'hear' the main character's thoughts, and the reliance on descriptive text. One could also theorize that the interface, restrictive though it is, is analogous to having to turn the pages of a book to expose more of the story. Like a lot of horror stories, the ending resolves the conflict, but leaves a lot of questions unanswered, possibly leaving things open for a sequel. That might actually be a good idea- if the problems with the interface are corrected, this could make an all-around excellant game. On the other hand, it could also disrupt the delicate balence that is necessary for an effective horror story. Bottom line: Highly reccomended, but caution advised as well. If you have to take an active role in the story and affect the plot for it to satisfy you, Divi-Dead will probably let you down. The player's role in advancing the story is mostly passive. Oh, and you might want to pass on this game if you're prone to nightmares, because the ad that describes Divi-Dead as "horrifying" isn't kidding... -Craxton