Urban Legend: Shin Hayarigami (Blindman) – Gameplay Videos and Impressions

Urban Legend: Shin Hayarigami (Blindman)
By: I-Play.Co.,Ltd.

I admittedly knew very little about Urban Legend: Blindman before trying it, but the premise sounded interesting to me. It’s a murder mystery horror game in the form of a visual novel, with the murderer apparently being an urban legend called Blindman. It starts off promising, with a disturbing image of a man tied up and begging for his life before someone uses scissors to cut out his eyes.

We then meet the detectives who are trying to solve the murder mystery, as well as some strange man who has been convicted of a crime himself in the past, but claims to have some answers that will help them find the killer.

There’s a lot of dialogue, some of it translated fine, with some awkward lines sprinkled in and poor grammar here and there. The translation could be better, but it could also be a lot worse. There are other aspects of the game that are more likely to keep me from continuing. Like I said, there’s a lot of dialogue. In my opinion, there’s too much. To some extent, I want to find out what’s happening, but I just can’t be bothered to read through so much unnecessary and uninteresting dialogue to get to the good parts.

On top of that, the actual game-y sections are weird, having you choose questions to ask people and gain their trust. But when I fail to do so, it’s not clear to me what the consequences are. Did I miss out on important information? The soundtrack during those parts is also horribly generic dance music that is so distracting I can barely even read the words on the screen as it’s pounding at my brain. What’s weird is that most of the game has atmospheric music that keeps the tension without being distracting. But any time I’m supposed to do something that requires some thinking, it blasts this awful music in face and I just want to throw my iPad across the room.

I’ve only spent an hour with the game and it finally got interesting right before I quit, so part of me wants to continue. But I don’t know how long it is and whether I can stomach both the awful dialogue and horrendous music, so I’m not sure if I’ll end up finishing it. But I suggest watching some of my gameplay videos below to see if it’s something you’d be interested in.

Part 1:

Part 2:

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Gaijin

    I enjoyed the game alot. The choice section reminded me of danganronpa where the musics ramps up, and youΓÇÖll have to make a timed choice under pressure. Totally recommend it to anyone who enjoys VN and horror mystery.

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