Corpse Party is one of the stars of the venerable RPG Maker: a grisly horror game set in a ghost-infested Japanese high school, with a branching story and lots of ways to end up dead. I've been trying to untangle it's mess of remakes for about twenty minutes now, but one thing seems certain: the only version currently available for PC, in English, is this unofficial remake of the original 1998 version.
You might not want to play that. You might want to play a version of the game more in-line with the graphically and aurally enhanced, and generally embiggened PSP version of Corpse Party instead. Thankfully, such a thing is coming on Monday April 25, to GOG.com, the Humble Store, and Steam. Here is a trailer announcing that:
And here's a blog post from publisher XSEED, explaining how the PC version differs from the 3DS and PSP versions of Corpse Party:
"Main benefits of playing this version: Completely different Japanese voice track with different nuances, to such an extent that much of the game’s dialogue was re-edited to account for subtle shifts in mood and tone. The “Tooth” chapter from Corpse Party: Book of Shadows, fully recreated here in classic 2D adventure style; easily the biggest and most involved Extra Chapter in any Corpse Party game to date, thoroughly expanding upon its Book of Shadows counterpart and providing lots of new content both in terms of story and gameplay alike. The presence of a genuinely fast fast-forward feature, making ending collection a breeze. And last but not least… those beautiful, beautiful text boxes! Seriously, those have to be the swankiest, most mesmerizing text boxes I’ve ever seen."
Jeez, get a room. Annoyingly, the PC version is different, but not necessarily better, as it features fewer extra chapters, and lower-res characters than the 3DS game. Some of the content is also different, for some reason.
"The rumor is, some of the content from the PC version was removed for the handheld ports solely to prevent the game from getting too high a CERO rating in Japan, but I’m… honestly not sure if that’s true or not. There are definitely some endings unique to the PC version, but none of them seem any more gruesome than some of the endings present in all versions of Corpse Party. There’s a rather unsettling insect-related scene in the PC game that isn’t present in the PSP version, but that’s likely because the PC game was released episodically in Japan, and Chapter 5 (where the scene in question plays) didn’t actually come out until after the PSP game, meaning it’s more of an addition for PC fans than an omission for PSPers. (This is supported by the scene’s subsequent inclusion in the 3DS version of the game.)
"Other than the odd ending here and there, the only thing I know for certain that was removed from the PC version when it made the jump to PSP is… a trail of blood on the hallway floor during one particular scene. I can’t say for certain why that was removed, but I don’t see how it would’ve affected the game’s content rating when other parts of the game are far, far more disturbing."
How incredibly confusing! Corpse Party hits PC on April 25, and it will set you back $14.99 (if you pay for things in United States dollars; no other prices have been revealed yet).
