YOMAWARI: Lost in the Dark - Nitro Rad

Getting some comments about that warning, so allow me to clarify some things! While the game does touch up on certain themes, it doesn't spend very much time with them, or elaborate very much at all. Which is odd, because Midnight Shadows ending has a very intense sequence where you directly follow a character through a lot of alarming motions. That game did not have a warning. The entire point of a warning like this, is so people who want to avoid those topics, can. Midnight Shadow's lack of warning, and this warning having no content details, leads me to believe that it was done as an intimidation method, rather than out of care for the player. But ultimately, I'm also trying to say that I don't think the content of the game shows enough of these things to be that alarming or upsetting. However, I should clarify that I'm using the content of Midnight Shadows as a benchmark for that assumption. So if I'm wrong about this, please don't hesitate to let me know! Thanks!

Honestly, the fact that at the beginning you look up, and when the camera pans back down to the roof without the kid, the simple fact that a pair of shoes was there really threw me off guard because in Japan, it's really common for people commiting suicide by jumping off a building to take off their shoes first

I love the warning at the beginning. It looks just like a regular video game warning so most people won't instantly read it, and then it hangs on screen just long enough for someone to end up reading it absentmindedly and then think "wait, what the hell?"

Heck yeah. I figured you'd get to this sooner than latter and here it is. For the most part, some disagreements aside, I think I do agree with your overall feelings. "Yomawari 3" does play it too safe with keeping things mostly the same, both in terms of gameplay and even reusing assets. Not to mention being easier and more handhold-y, both of which were to address complaints levied at the first game. On one hand, I don't mind since it's more of what I enjoyed and I played the first two entries back when they first released years ago so it's been a while for me but, on the other, some more noticeable improvements to the formula would have been nice. Though, that said, I am more understanding of why it's probably like this. The developer, NIS (Nippon Ichi Software), nearly went bankrupt a while back. Thankfully, they did manage to pull through but the scale of their games have clearly been impacted. For instance, they released a new mainline entry to their flagship series, "Disgaea", and it's been very contentious to put it nicely. So NIS are still trying to get back on track with some smaller and safer releases more or less. It does suck but at least they are getting there. With that out of the way, I guess my only major disagreement other is with the beginning warning segment. As contrived as it is for us, unfortunately, it's a very real issue in Japan. Yuzu, or whatever you named your character, faces heavy bullying and went to jump off the school roof. The shoes getting left behind is the telltale sign to show intent to others, that it wasn't a murder but actually suicide. This is an ongoing problem in Japanese schools so that warning makes more sense in that context. Heck, the only reason our character even survived is cause they accidentally performed the ritual to get spirited away. If that didn't happen, yeah, they'd be dead. Regardless, I'm glad to have heard your thoughts. It wasn't really what we were hoping it'd be, but I'm glad it exists nonetheless. I thoroughly enjoyed my time 100% completing the game and finding it's more obscure secrets. Like damn, I'm actually kinda bummed you apparently didn't come across the ghost-whale bullet-hell event on the shore. I had to take a double take when that happened to me. Got rewarded with a whale skull decoration for the room. That was just so random. But yeah, I guess all I got left is to pester you to try out "Mad Rat Dead" one day.

Okay, I must really say that you should give Signalis a look, if you have the time. It is a real gem of a Survival Horror game and I see hardly anyone talk about it, which is a real, real shame. It has such an amazing and intriguing story, fantastic puzzles, great atmosphere and an amazing art style. It deserves to get a lot more attention than it gets!!!

4:00 yeah… as someone who was severely bullied at school, and almost committed the self-offing because of it, I think the warning might be for this section right here… The school’s bathroom was indeed my hiding place, and it looked as creepy and desolate as that, and my heart kinda skipped a beat when I saw it followed up by bullying… I kinda wanna play this game now though… the best type of horror is the one that hits home deep…

the character does commit suicide in the beginning, the shoes are left on the roof, a sign of suicide in japan.

Hey Nitro Rad, you sort of brushed it off, but honestly I do think it was important to have that warning at the beginning of the game since the subject matter in the game does get pretty triggery. For those who don't know, here are some notable cw: This game does have a few scenes that involve characters jumping off of rooftops, especially in the beginning with it being implied having been done due to attempted suicide to escape some brutal harassment at school. There's also some heavily implied bits during the game from environmental storytelling about the boss ghosts such as the one involving the dogs (newspaper clippings and items you pick up involve giving away that the dogs were gruesomely murdered by some asshole in the neighborhood... in fact don't get attached to any animals in this game you see to be honest), child death (including one that has an unfortunate theorized implication that a possible child molester was involved which is why the ghosts in that area react the way they do when you use the camera item) and so on.

Definitely will check this one out once it's on sale. But since you mentioned Madoka Magica, there is actually a pretty good fangame based on that anime called "Grief Syndrome". It's pretty short (25-30 minutes for one loop), but it has a bunch of love poured into it like original music, five playable characters with unique playstyles (seven if you squint), ten different endings, multiplayer, multiple achievements and a very interesting hard mode system. Maybe that would be something that could be interesting for you :)

Using the SH3 soundtrack at the beginning was simply perfect. I always found it so weird that SH3, one of the gleaming examples of what the pinnacle of horror games can look like, has one of the most relaxing and memorable songs out there. Fantastic.

Nothin' better than cute chibi horror <3

I absolutely love the Yomawari series so happy you're playing this game.

There's one additional thing I wanna call awesome. Before I watched this video, I played the demo. So when Nitro Rad started talking about this bullied girl who gets cursed scenario, I was like "Wait... that's not what I was seeing... oh gosh does the demo legit have its own unique story?" Cuz in the demo you're a kid who, along with her two friends, decided to bust into the school at night to investigate rumors... but then you wind up chasing your cat who followed you.

Always have loved more of a cutsy chibi artstyle mixed with surreal horror. Nitro always knows how to sales pitch a game to me. I don't mind spoilers too much and how he mentioned Madoka's infamous witches, I definetly have to try this.

I think the warning at the beginning is justified, still should have been more specific but yeah i imagine the intro to the game could be upsetting for some, especially since the themes of suicide seems to be more present in the narrative then you gave it credit for based on the clips shown here.

Seeing you play Yamawari, aka cute chibi horror, reminded me of something. Have you ever tried "Yuppie Psycho" or "The Blind Prince and the Liar Princess"? They're great games and I'm sure you'd like them. (Although the latter is not horror at all, it's more like a heartfelt tragedy with a monster.) Also you should definitely give a look at the ongoing "Physical Exorcism" series. It's a bit of a spiritual successor to the edgy phase of RPG maker games and it's worth checking out. (Loser's Reborn is part of the series btw.)

The original video is NOSTALGIC, can't wait to watch this!

This was the first Yomawari game I played, and I enjoyed my time with it, though holy crap were some of those ghosties hard to get around! Very frustrating, though yeah, thankfully it's rarely more than a few minutes of lost time. Though re: the warning at the beginning... I was a very badly bullied kid, and some of the bullying scenes really made me tense, since they reminded me of some of the stuff I experienced when I was young. I'm probably not alone in that sentiment.

At 4:29 When Camera pans down and PC is missing it was quite heavily implied they committed suicide because you can see a pair of shoes left behind near the edge. In Japan that's very sign that person jumped to their death, in Japan it's customary to take of your shoes when entering own or someone's else house to not carry in any dirt inside. When person doesn't want to carry any dirt into afterlife, they commit suicide barefooted.

I was already curious if James had heard of this game releasing. Glad to see he did.