Kara no Shojo Review (PC)
In the wake of Kara no Shojo 2 we decided to take a look at the original Kara no Shojo, the successor to the excellent detective horror mystery Cartagra ~Affliction of the Soul~. It continues the series and brings a great deal of improvements mainly by adding a lot of interactive scenes throughout the adventure.
You play as Tokisaka Reiji, a private detective who quit the police force after losing his fiance in a case years prior. His love for ghastly cases quickly leads him to take on one regarding dismembered school girls with a black egg placed instead of their uterus. You soon infiltrate the Ouba Girls Academy, working as an undercover teacher, trying to solve this troubling case. The story is further complicated when you get a request from a mysterious girl called Kuchiki Toko to find the “real her”.
The game is set in the same universe as Cartagra ~Affliction of the Soul~ and a lot of characters make a return. Shugo and Kazuna are officially married and are awaiting their baby. Hatsune was adopted and is now a waitress in the Moon World bar. The fiendish police officer Yaginuma Ryoichi is back to his old tricks. This time around you even get to meet Shugo’s other psychopathic sister, Natsume.
The game is mainly told through Reiji’s perspective, as he strives to collect enough evidence to stop the killings. Every now and then the focus will shift to show the gruesome murders through the eyes of the killer – an effective way of always keeping you on edge.
The game takes place in 1956, soon after the war, meaning that it is set in the golden age of murder mysteries. There are no phones, no internet, no DNA analysis and no way to hunt down the killer except with your own wits. The game respects the reader and doesn’t spell everything out. You are never sure as to who the next victim may be, but whoever it is you are certain to have the same feeling of loss when it does happen.
I thought Umineko’s 20 plus characters were imposing, but Kara no Shojo has an absolutely staggering amount of characters, totaling at 40, all of which are fully voiced. And while not everyone gets too much screen time, this intertwined web of characters contributes to the mystery. Characters are rarely frank, and more often than not love to hide the truth, often just giving the player tiny hints as to their true motivations.
Like Cartagra, Kara no Shojo consists of two arcs which slowly connect as the story unfolds. This is a plus, as neither of the stories overstay their welcome. Unfortunately, while the mystery is extremely engaging and the plot is very enjoyable, the same cannot be said for the solution which doesn’t feel satisfying at all. The game would have gotten a wholehearted recommendation at any point of the story, however the finale really does feel like a letdown, with the cannon ending being more of a cliffhanger.
Kara no Shojo stands out from other visual novels with the sheer number of decisions there are. The amount of choices makes everything feel much more dynamic. Aside from your typical choices, almost every day in the game you will be given the option to choose which two locations you wish to visit. Sometimes your previous actions will impact how characters interact with you later on. Finally, Kara no Shojo has interactive crime scenes which play out not unlike point and click adventure games, where you can click around searching for clues.
At any time, you can open your trusty notebook and review the evidence you collected up until that point. You can check out information about every person you met or heard of, see a summary of past events or clues you collected and even take a look at the city map with railway lines drawn in. All these make you feel like you really are in the process of solving a challenging case.
As you might expect Kara no Shojo is an adult title. The game is filled to the brim with gory and sexual content. With that said most sex scenes are character specific, so it is unlikely for you to see more than a handful during a whole playthrough. Sex scenes are very short and are not a hindrance to the story.
Kara no Shojo is a massive game. It will take around 20 hours to beat, more if you wish to see all the endings and unlock all the CGs. Using a walkthrough is a must and even then it’s pretty easy to miss key events that let you proceed. To reach to the end you will have to present the correct evidence during the inference sections, visit locations at specific dates and pick clues in the correct order during investigations. Missing these will frequently result in a game-over screen several days later, forcing you to restart a few saves earlier.
Cartagra had amazing artwork and I am pleased to say that Kara no Shojo is even better. The art is much more consistent. Characters are far less cartoony this time around. Accompanied with the detailed backgrounds, everything looks much more realistic and gritty.
The music is excellent. It has a great variety of tracks ranging from emotional tunes to ambiental horror to keep you on the edge. The investigation portions even have a Phoenix Wright vibe to them which is something that always gets those detective juices going.
Kara no Shojo is a great murder mystery, with a lot of interaction. Its era and setting are perfect for the dread and isolation of the story. The game still has some of the problems Cartagra had, such as the lack of happy endings, requiring a walkthrough in order to complete the game and having your choices not impact the story that much. With that being said, Kara no Shojo stands among the better visual novels out there, especially if you are in the mood for a challenging horror mystery. Beware, it is not for the faint of heart.
Thanks goes to MangaGamer for providing us a review copy of this game. Kara no Shojo is available on MangaGamer’s website as well as a bundle featuring Cartagra ~Affliction of the Soul~ and Kara no Shojo. A demo is also available.
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