A new trailer for the (so-far) Japan-only Higurashi: When They Crui Sui was recently released by Kaga Create and, while I hesitate to call it a “gameplay trailer”, it does mostly consist of footage straight from the novel. While not as cinematic as some earlier trailers and teasers, it does show off the in-game visuals, animation and voice-acting.
In case you missed it, Higurashi: no Naku Koro ni sui is a collection of every story-line from the franchise, including the previously-exclusive chapters from the DS and Playstation 2 versions of the game, and gives it all a general make-over to make sure all visuals and sound are on the same level. The story of the franchise revolves around the town of Hinamizawa, where a local curse has been believed to be the cause of a yearly cycle in which one person dies and another disappears.
This new trailer is really true to the pacing found in the story: it starts off with anime silliness, as the cast plays games, go to school and generally enjoy themselves, but then something begins to eat away at them and their friendship is slowly torn apart as one of them begins to grow insane. The first few minutes might weird you out a bit and make you wonder what you just got yourself into, but as the clip goes on, all the fun and cuteness falls away and exposes the horror that is at the core. While that is pretty cool, I do have to say that the mouth animations are pretty terrible, even if hearing the original voice-actors speak again makes me really happy and nostalgic.
We reached out to Manga Gamer to inquire about their upcoming Steam release and whether or not voice-acting will be present in it, but sadly we were informed they won’t be including it, which incidentally does mean we’ll be spared the awkward mouth animations.
