is a 1994 visual novel video game developed by Chunsoft. The game is set in a snowy mountain area in Nagano, where the player unravels a mystery behind a murder that occurs. The game was developed by Chunsoft as the second game in their Sound Novel series following Otogirisō (1992). These games featured text covering still backgrounds while the player reads the story told through text on the screen. The player can make choices from menu options to progress and change the direction of the story. The story moves in different directions based on some of these choices which will give clues to the player on the identity of the murder culprit.
Following the release of Otogirisō, Chunsoft contacted the Japanese mystery author Takemaru Abiko to write the story for their next novel game. Abiko spent two years developing a story while the music and sound effects in the game were made by Kota Kato and Koji Nakajima. The game differs from the previous game in the Sound Novel series, featuring digitized photos of real-world locations instead of pixel art. It also features silhouettes of people representing the characters in the story. The addition of these silhouettes was a late in development decision which caused the production time on Banshee's Last Cry to be extended.
Banshee's Last Cry sold well for Chunsoft. It spawned a franchise with the sequel Kamaitachi no Yoru 2 (2002), as well as various ports, spin-offs and a remake with Kamaitachi no Yoru: Rinne Saisei. It received its only English adaptations for the iOS in 2014 which localizes some of the characters, names, and locations. The game was an influential visual novel, with similar gameplay featured in titles like Leaf's Shizuku (1996) and ELF Corporation's Yu-no (1996). Its been cited as an influence by other games developers such as Jiro Ishii and Kotaro Uchikoshi. In 2017, the Japanese magazine Famitsu magazine asked its readers to vote for their favorite adventure game, with Banshee's Last Cry being placed in sixth place in the poll.
Gameplay Banshee's Last Cry is a sound novel, a term academic Rebecca Crawford described as being applied to Chunsoft's 20th century visual novel games. It features a user interface where the games story is told through text superimposed on an image of the entire screen. In the game, the player either progresses through the story by pressing buttons, make choices through menu options to change the direction of the narrative, or is prompted to enter a name based on who the player currently thinks the murderer is. Players also have the option to fast-forward through text they have read or rewind to re-read text that was previously displayed. The story in the game is divided into chapters which can also be re-selected for re-reading after a player had reached an ending. Choosing different options gameplay will have the story unfold differently and potentially lead to different endings. Banshee's Last Cry features multiple scenarios and multiple endings with the narrative changing depending on the users choices. The more endings that are found allow for allows for more choices at branching points in the game.
During the various routes and endings, the player can learn clues to guide them to the identity of the true culprit. There are 21 different endings in the original release of Banshee's Last Cry. After clearing the mystery chapter and seeing all the endings in each route, the save data on the game screen will turn pink. The appearance of a "pink bookmark" unlocks a more over-the-top comedic parody of the mystery story in the game.
Plot The game follows the characters Toru (Max in the English localization) and his girlfriend Mari (Grace in English), who stay at a ski lodge when a snowstorm takes place. That evening, a paper note is found in another guest's room, stating "Tonight, at midnight, someone will die". When one of the lodge guests is killed shortly thereafter, the characters are drawn into a murder mystery, while being cut off from contact with the outside world.
Development Writing Following the release of Otogirisō (1992), Chunsoft received requests via feedback postcards that the next game should be a mystery. Following the release of Otogirisō, Chunsoft contacted several mystery authors and sent them copies of the game. Among the authors contacted was , who had his first mystery work published in 1989. Abiko responded saying he was familiar with Chunsoft since their game Door Door (1983). This led to a meeting with a member of the teams staff in July 1993. Producer Koichi Nakamura described Abiko as an real game enthusiast, having played more games than even he had. While he initially thought he was just going to proofread or give advice on the next game, Abiko ended up writing the entire script which took him two years to complete. The plan was to have a long substantial episode, then have two or three substantional fully fleshed out mystery stories and then from there have a variety of stories such as the spy oriented one that involves a snowmobile chase. Abiko also suggested ideas for scenarios that required unique interactions with the Super Famicom, such as a scenario that is accessed by hitting the reset button. Abiko said the scenario that occurs when pressing the reset scenario was influenced by Fredric Brown's short story "Don't Look Behind You". The title of the game was drawn from the Japanese television show which Abiko watched as a child. After seeing an episode titled "Kamaitachi", the author became enamored with the word. The kamaitachi refers to the Japanese mythical creature if the same name. The creature resembles a weasel which uses a sickle to inflict wounds on its victims.
Abiko described writing for a game as different than for a novel, as dialogue has to be completed within a single screen and there are fewer characters to write with than a regular page of a book. This lead to some parts having to change rapidly. Abiko worked at the Chunsoft officed during the debugging phases of the game in order to correct inconsistencies in the branching narratives. Abiko also said that there was a challenge to make sure choices were clear to those who could see the truth, but not so clear that the choices themselves were hints to those who did not know the truth.
The director of Banshee's Last Cry was . Asano had first worked with Chunsoft during the development of Dragon Quest III (1988) and contributed to the original scenario for Otogirisō. Asano wrote some side-branches in the game when he felt there were not enough choices.
Music
Unlike most games where the music was is composed after the images are finalized, the music for Banshee's Last Cry was composed at a very early stage of development with no reference images. The backing music is also usually indicated from the games director which would indicated what kind of music is required to match a scene. The sound production for the game was handled by a three-person team. The composers of the music were the sound designers and . Mimata Chiyoko, the composer of Otogirisō took on the role of the coordinator of music development.
One of the game's composers, said that he was just handed the script for the game and told to read it and create music and sound effects that would fit the scenes. Some instructions were given later, such as Asano asking Kato to create a distinctive theme tune, such as Seiichi Kayama's theme which is ballad done in a Japanese style of music called enka. He was also told that these songs should not have intros, in order to give them a feeling that the world of the game changes as soon as scene changes.
Kato made his debut as a composer with Banshee's Last Cry and it was his second year working for Chunsoft. Kato said that for the music he used both "snow" and "fear" as motifs. For snow, he aimed it to fulfil different roles depending on the scene, where it could symbolize beauty, terror or melancholy. For fear, he avoided music that had a melody as it would sound too much a like a typical thriller style of music. This led to the music be more inline with the theme music from The Terminator (1984). He also cited the synthesizer sounds that Kuniaki Haishima did for the television series as an influence. Nakajima said that Kato was composing music quickly and making more horror-themed music which led him to make the other tunes which he described as being more jazzy or progressive sounding. He added strings to the music to have it have something comparable to Otogiriso. As the work progressed, Kato and Nakajima gradually began to divide the songwriting responsibilities. Much of Kato's music was used in the more frightening scenes. Asano was given the songs by Nakamura and used them freely, which led Nakajima saying some songs were used in way that were not initially intended.
The three members of Chunsoft's sound team sampled and digitized sound effects created by an external company. These were refined into sounds that were usable in the game. Due to the size limitations of the Super Famicom cartridge they had difficulty making more irregular sounds be realistic such as the sound of a blizzard. Some sounds, such as the male screams heard in the game were voiced by the original game staff and recorded in a conference room.
Programming and graphics
In Otogirisō (1992), the first game in the sound novel series, graphics were made from pixel art illustrations for its backgrounds. This method was originally going to be used again for Banshee's Last Cry until Nakamura decided to incorporate actual images of real life locations in the game. To find locations in the game, members of Chunsoft went to a few guesthouses and did not find one that suited the game. The team consulted a travel agency which introduced them Knulp which was ultimately chosen. The owners agreed to have their location featured as long as they did not move or break too many items.
Originally, Banshee's Last Cry was just going to have still images as backgrounds. Asano said as the number of characters was significantly more than that in Otogirisō they decided to include human figures as well. Abiko suggested that the characters be displayed as silhouettes. The idea was to display them all as suspects like how culprits are depicted in Case Closed. While Abiko thought this would make characters impossible to tell apart visually, he was surprised to find the finished product featured silhouettes that were designed uniquely to have each character stand out. Nakamura said the game turned out better with the silhouettes, but adding them extended the development schedule. Bloodstains were made from live-action footage with special effects make-up. Asano explained that as there was no regulations such as the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO) at the time, the team could make whatever they wanted.
Asano said to enhance the scary elements while saving money, he had the programmers create a command that would subtly and gradually darken the screen. This idea was inspired by music that plays in dungeons in the Dragon Quest games, where the pitch of the music would decrease as the player descended deeper into the dungeon. The climax of the game features a part where the player must enter the name of the culprit rather than choosing from a fixed amount of potential culprits. Asano said this was important as to have this option as it let players input various options, such as the name of the cat in the guesthouse. Abiko also felt this was important, as he wanted to make it so that the game couldn't be solved by brute force alone, and wanted the player to do something other than just choose an option. Some of the staff who worked on the programming for Banshee's Last Cry were part of a subsidiary company for Chunsoft called Aquamarine that was located just down the road from Chunsoft's office at the time. The game was announced as being completed by June 1994.
Release and reception