Short Version: A simple, but very subtle and profound coming-of-age story. Yomawari: Night Alone is a really good horror game that left a big impression on me, due to its memorable imagery, relatable setting and a simple world full of mystery and adorable creepiness. It’s a really short and easy game, but I enjoyed myself throughout the whole thing. Highly recommend PS Vita owners to buy it. Loads of suspenseful and thought-provoking fun! 

Long Version: I’ve never been a fan of horror games at all. I’ve personally thought of myself as too much of a scaredy-cat to go through any of them; and I also think that most of them are pretty boring and predictable when factoring out the jump scares. However, whenever the planets align, I come across a game or two that captivate me so much that I end up giving them a shot. Yomawari: Night Alone is one of those games, and I love it. It is very simple in nature and definitely doesn’t do anything revolutionary, but everything that it does is executed very well. The relatable setting of a small child wandering through the night is only made stronger by the game’s simple, but clever and powerful tutorial.

Close Your Eyes…

The game starts with a small, unnamed girl with her dog Poro staring into a large tunnel. Because tunnels are dark and scary, they decide to walk back home. Here, is where our tutorial begins, teaching you the basics of the game. Without spoiling anything, here is the part where the player’s careless, trivial actions make a big impact that are the cause of the entire story happening. Essentially, the dog goes missing, so the girl goes to her older sister for help. The also unnamed older sister eventually goes missing as well, and it is up to you to explore the dark streets alone in order to find them both.

With only a flashlight, a few items and couple a hiding spots, Yomawari is not one for heavy action. As you walk around the silent streets, you will definitely bump into many kinds of ghosts and monsters that you can’t fight at all. Actually, all you need is to get hit once in order to die, and then get booted to the last checkpoint. There’s definitely no room for fighting here, so get ready to sneak past enemies, hide from them or simply running away in the hopes that they don’t get you. From this point forward is where the game really shines.

Dark World

The contrast of its cutesy art style and the crude, intense imagery of the monsters make for a creepy, but compelling picture of two different worlds occupying the same space. Since most of the monsters are deeply rooted in Japanese ghost stories and folklore, many American players might not “get it,” but it still doesn’t stop the game from giving you goose bumps from time to time. What makes this game even more interesting is the fact that you will never see the same monsters in the same places. I’ve seen videos of people struggling or getting killed by certain ghosts that I’ve never seen before, or at least didn’t see until late into the game. There are some enemies that only appear in certain areas, but you will never know that until you take the time to explore the town and find all of the many collectibles scattered around.

Another important thing that adds to the great atmosphere is the sound, or lack thereof. Throughout the entirety of the game, there is no music to be found, with the exception of the one song that plays during the end credits. This lack of music gives the sound effects some ample time to breath as you walk around the empty, dark streets and faintly hear the sounds of vending machines, faulty street lights, crickets and the whispers of the ghosts surrounding you. These tiny details were pivotal in making the atmosphere as creepy as it was. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t find myself in a situation like that in real life, which makes the atmosphere not only relatable, but also effective and believable. You would not catch me praising the sound in this game so much if it had an orchestrated soundtrack or employed some heavy-handed action music for every time you see a ghost. This feeling that I get from playing this game is a prime example of having less can sometimes be more. You can even listen to your own heartbeat, which is an important mechanic in the game.

A Note Written In Crayon

Whenever the inevitable time comes where you have to deal with a ghost, your heartbeat will react as a radar in order to figure out how far or close a ghost is to you, which is much more useful then having to point your flashlight at them all the time. Even though there are some objects like bushes and signs to hide in, I found most of my success in simply running away and making sure that I had enough energy in my meter to do so. This meter usually takes a long time to run out, but it’ll deplete quickly when a ghost is nearby, so there’s almost a little bit of strategy to be had when confronting different enemies, since none of them will behave the same. In fact, there are a few ghosts that won’t attack you at all and just sort of hang out. It’s a small touch, but it fleshes out the world a bit more and makes it feel more real when not every encounter with a ghost is so black and white.

Speaking of black and white, I came to realize that the game is very short and very easy to beat, despite the many enemies that constantly get in your way. The easiness of the game is clearly reflected on the checkpoint system. Scattered around the town, there are small statues that serve as checkpoints after you donate a coin to them. After you die, you return to that checkpoint, but everything that you did prior to getting killed is not lost. For example, I’ve had moments where I needed to get a certain item in order to advance, but there were monsters everywhere. Instead of coming up with a plan to sneak my way in, get the item and make it out alive, I instead barged in without thinking and tried to get the item as fast as possible. As long as I had it, it didn’t matter if I got killed. If anything, I welcomed it, since it would save me the time and trouble to walk all the way back to where I needed to use the item, essentially breaking the game in a couple situations.

Adorable Creepiness

Since the enemy formation is never the same and you don’t get any punishment for death, I was less encouraged to think in favor of relying on trail and error to solve my problems. I firmly believe that this game wasn’t meant to be a super hardcore challenge and more of an atmospheric experience. However, it seemed to me that the stage was set for some clever puzzle solving or strategic ways to confront enemies, but none of it is actually there, which would’ve served well to mix up the gameplay a bit and not have everything be so one-sided in my favor. When the game is so easy, the fear of the ghosts starts to wear off after a bit, which makes the shortness of it all more of an advantage, since the game ends before it outstays its welcome. Even though I was able to beat the game in about 4 hours, there is still more stuff to do after that, so you can definitely add a couple more hours if you decide to find all the collectibles and explore all the other places that the story doesn’t take you. Personally, I had fun with all of it; and I’m definitely thinking of pursuing the platinum trophy for this one.

The Night Will Always Come…

Yomawari: Night Alone was a very good and memorable experience for me. This very simple coming of age story dressed in subtlety, creepiness and a child’s innocence is made even better by the great use of sound, creative menus, well designed enemies and thought provoking moments that makes it one of those games that you have to try at least once. I complain about it being very short, but only because I want to see more of it. I talked about it being too easy, but I probably would’ve hated it if it were too hard. All the complaints I had are not even that bad and can understand why those things are there. With that, I would like to give Yomawari: Night Alone a pretty high recommendation, especially for PS Vita players. Sit back, relax and let the night take you for a ride.

The copy of Yomawari: Night Alone used for this review was provided to us by it’s publisher NIS America.