Higurashi When They Cry Hou: Ch.1 Onikakushi (2015)

Probably one of the best experiences I´ve ever had playing a visual novel, but this is not something I´d recommend to just everyone, I think this is what people would call a slowburn, it takes forever to actually complete this game, took me like 200 hours to beat the main story and some other arcs, but was it worth it? Absolutely. Higurashi When They Cry is a psychological horror story, and despite some people would think -specially if you watched the anime- this is a psychological story, it´s focused entirely on the psychology of the characters, what they are thinking anytime and their personal traumas, deepening on themes like child abuse, isolation or mental ilness, what I´m trying to say is, this is not about tons of gore and blood, while is true that the game contains some from that, it´s not the main focus. Every single chapter from the game is absolutely good and well written, of course, there are some chapters than are better than others and these chapters are absolute peak. Like I said, it´s not for everyone, but if you are willing to read that much, go for it

This is a very straightforward VN to mark off the backlog. There's no replayability since there are no choices to make and all achievements are unlocked on the first playthrough. The plot relies heavily on atmosphere. The music and sound effects were simple, yet set the scenes well. I especially liked the cicadas, rivers, and rainfall you hear during certain cutscenes. Also using a painterly filter over real photographs for the backgrounds made it easy to imagine walking around Hinamizawa. Looking forward to starting chapter two.

If you're going to try and experience the unique horror genre that Higurashi falls in to, this is not by any means the way it should be done. The pacing is slow, the horror aspects are downplayed due to the style, and the engine is extremely outdated considering this version is being advertised as a 'remaster.' I would highly encourage you to go watch the anime version of this. It'll save you time and will all around be a far better experience.