The Haunted Hoard: Yomawari: Midnight Shadows (PS4)
In the first Yomawari game, Yomawari: Night Alone, you are asked to explore a sleepy Japanese town at night as an incredibly young girl with no way to fight back against the strange and deadly spirits that roam the streets. Being little and alone definitely is an easy way to instill a sense of fearful vulnerability in the player, but for a sequel, Yomawari: Midnight Shadows finds a way to keep up this tone while introducing a second playable character. Now controlling a pair of elementary school friends, the two are immediately separated and spend their time trying to reunite in a town where mysterious horrors lurk, the story itself even focusing on the girls’ fear of being permanently separated.
Yomawari: Midnight Shadows kicks off similarly to the first game in that it immediately hits you with a shockingly abrupt moment that will make you nervous about what dangers can lie ahead in a game that will shove you right into an unexpected situation. However, story is given a greater level of focus compared to the first game when we then meet our protagonists proper. Yui and Haru are two elementary school girls and best friends, but a family move is about to lead to Haru being unable to communicate with her closest friend. A series of unusual events occur in the opening that can make certain elements hard to interpret initially only for some clever immersive moments later to unveil what exactly happened, but soon the girls end up separated on what was meant to be their last day together. As the plot begins to move forward you’ll alternate between controlling Yui and Haru, both girls starting to come to terms with elements of their situation as they both try to find their way away from the deadly dangers of the night and back together.
During most of your time with Yomawari: Midnight Shadows you will be walking the streets of a quiet Japanese town, Haru getting more of the adventure as she is often the one who needs to track down Yui while Yui keeps finding herself in new and unusual situations. Playing briefly as Yui will give you an idea where she is to guide the mostly free exploration of the town, some areas blocked off by the monstrous spirits at points in the plot but otherwise you are wandering around trying to find the way to where you know Yui was last seen in some form of jeopardy. Funnily enough though Yui’s segments actually focus a fair bit more on dread and a sense of confusion rather than outright peril, and while there are times she is in true danger, other moments are quieter and focus on that feeling of being isolated in a place you know nothing about. The lower stakes in these segments also makes each little surprising sound or sudden shift in the environment feel more purposeful, these portions not laying out traps or setting spirits to patrol areas often and so if something is happening you come to learn that it’s going to be directly relevant to your progress forward despite any desire to run or hide.
Haru’s time out in the town is certainly far crueler to the little girl, the unusual phantoms all immediately lethal to the touch and often quick to head towards you if they spot you. There is a wide range of creative and unsettling designs to be found in the creatures that skulk the streets and haunt the buildings you press into in search of Yui. A little shade with sounds like an infant calling out for its mother will float desperately towards you unless you turn your flashlight on its sorrowful eyes, a walk down a seemingly innocuous street can immediately make you turn tail as that alley is crowded with an enormous human head with bugged out eyes, and repeated encounters with a spirit made out of large hands and arms with an enormous toothy maw and red scissors require you to find a way to outsmart his teleportation and lunges in a new way each time. Some creatures on the street will look almost goofy like a white ghost with an enormous head but eerie eyes or a weird running shadow that looks almost unfinished and at other times an innocuous item like a manhole will suddenly spring out multiple clasping arms or a trash bag nearby will quiver and stab out like an urchin.
The world around you has a lovely degree of detail despite the two girls being simple in their design, but the spirits cover a wide spectrum that never lets you settle into knowing what to expect. Sometimes the features on a creature will be given far too much attention and make looking at them uncomfortable while others can even be a little bit cute. More importantly, each spirit type will behave in a new way, some only pursuing you if you run, others able to be placated if you toss a rock their way, some will be almost impossible to outrun if they spot you, and others simply take up space with enormous grotesque bodies. Many won’t even be visible unless your flashlight is on them, meaning sometimes you can’t even take in the full shape of the monstrosity ahead, and that moment of fear when you’re facing something novel but have no clue where the line is between survival and immediate death makes each new design carry some weight. Admittedly a fair few are returning spirits from the first game that will simplify some of that process for returning fans, and while you are given distracting items to do things like send a spirit chasing after a paper airplane instead of you, most of the time the answer will turn out to be running away quickly enough.
You do need to manage your stamina to successfully outmaneuver the spirits of the night though. When you run you’ll drain it rather slowly, but any time there is some threat nearby, whether you can see it or not, your character’s heartbeat will start to quicken, the controller’s rumble doing an excellent job of alerting you to the seriousness of the danger and how near it is. Suddenly running will burn your stamina much more quickly, and if you don’t carefully stop and start your running properly while escaping, more persistent spirits will catch you and immediately kill you. Sometimes you also really can’t outrun a foe, but hiding spots like bushes or the space behind large standing signs can be hunkered behind as you wait out whatever was chasing you as represented by pulsing red mists on a mostly dark screen. Luckily the game has a fairly smart balance for how often save statues should be placed to prevent the immediate deaths from being agonizing, the player still no doubt carrying a sense of trepidation as they need to push past a good bunch of lurking dangers to reach the next safe spot. The Jizo Statues used most often for saving can allow you to teleport to other activated statues in different parts of the fairly large town as well and their coin cost is almost negligible, although the game will also ensure there are save points in interior areas that don’t allow such warping or couldn’t reasonably include a religious statue narratively.
Most of the enjoyment in Yomawari: Midnight Shadows does emerge from what is essentially stealth gameplay. A few spirits require some action to make them leave so the game has some things equivalent to boss fights, but even these are more interacting with the right objects rather than truly being on an even level with the monstrous phantom trying to kill you. Out in the streets though you’ll do much more slinking around and trying to find your openings to get past fearsome creatures. The game is not above jump scares but also does well in establishing a quiet atmosphere that it makes sure not to puncture so often it loses its impact. You’ll turn a corner only to spot some unknown being idling there quietly, some spirit placements mildly random so even after returning to life after a loss you might not face the same ghosts on your way back to where you were. Pressing forward ends up tense and somewhat unpredictable, and if you’re staying on the story path it also keeps throwing new ideas in your way. Entering an abandoned mansion where its size can make it unclear which rooms hold something important and which ones hold only danger is quite different from the labyrinthine library where you have to figure out how to negotiate your way around patroling spirits. Areas like the junkyard will force you to turn off your flashlight for stretches to avoid animating certain objects at the cost of other ghosts moving freely in the dark. The game will even shift from its top down perspective sometimes to have you walk a long stretch from a side view, often as something lurks in the background or tries to block your now more limited movement.
Interestingly enough, while a death is always a small touch away, the town in Yomawari: Midnight Shadows is filled with sympathetic spirits as well and small stories and legends to uncover. Poking your nose in areas that aren’t necessarily required to travel will often lead to collectibles, some of these simply there for a little reward for your curiosity while others can set you on a path to new little tales where the details aren’t quite clear. The main plot does do a good job of having Haru grow in relation to the spectral situations she finds herself in, but there are little tragedies to find on the side, unique dangers to try and overcome, and chances to help pained lingering souls find rest. Some rewards can even assist you in small ways, the player able to equip one charm at a time that can do things like increase how long you can run or even add a slowing effect to your flashlight. Yomawari: Midnight Shadows is willing to get a bit closer to making real puzzles or playing a little less fair in its side content, but it also makes the somewhat open city richer since you’re not always being pushed down a path of pure story progression, and even if you do get a bit too distracted, the sounds of Yui’s dog Chaco can often lead you back onto the main quest.
THE VERDICT: A dark town filled with strange terrors that keep you on edge as you never know if the silly looking one might pop towards you for an instant kill or might amble about harmlessly until you do whatever strange trigger sets it off, Yomawari: Midnight Shadows manages to intrigue with each new fright and maintain its level of danger throughout. The save system makes pushing back through after a death easier to endure and the story of the two young friends trying to reunite and maturing along the way gives the adventure a bit more direction than merely seeing what spooky Japanese legend has been twisted into the next monster on show. It will never ask too much of you despite a few moments that lean towards action rather than the usual stealth, but curiosity and fear mix well as you want to see which new and strange situation you’ll find yourself in even though you know some fresh and strange wandering soul will make pursuing progress perilous and sometimes unpredictable.
And so, I give Yomawari: Midnight Shadows for PlayStation 4…
A GOOD Rating. In general Yomawari: Midnight Shadows does feel like a pretty strict improvement on its predecessor, the only really blemish being that it trots out a few familiar faces and thus lessening some of the sense of mystery for a returning fan who is otherwise carefully progressing past a wide cast of strange spirits they must come to know in order to survive. The story gives something more emotional to latch onto, especially with frequent check-ins on both girls and the ways they start to react to the growing truth behind what exactly is keeping them apart, and the ways that Yui’s activities might set up Haru’s exploration of an area or even lean on a different sort of horror than that fear of possible instant death makes the dual protagonist angle work even better. A few of the boss fights start to toy with spirits you need to more actively engage with to overcome to varying degrees of success, something like needing to shut off the lights to stop a series of mirror doubles from crowding around you in ever-growing numbers a more tense situation that slowly waiting for the swinging arms of a giant skeleton to position themselves right. The moment to moment stealthy exploration with simpler souls is more widely effective, the broad brush in terms of design and behaviors keeping the city from losing its looming sense of danger and the spacing on such threats still allowing for the kind of quiet that makes suddenly running into something terrifying more effective. Only a few jump scares really feel worthy of faulting because otherwise the excellent use of rumble and heartbeat sounds can make most situations have at least a little build-up and others are already immersing you in a scary situation where suddenly introducing an abrupt danger is the pay-off. The side content does feel like you engage with those spirits in more interesting ways though since you will need to figure out more about them or they’ll have some truly unique scenario tied to them so perhaps a bit more of that could have been worked into the main story, but Yomawari: Midnight Shadows also doesn’t get so distracted that you spend too much time away from the tale of Yui and Haru that you’d lose any investment in it.
While mostly a sequel dedicated to improving upon ideas from the first game rather than pursuing different directions, the ideas presented are compelling contributions to a horror adventure where deadly mysteries can still draw you in without too much irritation if they turn out to have quick and lethal ends. Having a plot that does more than just trying to reunite the two girls gives the game a means to integrate different tones or embrace clever ways to engage with a particular danger, creativity always somewhat present even if that’s not always tied to how you actually respond to a threat. The stillness of the city is able to effectively disarm you only to throw a sudden scare at you that you scramble to respond to. Yomawari: Midnight Shadows manages to keep its creepiness because it never settles into a singular mold for what kind of shape a spirit may take or what Japanese myth might manifest in a new way, the deliberate skew in design cohesion allowing unsettling souls to still leave their mark rather than having their effectiveness weakened by the creepy company they keep.