Siren

"A coppery taste of gore, thrills and frights from start to finish."

Forbidden Siren

I vividly remember that little girl's more than pale skin that had obviously rotted over the time she had spent down there. The long dank and wet hair spreading across her face while she tilted her head to the ground. The remnants of her fingernails pointing lazily towards me. And when she moved I froze. But she kept on gliding further and further until she was right up in my face. But she could go no further, and I was safe. Or so I thought. One dainty fleshy arm soared through the TV and she followed through by pulling her body through the whole set and I was powerless. All I could do was sit and watch as this drowned figure took an inch closer to possibly severing my head perched on top of my body.

That was the Japanese cult film The Ring. And every time I think about this game, I shiver with fear over the Shibato's relentless persuit of the stranded civilians in the recent town that has been overrun with hordes of mutants. And the course of fleeing these rippled rotted foes is spent by descending alarmingly into more life threatening situations in almost every step you take, plunging you into turmoil that could almost make your head spin around very slowly. Like the little girl down that well and countless other undead fleshies, the Shibato are vengeful and not some next-to-brainless creature with an appetite for flesh - they are internally drawn to baying for crushed bones and spilled blood from the poor powerless people trying to escape the darkness swept town. To them, you get the impression they not only want to tear you open, it's as if they have to. And that's f**king chilling. When you're crawling for cover behind some small desk in the darkness and a Shibato is manically pounding on the door to break in, you just know that you better have the logic and intelligence to deflect any chance the unreluctant monsters have of thwarting your escape plan. Some of my proudest escape plans conceived crumbled into nightmares for the Shibato's resiliance in tormenting me to the bitter end...

The school was just one of the buildings infested with swarming Shibato and unluckily a teacher and her pupil were still cooped up inside with the desperate hope that the Headmaster would somehow overrun the mutants and rescue them. Yeah right. The little girl was clearly nervous and hysterical as she heard the distant groanings of the Shibato from the bottom end of the dark lit corridor. With only a torch, what could I do?. The corridor gained access to three classrooms next to each other and in the second I could get to the third class via the classroom. But the Shibato would notice and savage upon us. Crouching to the second classroom in the covet of the darkness, the little girl was stashed in a small cabinet that she luckily fit into. Now I had to take care of the lurking Shibato. Peeking from the door, I noticed a fire alarm and prodded myself towards it. After pressing the button, the droning siren drummed through the corridors and the Shibato staggered upon hearing it. Gaining closer to me, I snuck back into the first class room and waited. A sudden crash on the door was heard and more banging followed. I slid behind a small bookcase and prayed that I would have my limbs intact if it broke through. He smashed through. My heartbeat pulsed started pummelling my breathing, furiously. Accidentally my torch was turned on and out of instant fright I stood up and the Shibato's arms flung their direction towards me. Frozen with glooming fear as he staggered faster and with no weapons to defend my soon to be terminated life, I realised it was now or never and ran out of the door and locked it. Now I had to get the little girl out of the cabinet and make it downstairs. But there were more Shibato waiting for me...

If you don't consider that innovating and personal then I really am frightened. Forbidden Siren pictures the usual horror flick that the Japanese visualise so frightfully well in their movies and in the acclaimed Project Zero, a combination of 'seventies' horror and psychological thrilling effects. The game is a fearingly daring outlook on horror games that have produced a next to realistic adventure of survival and terrifying sequences. Forbidden Siren holds the finesse of placing the gamer in it's dominating haul of trembling emotions and shaky actions while you monitor every step you take with a shiver trickling slowly down your spine. It is not to be for granted especially when you have to follow someone in the amidst of the Shibato leeching to the smokey streets in the darkness where you rely on sounds to determine the right direction but also fearing bumping into a itchy happy Shibato. Beneficially true to it's survival genre, the Shibato are in total advantage against the normal people you control over the course of the game. Your weapons are what you find and that could be handles from post signs to crowbars to shotguns - if you're lucky. The intent isn't firepower or to hack down this fiends but to elude them with your lives and accomplish a destination goal. Perhaps this is truly why Forbidden Siren is undeniably frightening because you're supposed to stay away from the monsters instead of go looking for them. You can slip past the Shibato but half the chance may backfire, and then the risk becomes a matter of swift survival.

Whilst not being the most horrific sight you've ever seen, the Shibato's advanced A.I makes up for any scare factor the appearance might have not - their half hearted prowling of the streets makes the zombies of Resident Evil look like wandering toddlers. I'm rather proud to tell you that I can't say for sure what the Shibato look like - because like the game instructs, you stay away if you want to keep the arm you're writing with. From afar, I can see hats, possibly straw. And er, dungarees? The point is, if this is how scary demonic farmers look like then imagine two things; how clever the game is and how much more we could have been scared. The distant sight or groan of one of these things! opens your eyes widely and will probably make you susceptible to those who abuse valium. And what might be keeping these ricocheting foul rotters up? Visceral needs? One encounter or brush of near by dismemberment with these bastards will prove to you that the last thing you want is gouts of yours (or their) blood splattering around anytime soon. Like I said, they are there to viciously maul you, to euphorically eviscerate you, to certain the hellish escape plans from derelict buildings even more dreading and while they're at it you sweat over disturbing thoughts of your own fountain of bloods and your body parts scattered all over the floor being gnawed at by the fluttering Shibato. In a matter of two bites, they can end your life and all your vain attempts of eluding their clutches. Isn't that something to be scared about?

Maybe the Shibato do have too much power over the characters in the game. In some points, only two attacks from a Shibato can end the game and sometimes avoiding them seems inevitable. The characters movement aren't exactly swift either. Who says you need to be superhuman to have a good sprint?. But this is one of the greatest things about Forbidden Siren; their never-ending test of human instinctiveness in these desolate times. Luckily, there has been a feature invented to give you one last attempt of escaping these foes. The "Second Sight" is a feature that allows you get inside the vision of the Shibato surrounding the area you are in. It helps you locate where they are and their movements without getting too close. Immensely useful for when exploring in damp and very dark areas although if a Shibato starts marching up to you, one of the most frightening features ever would be that you use the second sight to see yourself before the eyes of the Shibato before they decimate you. You can also use this feature to get inside the minds of other characters and find out where they are if you are to follow them.

The stars of this genre usually come in the form of the main protaginists who you control throughout this gore fest. Polygonal figures such as Jill Valentine and Claire Redfield have become endeared household names among fans of this genre. Well Forbidden Siren takes an even more dramatic step than Silent Hill did by casting the demure character of Harry Mason. You are basically thrown into personas of several characters that are mere (oh yes) civilians. Journalists to teachers to children, they are your ordinary bunch. That isn't to say they aren't interesting, they are. Much of the game allows to unravel each characters history in the game. The collective bunch aren't sensational but relent to the quota by being mysterious. There is an excellently casted blind girl who you have to guide through the foggy darkness in the amidst of the woods - even though the difference is only a margin, the fact that you know she is blind runs through your worries putridly.

When Forbidden Siren was first showcased to the world, everybody shared contempt that it would compete or even surpass the franchise Resident Evil. However when the rolling demo of the opening intro to the game was instantly banned over it's explicit images deemed as too over-the-top, the public response had changed. Forbidden Siren meant the business. And so the graphics approve of that. Along with the very anguishing and grotty introduction are some of the finest and most beguiling scenes ever witnessed in the history of this genre. The game has very breathy hazy images that make your journey visually harder but for all the effectiveness better. The animation is flawless with perfectly scary atsmophere and the characters are all rendered gloriously. Also, the dark lighting is to be feared. However, the FMV is really what delivers the atsmopheric gore even when it's only showing facial expressions from the terrified characters. The whole town to the interior of the buildings are moody and very stagnant looking, making you very rigid (but also marvelling) as you traverse the infested place. The murkiness image lingers throughout the game and for good reason - the daylight probably brings out the Shibato in a rash.

Accompanying this is the terrific music score with haunthing string fills and some fine Japanese music to boot as well. Other series have refined this greatly but nowhere near as refined as the way Forbidden Siren does. Even when the area is silent and all you hear is the timed breathing of the character as he runs or is being violently stalked by a Shibato. Full of breathy and shimmery numbers that leave you disorientated. Whilst never being outstanding, the musical score is bitter and torturingly squalling enough to give you that extra shudder whilst you play with rosary beads perched on your console. The music pushes the atsmophere to be constantly dismal and threateningly distorted.

One flaw is the accent of the Japanese characters - they're um, English. Why I do not know. Obviously the translation would be one reason but wouldn't it have been better as a whole if the translators had hired Japanese actors who could speak English? Or even actors who could do accents period? It worked for the cult series Monkey. I thought about criticising the Shibato's "ohh" groans but realised that they scared the s**t out of me when I thought I was alone.

One thing I'll say about the game is that there are many ways to get by the Shibato and complete the game - which you cannot say about other games in this genre. Forbidden Siren is a perfect Halloween's game or a takeaway game for you and a friend staying in. Despite nothing, no other game will tantalise you like this. Silent Hill and Resident Evil only maintain the knack for briefly scaring you unlike Forbidden Siren's capacity of doom ridden scenarios and full throttle frights that lace together from start to finish.

Being that Forbidden Siren revolves around the edges that the surreal Silent Hill excelled at, the game succeeds in being equally frustratingly hard and ellicitly shocking at the same time. Not knowing what is out there and what could be out there is not just thrilling but even the blurry sighting one of these Shibato is eerily grotesque in the gut - as priests amd nuns experienced when they first set their eyes on Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Already the game has come under a confused and controversial response by those who have played it. I'll clear something up - the game isn't flawless (but most of the flaws relate to personal tastes rather than game standard) and by no attempts the usual case of monster killing fever seen in Resident Evil but I'll be damned if it isn't one of the scariest fevers to be seen in the hall of horror and survival gaming. Without a doubt, Forbidden Siren's gameplay revolves around the logic of the player and how they would personally plan their routes of avoiding their monsters. And isn't that what happens in the old school films before gruesome horror tragically plumetted into teenage slashers?

It all boils down to this; if you value horror and want something really shocking then you need to at least play Forbidden Siren once. There is no getting away with the fact that the game's survival system can be viewed as flawed or just unfair - but that is also where the immense frights violently kick in. In that perspective, Forbidden Siren is in a class of it's own. And I recommend this game to anyone with a terminally strong fear factor because this game pushes the boundaries of frights instead of gore. The strongest thing a game can do is to invite to their world, Forbidden Siren immediately tugs at you violently until you're stranded and beseiged in your own demise.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/21/04, Updated 10/28/04