JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (WII)
Whilst The Ring would see an ill-fated Dreamcast adaptation around the turn of the millennium, it would take Ju-on, a fellow icon of Japanese horror movies, a further nine years before its own game surfaced. In more ways than one, Ju-On: The Grudge is a frustrating experience. It’s the low-scoring title many would have expected of a Wii-targeted film tie-in. What the numbers fail to articulate is how much of a missed opportunity it comes to represent. Feelplus’s first-person horror adventure had all the key ingredients to be a sleeper hit: promising source material and a catalogue of cool scares, settings and mechanics. Sadly, they’re thoroughly squandered thanks to a handful of incredibly daft (and entirely avoidable) design failings.
Ju-On: The Grudge sees the player navigating via a first-person perspective in near-complete darkness, using the Wiimote as a means of directing both character and torch light. There’s no combat, with the five levels instead having the player haring around stocking up on torch batteries, finding keys and engaging in the occasional quick-time event, as you aim to escape the chilling machinations of legendary series predator Kayako Saeki.
The torches last no time at all, so there's no time to soak in the atmosphere or the scares
Each scenario sees the player visiting a new location as a different (but equally cursed) protagonist. These include a residential block, an office, a construction site and a hospital. Every level offers scope for jump scares, with bloody handprints appearing on the walls, ghostly apparitions lurking around corners, heads in mailboxes and hands reaching up through the ground. Feelplus cannot be accused of skimping on scare tactics…
...but alas, the good work is entirely undone by a few fundamental errors. First and most unavoidably, the absurd rate at which the torch chews through batteries. Outside of the QTEs, the only risk of death is from the player’s light source depleting. However, unless you know exactly where you’re going, there’s every chance you’ll die in thoroughly unsatisfactory circumstances before the level has got going. This isn’t helped by the characters’ geriatric walking pace. It’s actively aggravating, especially given how long some of the corridors stretch. Once you realise this is the chief danger, you’ll be dashing around the levels, ignoring the set pieces simply because you don’t have time to appreciate them. One or two wrong turns are all it takes, and the hospital level can be especially trying after a few failed attempts.
...but alas, the good work is entirely undone by a few fundamental errors. First and most unavoidably, the absurd rate at which the torch chews through batteries. Outside of the QTEs, the only risk of death is from the player’s light source depleting. However, unless you know exactly where you’re going, there’s every chance you’ll die in thoroughly unsatisfactory circumstances before the level has got going. This isn’t helped by the characters’ geriatric walking pace. It’s actively aggravating, especially given how long some of the corridors stretch. Once you realise this is the chief danger, you’ll be dashing around the levels, ignoring the set pieces simply because you don’t have time to appreciate them. One or two wrong turns are all it takes, and the hospital level can be especially trying after a few failed attempts.
Encounters with Kayako fare a little better, but become more problematic as the game wears on. To begin with, the player will need to match simple movement prompts to avoid her deadly clutches. The Grudge then introduces its best feature, where the player must hide successfully by training the Wiimote’s cursor within a circle on the screen. This becomes more hair-raising when the target area starts to shrink and move around, proving a brilliant test of nerve as your assailant stalks around in the back of the shot, sniffing out their prey.
As the game progresses, however, you’ll learn how unforgiving it can be. Miss a quick-time instruction, even once, and it’s death. These become faster and more unpredictable as things move along, and on more than one occasion, I’ve died either on the penultimate input, or the very last one. Again, this would likely have been okay, except there is no checkpointing. Fail that final scene, and you’ll have to replay the entire level from the start.
As the game progresses, however, you’ll learn how unforgiving it can be. Miss a quick-time instruction, even once, and it’s death. These become faster and more unpredictable as things move along, and on more than one occasion, I’ve died either on the penultimate input, or the very last one. Again, this would likely have been okay, except there is no checkpointing. Fail that final scene, and you’ll have to replay the entire level from the start.
The environments look reasonably good, with a solid resemblance to the Ju-On films’ aesthetic, though it is all a bit too dark. Dinginess is generally good in this kind of game as it can help build a stifling atmosphere, but short of pointing the torch at the floor directly in front of you, it illuminates precious little of the environment, making even basic navigation awkward. It also borrows an annoying trait from Resident Evil 4, employing horizontal borders for cinematic effect, despite the 4:3 aspect ratio. The settings are detailed enough but the collectables (of which there are five per level, and all of which must be acquired to unlock the fifth and final story) are hard to see and easy to miss, tending to require the player to stand in a very specific position to collect them.
One of the game’s stronger elements is its sound. The music isn’t anything memorable, but the clicking that precipitates the presence of Kayako will send a shiver down the spines of all but the most hardened of horror buffs. Phones ringing in the distance, shock jangles and cat shrieks are nothing original, but they help create a creepy vibe. The marketing approach as a whole appears confused, with Rising Star Games’ European version featuring truly awful casual art that couldn’t possibly be any further from the vibe of the series if they tried. Bizarrely, it also claims you’ll “jump, laugh and cry”, though quite where the laughter fits in is entirely open to interpretation. Unless you’re hoping to alienate friends, I wouldn’t recommend playing this with a group.
One of the game’s stronger elements is its sound. The music isn’t anything memorable, but the clicking that precipitates the presence of Kayako will send a shiver down the spines of all but the most hardened of horror buffs. Phones ringing in the distance, shock jangles and cat shrieks are nothing original, but they help create a creepy vibe. The marketing approach as a whole appears confused, with Rising Star Games’ European version featuring truly awful casual art that couldn’t possibly be any further from the vibe of the series if they tried. Bizarrely, it also claims you’ll “jump, laugh and cry”, though quite where the laughter fits in is entirely open to interpretation. Unless you’re hoping to alienate friends, I wouldn’t recommend playing this with a group.
Some cool scares and nifty use of the Wiimote show the game in its best light
Ju-On: The Grudge is a brief, at times frustrating horror adventure that, with some better planning, could have been so much more. Poor design choices compromise the game, forcing the player to rush and in doing so, dampens its own scare potential. Motion controls offer a lot of potential for the horror genre, but in ditching nunchuck navigation, it ends up feeling both too simple and too fiddly. A bit more involvement from the player and a few quality-of-life upgrades, and we might have had a cool game on our hands. As it is, there’s little to recommend it.
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