RED BOW AND HIS YUREI IN PIXEL ART

With familiar hauntings from Japanese folklore and pixel art, Red Bow is part of the emerging and subversive pantheon of horror.

Even with the Saeki spirits making our lives hell, we look over our shoulders (or through our hair?) as a way of understanding how prolific Japanese hauntings – the so-called yurei – can be in video games as well.

The absurdly indie Red Bow is created by a single developer, Stranga , and competes with a very recurrent horror game format, the top-down adventure game format, reminiscent of some of your favorite j-RPGs from the 8 or 16-bit generations. .

And as horror finds ways to challenge itself even more in the independent medium, whether in cinema or video games , Red Bow , as well as other past works by Stranga, such as My Big Sister , seems fragile and harmless when looked at from a distance, but entering his domains proves to be as intense an experience as the yurei that inspire him so much.

Like the little girl Roh and her precious red hair ribbon, you need to interact with and understand the ghosts that populate her nightmares – just so the nights won't be so dark anymore. There are misty roads, abandoned playgrounds, haunted neighborhood markets. This is when the ordinary becomes exceptionally macabre.

One of the most striking hauntings can be categorized as Kuchisake-onna. With her face covered, all he cares about is her affirmation of beauty, for herself and for everyone around her. But there is a catch: her face, disfigured, is cut from ear to ear, thus forcing a sick, permanent smile. Her jaw unfolds downward, forcing her tongue muscles to expose.

And how could a little girl no more than six years old confront such a freak?

The gameplay in Red Bow concerns three different outcomes, linked to the way Roh deals with the past traumas of each of the ghosts of his nightmares. There will be a final judgment of the onryo (another type of Japanese haunting, related to cyclic, irreversible curses) at the lighthouse, reflecting a benevolent, aloof, or Machiavellian Roh. Collecting items, understanding where and how to use them (what will be the reaction of a suicidal mother when facing what really happened to her baby?) is the way to go, with revisitations inherent to the experience.

Newly released, Red Bow is already part of the emerging and subversive pantheon of video game horror, always willing to take difficult steps, determined to take the media forward. Sadako and Kayako enjoyed this.