Brutal Japan | 猟奇の日本 is a paid adventure game from 838s Maniacs. This brutal survival horror experience puts you in modern Japanese locations hosting extremely violent beings. It plays around with the real-world concept of “haunted houses” in Japan, where real estate properties believed to be haunted or cursed are sold a lot cheaper. Your character resides in one of those.

With a combination of reality and fiction plus a nostalgic visual design, Brutal Japan | 猟奇の日本 sends you back in time, despite the game being seriously plagued by bugs. It feels similar to The Closing Shift | 閉店事件 or Stigmatized Property.

Check your neighborhood

Brutal Japan | 猟奇の日本 has a single episode, episode 1, which can be completed in an hour or so. You relive a day in the life of an unnamed office worker renting a cheap apartment property in Tokyo. Drawn by a unique presence in a construction site, you head further to find a suspicious and violent person. Run fast and find a place to hide to avoid being hacked to pieces.

It makes great use of its retro aesthetic. You play the game as if watching through an old VHS recording—grainy video, bleak colors, and the square 4:3 aspect ratio. It works well with the dated graphics and the clunky animation. One problem, however, is that the AI can sometimes glitch, causing the creature to instantly appear behind or in front of you.

The audio, on the other hand, creates a weird effect. It mostly uses a background track that sounds like elevator music, combined with a suspenseful theme and a Japanese voiceover at certain points, making it additionally thrilling. There are three ending scenarios available, all of them realistic. It’s a promising horror experience, but there are unpolished parts of the app as a whole—like the lack of an exit button.

An incomplete yet promising game

Overall, Brutal Japan | 猟奇の日本 has what it takes to capture that niche retro survival horror market. Its commitment to the VHS aesthetic plus a realistic urban premise all work together to create a dated yet addictive game where you run from a killer. If anything, the developers should look into fixing its issues and adding more content since they’re already on the right track.