I made this post in another thread already, I would've made a new one, but I'm a Junior.
Anyways, there is a series called "
Kamaitachi no Yoru" (Night of the Sickleweasel) which consists of 3 games on the PSX, PSP and PS2. A forth game called "Shin Kamaitachi no Yoru" came out around the time of the Vita launch in Japan, but that game is kind of a re-boot that doesn't continue the events nor share recurring characters from the first three games. All of the games where created by Chunsoft.
In the first game, you play as Tooru, who goes on a skiing-vacation with his friend Mari. He has a crush on her, she teases him a bit and they stay at a remote pension owned by her uncle and aunt. Other guest arrive at the lodge and as it grows dark, a heavy blizzard isolates the guest from the outside world. The group discovers ominous letters that predict that bad things are going to happen during the night. They laugh it of as a bad joke, but when one of the guests goes missing and a mutilated corpse is discovered, the time for jokes is over.... Now it's up to the player to find out what happened, who the murderer is and to prevent further bloodshed.
All of this takes place in the first 30min. of the game, there's a lot of other great twists and turns during the approx. 10 hours of story, but I don't wanna spoil anything but the basic premise.
I'm writing this post because I came across this Japan-only series when I read an interview with the director of 999 / VLR. He said that the Kamaitachi games were one of his main inspiration for creating the 999-Series. So around November, I started buying and playing those games. In my opinion, the games are fantastic; the writing is really good, like a nice murder-mystery book and I can recommend them to anybody who likes Visual Novels where your decisions shape the story and where one wrong choice can lead to your or another person's death. There are multiple endings, but I think you can make it to the best "happy ending" on your first playthrough if you make the right decisions and guesses. After you "beat" the story once, additional scenarios and side-storys open up and further expand the story/playtime. I wouldn't even call it a "game" since 99% of it is reading; there are no puzzles to solve, only decisions to make.
A few minutes ago, I finished Kamaitachi no Yoru 2 on the PSP, liked it a whole lot and did a google search for a portable version of the third game which I might have missed on my first buying spree. To my surprise,
Aksys released an iOS version of the first game on 24. January. The game has been renamed to "
Banshee's Last Cry" I'm pretty sure this is
the first time that the game has been available in English, I couldn't even find a fan-translation.
If you're looking for a good detective story in the vein of 999 and are in the mood for a nice murder-mystery that need some solvin', give the game a shot. It looks like the app is free and you unlock the whole game via an in-app purchase of $3,99.
http://www.aksysgames.com/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/banshees-last-cry/id740139977?mt=8
Sorry for the long post, but I feel like this series seriously needs a shout-out. If this game is successful, there might be a chance for other Chunsoft iOS ports to make it over here, like 428 (a man can dream ;-)