We reflect on a highly unusual addition to the Wii’s library, an official game based on Ju-on: The Grudge that’s also a haunted house simulator.
Haunted houses are amazing, unique bastions of horror. There’s an inherent fun to these experiences because at their best it feels like you’re in a horror film and in “danger.” Video games create a similar experience by letting players control the game’s protagonist, but there are still a whole bunch of controls and rules that don’t make this feel like a simple journey through a haunted house. Ju-on: The Grudge – Haunted House Simulator is a special exception to the rule because not only does it attempt to simulate that experience, but it tries to do so while steeping it all in “J-horror” elements. Ju-on: The Grudge – Haunted House Simulator is far from a successful endeavor, but it’s one that deserves attention for its messy ambition.
The announcement of Ju-on: The Grudge – Haunted House Simulator arrived as a pretty damn exciting surprise. It wasn’t just a first-person horror game for the “kid-friendly” Nintendo Wii, but it was touted as a unique survival horror experience that would recreate the feeling of exploring a haunted house. On top of that, the game had the luxury of the licensed property of Ju-on: The Grudge to fall back on, plus, it had the input and creative consulting of Takashi Shimizu, the director of the original Ju-on and Grudge films. That’s enough to raise anyone’s expectations, but it’s also the only video game to come out that’s based on the popular “J-horror” franchise. With so much going for it, it’s extremely disappointing that the Wii’s Ju-on: The Grudge: Haunted House Simulator is such a misfire.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this game is that it’s genuinely onto something with its concept, but it just fails to successfully bring it to life. Ju-on: The Grudge – Haunted House Simulator was billed as the first truly interactive survival horror game and while it technically qualifies, it’s funny to see how something like Resident Evil 7 VR completely blows this game out of the water in every aspect. That’s to be expected, but it’s interesting that the structure of this game has become replicated to greater success many times over as of late with VR survival horror titles or even something like P.T. where the entire point is to be stuck in a creepy environment. Ju-on: The Grudge – Haunted House Simulator technically led the way for these more groundbreaking games, even if it’s become an absolute footnote that’s been forgotten along the way. I mean, just look at that terrible, confusing PAL box art! The quote on the PAL box that “You’ll jump, laugh and cry…perfect fun!” is also very confusing. It sounds like the quote for a Sesame Street video game, not an iconic piece of J-horror. Nothing in that quote tells the audience that the game will actually scare them.
Ju-on: The Grudge calls itself a “Haunted House Simulator” and that truly is accurate in the sense that this feels like a demo or training exercise that ghosts need to go through before they’re ready for full-fledged haunts, rather than a complete game. It’s worth pointing out that at one point in production the game was known as Feel, but was still always intended to be a Grudge vehicle.
Ju-on: The Grudge was initially advertised to have ten hours of content, but if you take your time you’ll get through all five stages in two-and-a-half or three, easily. If you’re rushing you can breeze through everything in a little over an hour. It’s always a surprise when an episode suddenly reaches its endpoint. There are collectible document fragments that are scattered through levels in order to access the final episode. These add a touch of replayability, but otherwise there’s none to be seen here.
None of the scares change locations or differ on separate playthroughs, so the game’s always the same experience. Something as simple as minimal variety in that department could have given a ton more value to this title and it’s a major oversight, especially when Dreamcast games like Illbleed had randomized scares a decade earlier. Additionally, there just aren’t enough scares in something that advertises itself as a “haunted house simulator.” It’s more accurately an “item collecting simulator that takes place in a haunted house.” I admire so much of what this game wants to do, but it’s just a weird project that never fully comes together, in spite of some decent ideas that are present. Critics were also not kind to the experiment, with IGN, Famitsu, and Gamespot grading the title 2.5/10, 4/10, and 22/40 respectively.
In terms of presentation, the game’s opening cinematic, which features a real film introduction, is the most atmospheric aspect of the title. Unfortunately, this kind of falls apart when the gameplay that follows has very average graphics and looks more than a few steps down in quality from the creepy experience that kicks off the title. It promises something that it doesn’t deliver on, although each cut scene attempts the type of abrupt scares featured in the films. The music throughout the title is fine and doesn’t wreck the atmosphere, but it’s also nothing too memorable. With Takashi involved, it honestly would have been okay if he just reused any of the scores from his Ju-on or Grudge movies. Sure, it may still be a rights issue, but if anyone could make it happen, it’d probably be him. It may seem lazy, but it’d still be more effective than what’s actually present here.
Ju-on: The Grudge – Haunted House Simulator is directed by Daisuke Fukugawa of FeelPlus Games, but Takashi Shimizu is a strong voice here as a creative consultant. Fukugawa’s sole previous directing credit was on Magatama, an XBOX title set in medieval Japan where you control a twin blade-wielding knight. That lack of experience is perhaps most felt with Ju-on’s broken controls, which are one of its largest issues. The game only utilizes the Wiimote and the concept of waving it to mimic a flashlight makes a lot of sense, but then the game also requires you to use the Wiimote’s trigger to make your character walk. It’s such an awkward, counterintuitive gameplay design, especially when the nunchucks that feature a perfectly acceptable joystick are basically a part of the package. Some very basic changes could have fixed a lot of issues, but controls aside, this is still an extremely short game.
One of the tricks that the game resorts to is the implementation of QTE sequences, during the height of the game’s scares, to keep things tense. These still feel gimmicky, but they’re more effective than the casual sections of exploration. Some other moments require you to point the Wiimote’s target within a moving circular target and keep it within the parameters over a set amount of time to evade the terror. These segments typically feel tacked on more than they feel natural. There’s also some extremely minimal “puzzle solving” that’s present, but it’s hard to think that these “obstacles” could be considered a challenge for anyone. Players are required to collect batteries to keep your flashlight alive, which is an interesting idea in theory. It seems like being stuck in utter darkness in this haunted house would be the worst, but it’s never actually much of a real concern.
The Ju-on films center around a powerful curse that manifests when someone dies while harboring an intense anger or grudge. Anyone who then encounters that curse, whether the cursed location or another cursed individual, passes on that curse like a haunted chain letter. The game centers on a simple family in Japan who systematically get infected with this curse, after Erika Yamada brings it home to her family. Each episode of the game centers around a different member of the Yamada family as the curse takes them down. Each level is set within a new location and the game travels through an abandoned warehouse, hospital, apartment complex, mannequin factory, and then finally the cursed Saeki household. These locations each to try to bring a different kind of scare to the table, whether it’s a frantic tempo, static-y televisions, bouncing balls, or creepy mannequins. There’s one scare in particular that involves a bloody box that actually works.
The final “secret” episode that’s set within the Saeki household feels the most fully realized and in many ways it would probably work better if this episode kicked off the game. It’s a lot more relentless than any of the other episodes and you barely get a chance to collect yourself between each assault. There’s a scare that revolves around a peeking eye out of the page in a bloody book that connects really well. However, the idea that you can’t even get to this final level, which is the ultimate pay-off for Ju-on/Grudge fans, unless you collect all of hidden scattered article fragments is discouraging. This should have been included from the start and the reward here should have been an extra bonus level. Furthermore, the “game over” that’s shown after completion of each episode is pretty damn bleak. However, it’s appreciated that the overwhelming idea present here is that you can’t win against this ancient evil and the only retaliation is to eventually be consumed. There’s potential in a horror game where you’re unable to defeat the enemies and instead have to try to escape and survive, but this is not the way to do it.
The stages’ encounters with Kayako are definitely when the game is at its strongest and the scares that connect the most, but they’re still a mixed bag. The best examples of this happen in the final episode and include her infamous crawl down the staircase. Some involve disembodied heads that work pretty well, too. Most of the time that the game pulls off a scare that involves long stringy black hair, it also lands. That being said, there’s nothing in this that isn’t handled better in a Fatal Frame game. A lot of the creepiness comes from the title’s lighting effects, which is nice, but shouldn’t be the most impressive thing about this experience. Yet, there’s still cleverness on display here, like the inspired idea to have Kayako’s creepy death rattle noise come out of the Wiimote’s speaker when she’s close. This is the kind of thing that the game needs more of.
Ju-on: The Grudge – Haunted House Simulator remains a fascinating, yet flawed experiment that feels more in line with the fad of the Wii and its motion controls than an honest effort to create a gripping ode to the horror franchise. It’s not a complete disaster and with how short of an experience it is it’s worth giving a shot if you can. Sadly, it almost feels like this game was just five or ten years too early. A more polished version of this exact game fits in nicely with the current state of games that are out there, rather than the anomaly that it was back in 2009. The game may have not turned Kayako or Toshio into terrifying presences in the video game world, but it maybe turned a few more people onto the films, which is something. But who knows, with characters like The Spirit showing up in Dead by Daylight, perhaps an official return to The Grudge is just around the corner in the next generation of consoles.
