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Forum index » Diversions » Console/Video Game Discussion

Forbidden Siren: an interesting take on zombies
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PaleFigure
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Joined: 12 Nov 2002
Posts: 168
Location: Wollongong, NSW Australia

Forbidden Siren: an interesting take on zombies

Only just started playing this game recently, and while my initial reaction was a little cool, I have found it very rewarding to stick with.
We've all played some form of "town overrun with zombies" style game, be it Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or one of many others, but Forbidden Siren is a little unusual.

For a start, you hardly get any backstory at all, you are dropped into the gameplay knowing very little of what is happening, and pretty much have to piece it together as you go. The fact that you get those pieces from multiple characters in a fractured chronology doesn't much help either.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The story starts in the small, quaint village of Hanuda in Japan. It's one of those places that doesn't have much to do with the modern world, is rather isolated and has been quietly living so for many years. Then one night, the night of some kind of important religious ceremony, something happens.
The village is surrounded by an ocean of blood-red water, and a strange siren wails through the night. The villagers, drawn by the sound, wade out into the water, and return shortly thereafter as pallid, bleeding-from-the-eyes undead called Shibito. Only a handful of villagers and visiting outsiders are unaffected and now they must try to survive, and find out what has happened.

That's pretty much all you get for scene-setting, the rest unfolds as you play. What makes this game different from most zombie slash/shoot fests is the fact that much of the time your character is unarmed. Or, they are escorting an NPC who is unarmed yet must be protected. FS is much more a stealth exercise than outright combat. Add to that the fact that the shibito cannot be killed, only incapacitated for a short time. Eventually, the unearthly water running through their veins revives them to stalk you anew. So if you are lucky to find some ammo, save it for when you need it!
The one special ability the characters have to help them avoid the shibito is a psychic power called "sightjacking", where you can connect with the mind of another person/shibito and actually see through their eyes. Often you will need to sightjack a patrolling shibito, wait until you see it turn away from where you are hiding, then make a mad dash to the next bit of cover.
But the shibito are far from the mindless, shambling "uunnnhh, braaaaaains!" style zombies. They are attentive and watchful, will pursue you if they spot you, and (perhaps worst of all) will cackle and giggle with delight at your discovery. Elude them ,and they roar with rage. Get up close, and you'll actually see their facial features twitch and contort in hideous spasms as they raise their sickle to attack.
And did I mention the snipers? Rifle-toting shibito hidden on rooftops or on bridges, always waiting to take a shot at anyone who wanders into their field of view?
And that's all while the shibito are still vaguely human. On the second day...

Which brings me to the whole chronology thing. the events in FS take place over 3 days, but you don't play contiguously through those days. You might control one character escaping through a mountain pass at 15:32 Day 1, then next stage be a completely different person entering the village market at 08:43 Day 1. And things you do in the "past" can unlock new events in that same location later on. One example:
A shibito is in a room guarding an object you must acquire. It is armed, and opening the door results in it immediately shooting you dead. You need to distract it somehow. In the room outside are two shelves near each other, a large freezer and a piggy bank. You know that if you make a noise, the shibito will come out and investigate, and you can get by it, but how to do that? A breaking piggy bank would do the trick, but how to set it up so you have time to hide and wait for the shibito to emerge? The freezer is the key. In an *earlier* level set in this same area, you have another character soak a handtowel in water and place it in the freezer. Then, in *this* stage, you take the frozen towel, place it between the shelves and put the piggy bank on it. Hide somewhere out of sight and sightjack the guard shibito. In a short while, the towel thaws enough to let the piggy bank fall to the floor, and you watch as the shibito rises from its seat, opens the door and goes to look at the noise. you silently creep into the room and grab the object, sneaking out again before the shibito returns...
Some of the puzzles are quite devious, and some of the "key" events you have to trigger in order to make later stages possible are somewhat obscure, but the game eventually gives you a subtle hint if you continually miss them.

As for the truth behind the siren and red water, and the source of the zombies, I'm still trying to find that out. I've uncovered some information that suggests one possible theory, but there's also a possible second explanation becoming apparent, too. Plus, I've just started getting into the Day 2 stages, where the shibito are mutating (evolving?) and becoming stronger, faster, and recover from being knocked out sooner. I have an entire village of unholy monsters against me, and I'm playing a 16 year old schoolboy armed with an old poker. No sweat, right?

Oh, and one final word of advice: don't get *too* attached to all the characters you play. I'm just saying, is all...

http://www.forbidden-siren.com/

P.S. I do have one *major* criticism, the voice acting is GOD-AWFUL! What possessed them to use British voice talent I'll never know, but it sounds so incredibly out of place that it isn't funny. And at least one of the characters is so incredibly annoying that you'd gladly hand-feed her to the shibito just to SHUT HER THE F*@K UP!!! Personally, I'd have preferred them to keep the original Japanese voices and just use English subtitles. Actually, having subtitles would have been a nice inclusion anyway, as some of the dialogue is spoken quite softly and can be hard to hear.

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Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:05 pm

vortech
Unfettered

Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 465
Location: Atlanta, GA

It's sold under the title "siren" in the U.S.

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Occam's Razor tells us that Occam was boring, so I'm going with the epidemic theory
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:42 pm

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