Horror games are finally leaking out here and there. Corpse Party (review here) made it to the Switch fairly recently, games like Shinrai and Shadow Corridor have dropped on the console and the occasional spectacular visual novel like World End Syndrome have been coming out. It’s a slow trickle but it seems like most of the titles are pretty good and the horror genre is finally getting some attention in games.
The Letter from publisher EastAsiaSoft and developer Yang Yang Mobile adds to that list and does so admirably. We recently put out an article talking about some of the content in The Letter here, and while that particular problem is a misstep, the game itself is absolutely spectacular! In The Letter, you start off playing Isabella, a real estate agent in Cardiff, Wales. Your job is to sell a mansion with a sordid history that’s reputed to be haunted. It’s been remodelled and looks spectacular but it’s a bit scary and wandering around in it alone makes Isabella nervous. Eventually, she encounters something rather unearthly and finds a chain letter, telling her that death awaits if she doesn’t share it.
While this plot sounds hokey, rest assured that the complex and interesting dialogue more than makes up for the cliché setting of the game. Isabella is well-written and interesting and the supporting cast of the game is equally well-done. They have to be, because through the course of the game, each chapter leaves you playing a different participant in the story, from rich and fluffy Hannah to Zach, the artistic photographer and even the detective Ashton. Each has a unique perspective and way of thinking that makes the journey through The Letter that much more satisfying.
But there’s more going on than just a simple kinetic visual novel here. The Letter is absolutely laden with choices! Your choices have an impact on the overall direction of the game, experiences that the characters have, and ultimately where the story goes. With a myriad of branching pathways, it would be almost impossible to get the exact same experience more than once while playing The Letter and that’s absolutely fantastic. We’re talking about a script that’s over 700,000 words and features literally hundreds of branches that have a significant impact on gameplay. That’s pretty darned impressive. The best part is that you really feel like you’re making the choices here too, really adding to the immersion of the game.
Speaking of immersion, The Letter also does something that isn’t common for most visual novels. The entire game is fully voice acted as well! Every single line of dialogue is fully voiced in English for Western audiences and the voice work is quite good too. Yang Yang has done an amazing job translating The Letter and almost all of the English script flows well. With a game that’s only $20, this level of voice acting and script work is uncommon at best and was definitely an unexpected pleasure!
The Letter also looks fantastic. We recently took a look at Shinrai for the Switch and the comparison between the two games is night and day. Shinrai looked like a rough college project and the lush visuals in The Letter absolutely make the game. It’s a great looking game with luxurious mansions and great backdrops, as well as dark and terrifying monsters that absolutely ooze ambience and inhumanity. Yang Yang nailed the visuals on this one and they also manage to have a unique vibe to them, standing apart from standard Asian designs for visual novels.
You’re here for the horror too though, and The Letter delivers there too. What some players might not like is that the game features a number of Quick Time Events (QTEs) requiring you to hit a series of buttons in order or fast enough to survive your encounters with the supernatural world. Good news for anyone who hates QTEs (and lots of people do); they’re entirely optional in The Letter! At the beginning of the game, you can choose the include or exclude the QTEs and play according to your preferences. This review used the QTE sequences, and they’re interesting to say the least. By far, this is the most challenging part of the game and many players might have to repeat the QTEs a few times to succeed, as you’re not prepared and don’t know what buttons to hit right away when they suddenly activate. Either way, you’ll be fighting off ghosts or reading about it and it’s fun either way. Adding a bit of stress at key points with QTEs really heightens the fear in this excellent multi-faceted ghost story and they’re a great addition to an already solid game.
You’ll be playing through seven chapters in The Letter and on the Switch, chances are good that you’ll be playing portably as well. While touch input works on The Letter, it’s not the best integration. You can use touch to advance text, but unlike other VNs, you can’t just touch anywhere on the screen. Instead, you must inconveniently touch the actual text to advance it, and the text is fairly small, leading to double tapping or repeated tapping because you missed the small target area for tactile interaction and it is not delineated onscreen. Function options don’t work with touch either, and saving, loading, script logs and other functions still require button presses.
The Letter has quite a few functions available, including a journal log that saves a refresher narrative of what’s happened along with helpful dates, loading and saving that can be done at any time, a list of characters, and most interestingly, a path-branch map. For any chapter you’ve completed or are playing, you can view the path map up until the point which you are current4ly at. This allows you to see what branches you’ve missed but doesn’t actually say what they are, avoiding spoilers. It’s a neat system and really drives home how complex the game is. However, the function area of the screen is a bit cluttered at the bottom right and if you don’t move your cursor all the way to the right, it does kind of get in the way of the text, a minor graphic design flaw. Moving it all the way to the quit area is best, but you do run a small risk of accidentally quitting out of the game at that point. Highlighting the chosen option might have been a better solution, but either way, it’s not a game breaker!
This is an interesting horror game that definitely sucks you in and burns the hours as you play through its utterly massive story. The Letter gives you your money’s worth and then some , with higfh quality visuals and voice acting, an excellent script, and more than a few scares! Ultimately, while it’s not as constantly intense as a game like Corpse Party, The Letter brings a creeping horror slowly to life through the intertwining of seven characters in a way that really manages to stay with you, even after the game is done. That’s the kind of story-telling we should be getting more often and Yang Yang should be commended for their excellent work here. This is a great horror visual novel and it’s well-done on every level. While there are a couple of questionable words, by and large the game is outstanding, and even goes so far as to address some interesting social issues while making you look over your shoulder when the floor creaks! The Letter is a game that should be played alone in the dark, gnawing at the edges of your psyche. Enjoy…just don’t pick up any random letters lying on the floor in your house!
This review was based on a digital copy of The Letter provided by the publisher. It was played on a Nintendo Switch in both docked and undocked modes and was excellent in both. The Letter is also available on mobile devices, PS4, Xbox One, and PC on Steam.