Livestream: Escape from Hotel Izanami

Livestream: Escape from Hotel Izanami is a unique game that captures different elements from many different genres. It’s in part visual novel, in part horror, and also has puzzle elements. If you’ve ever wished you could combine all your favorite game types together into one, this exciting game may be right up your alley.

The game features 3 main characters, Mio, Nana, and Azusa. These girls are online streamers who are visiting a haunted mansion in the hopes of entertaining guests with a spooky time. Things go from a pleasantly spooky time to true horror however, when a pig mascot begins pursuing them. If this sounds familiar, it’s exactly the same plot as Creeping Terror, just add panty shots.

Solve puzzles and watch the story unfold

You’ll have to use clues to escape the mansion, and then watch as the story unfolds. Most of the time as you walk through the mansion the hallways are silent, but when the pig is pursuing you with his giant knife, he bangs it as he’s running. This gives you just a few seconds to decide if you’re going to run or not, and where to. If you don’t move in time, you’re killed and have to start at your last save point. These kills are also the most shockingly brutal part of the game, and act as a jump scare if you weren’t already terrified enough by the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, these moments also have a fatal flaw to them. If the pig kills you, you have to go back to your last save point. This means if you get a new item and don’t want to solve an earlier puzzle yet again because you died, you have to save a lot. Although this might not seem like much, constantly interacting with the save menu because you’re afraid of sudden death can cause some of the tension to break. There needs to be a happy medium, and this isn’t quite it.

Short but fabulous visual novel scenes

The developers truly made a special effort in the visual novel sections of the game. Although these sections are very short, the quality of them is top notch. The text shakes to show fear in the characters, and their expressions perfectly capture what they are feeling at that time. Although it doesn’t take long for these scenes to play out, they get straight to the point and let you find out right away what is going on in the scene.

Some mildly Ecchi scenes

During the game, there are sections with the characters posed in sexy ways, giving you panty shots and lewd poses. These sections can be as short as you want them to be, but even if you’d like to look a little longer aren’t all that long. There’s nothing outright hentai about these scenes, but if you’d rather not look at girl panties you can skip these scenes.

Pros:

• Very balanced horror game
• Exciting visual novel aspects
• Beautiful artwork

Cons:

• Constant saving can be tedious