Kinki Spiritual Affairs Bureau starts out kind of like a Fatal Frame game where you play as a "schoolgirl" investigating a creepy village where all of the people disappeared and only vengeful spirits remain. She enters a house and spirits appear - oh no - but instead of whipping out a camera, she pulls out an assault rifle and guns them down. Thus begins your adventure as a former military specialist disguised as a schoolgirl - because helpless looking schoolgirls are the best spirit bait - where you investigate what happened to the village and end up uncovering a vast government wide conspiracy.
It turns out, at least initially, that Sadako - yes, from the well - and other spirits were called to the village by Hanako - yes, of the toilet - to live in the village. Why? Well, yadda, yadda, yadda conspiracy. I don't want to spoil it. Despite leaning into some of these famous Japanese horror myths and legends, the game isn't scary at all. It's ridiculously hilarious instead. It's very slapstick comedy inspired. Your character's interactions and conversations with the spirits are just over the top and crazy. The dialogue overall reminds me of the infamous Ghost Stories anime English dub where they just say insane stuff you don't really expect.
The game is only around four hours long, so I don't want to go into too much detail on the story or gameplay. I will say that there is a section that is very Metal Gear Solid-like where you have to sneak into a base undetected. And then the second half of the game is basically Call of Duty, but with shrine maidens and a schoolgirl and spirits that are all girls for some reason.
I do have to say that the game kind of plays like ass, though. It's bad. Like, really bad. It's a third-person-shooter that barely functions. Hit detection is awful. You'll clip through walls and get stuck on objects. There are turret sections where you can't see anything, and a vehicle section in a tank-thing that only sorta turns kinda. And some of the sequences are really, really, really difficult, too, mostly because the gameplay just can't keep up with the ambition of the scenarios. I died a lot.
And, you know what, the way the story is told totally sucks. It's all just text on the screen over a cutscene, and you have to press a button to advance and the scene stops entirely until you press the button, but you can't actually press the button until the game lets you so it makes the pacing horrible and everything very awkward. It's just, literally, the worst possible way to tell the story.
Despite the putrid storytelling and barely functional gameplay, however, I was still absolutely hooked from start to finish. I just wanted to see what crazy thing would happen next. That's what I mean when I compare it to Deadly Premonition. It sucks, but you can't tear yourself away.
It certainly doesn't hurt that Kinki Spiritual Affairs Bureau is only $13, which is pretty much the perfect price for it. For thirteen bucks you're getting four hours of ridiculously entertaining nonsense and 1000 easy Xbox gamerscore. It's simultaneously one of the worst things I've played all year, but also one of the most entertaining and memorable experiences I've had in a while. Put it all together and Kinki Spiritual Affairs Bureau is a brilliant piece of true art that I highly, highly recommend.
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