Livestream: Escape from Hotel Izanami is a 2D anime-styled horror puzzle game developed by qureate, the team behind the Fantasy Tavern Sextet series and KukkoroDays. Hotel Izanami was released on Steam 10th of June 2021.
Step into an abandoned hotel of Izanami in Japan and follow the story of three girls who dare to enter this cursed land in hopes of reaching fame via a Livestream platform by trying their luck on an audience interested in the supernatural. However, what first starts as an innocent idea to gain popularity soon turns into a chaotic night from which the girls must puzzle their way out, all while being chased by a bloody amusement park mascot!
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Hotel Izanami Gameplay
If you have played The Coma: Recut and The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters, Livestream: Escape from Hotel Izanami can feel quite familiar with its mechanics and gameplay design. Starting your dreadful adventure as one of the three protagonists, you will be roaming around creepy hallways and rooms searching for clues and items that will help advance to the next area of the hotel. In search of a way out of this cursed place, the hotel poses a threat of a supernatural level in which strange things can happen.
Fragile and helpless, the girls have no way to defend themselves and thus must run away from the danger that is the mysterious amusement park mascot chasing them across hallways at every given random opportunity. To avoid his attacks, the player must find a place to hide and wait for the mascot to leave, only to soon face the threat again and again which quickly turns into a tedious easy pattern to avoid rather than an exciting chase sequence which the game is heavily based around.
Story
Online streamers Mio Ikoma, Nana Sakurai and Azusa Shiraishi travel to the locally famous haunted resort, the Hotel Izanami, at Nana’s request to shoot a video there. It would be a film shoot at an average haunted location with no particular legend attached. To finish shooting without a hitch and get an end result that was vaguely horror-esque…was all they wanted.
During filming, Mio gets separated from the group, and suddenly gets attacked by a mascot costume that has come to life. From that point on, the trapped girls are at the mercy of numerous horrors throughout the hotel. Why is a mascot trying to harm them, and why have they been shut into the hotel with no escape? Can the three girls escape from the hotel with their lives?
A livestream set in an abandoned hotel begins…
– Qureate
Hotel Izanami is a typical horror story not trying to reinvent the wheel but rather providing a stereotypical horror easy to digest even by the less daring audience with a weak heart for the supernatural. No disturbing level of blood is featured and the game is free of gore as well. Not heavy on jump scares either, Hotel Izanami appears to be designed to create a thrilling atmosphere over a scary one.
The main protagonists are fully voice-acted and partly animated, with a rich library of well-crafted facial expressions and movement that makes the visual novel sections enjoyable to read and follow.
Characters
Scattered from the beginning, you will start your creepy adventure through the halls of Izanami as Mio (seen in the middle) but eventually get to play as Nana and Azusa as well once found. Despite being able to swap between the characters by a simple press of a button, none of the girls provide any form of unique playstyle or reason to switch between for other than their appearance.
Puzzles
The three female protagonists of the story often find themselves in trouble which the player must puzzle them out of before death consumes them. Within these Point & Click sections, you must discover the right environmental points of interest that hold the key to the character’s successful escape. Though very simple by design, the puzzles can be somewhat challenging at times, some requiring an item that you may have found earlier.
In between the character-specific “escape death” type of puzzles, the player is faced with less threatening puzzles that may task them to find a missing key for a locked door or an important item to use elsewhere. These puzzles are often guided by surprising moments of supernatural phenomena that keep the player on the edge of their seat.
Save system
Livestream: Escape from Hotel Izanami is a type of game that does not offer checkpoints but rather encourages the player to manually save as often as possible by discovering rooms with a phone inside. Even though phones can be plentiful and easy to find, the system itself is not well thought out as some sections can be quite long before the chance of accessing a save-phone, and within these sections death can present itself in the most unexpected and unfair ways that can leave a bad taste in the player’s mouth, not encouraging to keep going.
Situations, where an item is required but not in the player’s possession for having missed it for a reason or another, can feel most punishing as these provide no chance of retreat. Instead, the player is forced to watch the entire sequence till unavoidable death and then retrace their steps back to this moment hoping to be wiser from the experience.
While The save system of Hotel Izanami is not a unique case by any means but rather something used in many puzzle-based survival horror games, it still can be a deal-breaker for many not wishing to frustrate themselves with constantly having to find save points or face an unnecessary amount of lost progress.
Hotel Izanami Adult Content
Livestream: Escape from Hotel Izanami is not a hentai game but something that teases its players with ecchi content that despite its complete lack of lewd action can be quite appealing at times. Unfortunately, however, it is not strong enough to be recommended as a reason for purchase.
The three female protagonists are prone to sexy trouble that awaits them in the Hotel Izanami. Every time-based “escape death” type of puzzle is an ecchi one in which the characters pose in a way that reveals their cleavage or panties in all their delicious glory. Despite the nice view, the player should not expect to see any actual skin as clothes are something that always stays on. During these moments, the girls’ sensitive places can be touched to enjoy a light reaction, but unfortunately, the novelty wears off just as quickly as it is introduced.
Whether the game will receive a PC exclusive nudity patch later is still unknown but not far-fetched as the developer is no stranger to providing NSFW and SFW versions of their games which include; TroubleDays, NinNin Days, NekoMiko, KukkoroDays, and Fantasy Tavern Sextet – Basically all of Qureate’s games thus far.
Overall, Livestream: Escape from Hotel Izanami is a beautiful-looking game with the unfortunate mention of many gameplay design mistakes which tarnish its chance to be warmly recommended, though recommended it still can be to selective few who enjoy anime-styled horror for the sheer atmosphere over quality gameplay.
It should be noted that this was qureate’s first attempt at providing a horror puzzle experience, an actual game outside their heavy text-based visual novels that usually provide no gameplay at all. Through this project, qureate’s next one may be a welcome improvement worthy of praise and applause.
For more exciting horror experiences, check out Sense – A Cyberpunk Ghost Story and SiniSistar.
