Ju On: The Grudge - A Haunted House Simulator

Ju On: The Grudge is a survival horror game that was developed for the Wii by feelplus and directed by the same creator of the films, Takashi Shimizu. The game was produced in honor of the Ju On Series' 10th anniversary and was published in japan on July, 2009 by AQ Interactive and 3 months later in North America (Xseed Games) and Europe (Rising Star Games).

The game tell us about a curse that is born when a person with a really deep grudge dies. The curse is manifested when a person finds the course by talking to a person who is already cursed or entering the house of the person who died and created the curse. In this case, we know that the victim is an average housewife that was killed in Nerima, Japan and that gave rise to a powerful curse that would kill everyone who makes contact to it. A girl named Erika Yamada is exposed to the curse while she was searching for his dog in a warehouse and she puts in danger her entire family when she goes back to home and that will be the beginning of the challenge where every member of the family will fight for the freedom.

We will start in a warehouse and go through other 4 stages where we need to walk around with a flashlight that runs out of battery really fast and unless we want a "game over" screen we need to search for more batteries and the idea of exploring a creepy place without being able to use any weapons or something to defend ourselves isn't really pleasant to know. The way we control our character is the reason why this game doesn't have a good rating nowadays and believe me, it was so hard to play even after playing 3 stages, I just couldn't get used to it and every time I needed to press a button or do specific actions my mind doesn't remember which was the right thing to do and I ended up screwing things a lot of times but at least I had fun moments thanks to that. Sometimes we will need to open doors and that's where all the tension goes in, because even if is predictable that something can appear after you open the door we will still be scared, and even if we open the door and nothing appears we will still be nervous waiting for something to pop up. The sounds are for me one of the strong points in this game because if you play this game alone at night the sounds will make a really good work in making you feel really uncomfortable and increasing the scary factor of every second you are playing the game. The ambient is a strong point too, every stage has is own touch that will make you try to escape from there as fast as possible.

We will go through a Warehouse, a hospital, a Mannequin Factory, an Abandoned Apartment Complex and the Saeki Residence. Every scenario will have a different family member that will be the playable character.

I played this game a long time ago, maybe 6 years? I don't remember how much time passed, but the experience I had is just unforgettable. Lights out, 3 AM, TV sound volume up and there you go, a kid trembling with fears encouraged by his friend to continue playing despite the fact that the controls and fear were killing me every second, but still somehow manage to have a good moment at the end of the day. I really don't know what scared me more, I'm between the sounds of the girl (Kayako) or the little appearances of the kid (Toshio) but I'm sure that the first time I had to go into that elevator I ended throwing the control. Something that I enjoyed too was watching people on youtube playing it and getting scared just like me, good times.

Despite the really frustrating way to control the character, repetitive gameplay and the slow paced of the game, it has a good atmosphere and things that are really enjoyable as a game or as the people call it, a Haunted House Simulator, however, for mmm maybe 4 hours of gameplay isn't worth buying it for a large amount of money, still a good experience.