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Kamaitachi no Yoru,[a] released in English as Banshee's Last Cry, is a visual novel developed and published by Chunsoft for the Super Famicom in 1994. The game is the second sound novel by Chunsoft and brought a myriad of other companies to develop similar games. The term "sound novel" was a registered trademark, but is regarded as a genre.
A remake, Kamaitachi no Yoru: Rinne Saisei, was released for PlayStation Vita in 2017 and ported to Windows in 2018.
Gameplay
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The player reads the text on a gamebook and acts only through options that are given by the game. Each options leads to a slightly different story, with multiple endings being available after going through certain routes. Events related to the text are shown in the background, with animation being used a couple of time.
Plot
The game follows the characters Toru (Max in the English localization) and his girlfriend Mari (Grace in English), who stay at a ski lodge when a snowstorm takes place. Later on, a threat was sent in the form of a paper at another guest's room, with it written "Tonight, at midnight, someone will die". One of the fellow lodge guests are killed thereafter and the characters are drawn into a murder mystery, while being cut off from contact with the outside world.
The game was revealed alongside a contest for readers to write related storylines. Ten of such stories were published in a book titled Anata dake no Kamaitachi no Yoru (あなただけのかまいたちの夜; lit. "Your Own Night of the Sickle Weasels"). This book was a success. A similar competition started upon the release of Kamaitachi no Yoru 2. It went out of print after many years, but was re-published when the sequel came out. The game was written by Takemaru Abiko.[1]
Music
Kōjirō Nakashima and Kōta Katō composed the game. The soundtrack gained significant popularity and was reused in television shows about Aum Shinrikyo. Two songs, "Sequence" and "Two People Return Alive", were used for the fourth volume of Orchestral Game Music Concerts.
Graphics
Background images included the lodge in Hakuba, Nagano Prefecture.[2] Exceptions are the background for bathrooms and the wine cellar, which were done with miniatures. All characters have silhouettes. The game changed the setting (including its graphics) to British Columbia.[3]
Releases
Banshee's Last Cry was released for the Super Famicom on November 25, 1994.[4]
The game was ported to PlayStation on December 3, 1998 and for Game Boy Advance on June 28, 2002.[6] It was released in 2002 on SoftBank Mobile on April 1, and on PC on July 1. i-mode released it on January 30, 2004. The story had minor changes for the script of Kamaitachi no Yoru × 3 for PlayStation 2. It was later ported to other consoles, and was released on the Virtual Console service in Japan for Wii in 2007 and Wii U in 2013.[7]
The two-hour drama series was aired by Tokyo Broadcasting System on July 3, 2002.[15]Kamaitachi no Yoru 2 was released on July 18 of the same year, and the first edition of the game contained a bonus DVD of the entire drama. Like the radio drama version, the television is not a rendition of the actual game (the premise is that the fans gathered to shoot a film based on the game, when one of the characters is killed).[15] It was available at Hulu Japan.[1]
Banshee's Last Cry was received with great scores throughout its many releases.
The game sold 1.25 million units with remakes and ports in April 2002.[18] It sold 750,000 units for Super Famicom[19] and over 400,000 units for PlayStation.[20]
In August 2016, Spike Chunsoft conducted a poll on whether the players would purchase the game released on Steam.[21] While this game did not receive any further port to this day, Kamaitachi no Yoru x3 received a port on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Steam exclusively in Japan in 2024, as part of the franchise's 30th anniversary; only the main story of Banshee's Last Cry is present in the game.[22]
Legacy
Due to its positive reception, sequels were developed later on, with Kamaitachi no Yoru 2 (2002) and Kamaitachi no Yoru x3 (2006). Other Sound Novel games developed by Spike Chunsoft were also made in-between following its succes, with Machi (1998) and 428: Shibuya Scramble (2008).
Numerous crossovers and references to the game was done after its release. The Danganronpa franchise uses blue silhouettes for background characters, inspired by this series. No Sleep for Kaname Date – From AI: The Somnium Files features a couple of chapters based on the game. As part of their 30th anniversary event, the game had a crossover with Street Fighter 6, featuring characters and a sub-story based on it.[23]
↑ "週間ファミ通 12/11号"[From Weekly Famitsu 12/11 Issue]. Chunsoft (in Japanese). Archived from the original on December 10, 2000. Retrieved September 23, 2025.
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