Dennou Eizou Seisakusho - Hellnight (1998)

 

Composer: Rick Hilman, Ryōhei Tomoeda, Kinsō, Minehiko Tanaka, Naoki Watō, Harumi Fujita and Masataka Kitaura
Console: PSX
Game Release Date: 1998-06-11
Bootleg Release Date: 2020-10-12
Ripper: Hiandbye95
Runtime: 55:19, 33 Tracks

Hellnight is a PlayStation one horror game developed by Dennou Eizou Seisakusho. As far as I know Hellnight is a standalone game, but I will admit it looks like it could be a sequel to another on of Seisakusho's games, deSpira. In Japan the game was called Dark Messiah. Because of another more popular game called Dark Messiah I will not be titling this release that. 

Anyways, the game is a first-person horror exploration game in the same control scheme as the King's Field games. Anyone who has played KF will feel right at home. The game opens with the unnamed protagonist riding the Tokyo subway late at night. A terrorist cult blows up the subway. The protagonist is stranded in the sewers with a schoolgirl called Naomi Sugiura. Together they make their way to an area underneath the city called "The Mesh". The Mesh is a huge underground bunker and settlement that the Japanese army built during World War II and then abandoned. It was to house Tokyo and the army in the event of a mainland American invasion. Now the two of you must escape The Mesh and get back to the surface. Some of the residents of The Mesh are worried about some monster running around. Without spoiling too much I can say that it gets crazy. 

The game features multiple endings depending on which sidekick you stay with the entire game. You start off with Naomi but if she dies then you get the chance to get other partners to beat the game with, each with their own abilities. You can get a serial killer, Russian soldier, journalist and more. Naomi's ability lets you be able to see the monster on the map, making it very easy to avoid him. In my run I only really got caught a few times. I won't say much about the other ally abilities but having the ability to fight the monster is awesome, especially with many horror games just chalking it up to you having no chance of survival. Hellnight at least gives players a chance and eschews the typical run and hide mechanics that most horror games have. The ending is determined by which ally you bring to the end. 
While in the Mesh you get to explore the old bunker of the Japanese army and interact with the wayward residents of the Mesh. You will help solve some of their problems while they help you escape the cult and the monster. The game creates this entire city below Tokyo with its own ecosystem and quirks. 

The game isn't too hard depending on which ally you have. If you are going for a specific ending, then it could become difficult to survive especially if they have a weak gimmick. Beating the game with Naomi is probably the easiest way due to her ability to see the monster. You hear him? Check the map then just walk the other way. You can only save the game between areas so worst case, restarting only sets you back a little bit. 

The only thing that annoyed me was near the end the monster kept spawning in a specific place and you are never told your ally has a different ability when you interact with the monster now that only works in that one spot. I also didn't like how the map didn't fill itself up enough as you walked about. You had to brush every corner just to complete the map. It gets annoying when I see holes in the map when I'm lost and waste time going there just to see a dead-end, I didn't fill. Ah well, at least having a map helps. If you are with Naomi the gameplay can get boring as she can see the monster. For a good chunk of the game I didn't see the monster because I just went the other way. I only did a run with Naomi. 

I beat Hellnight just two weeks ago on the 28th. I usually prefer to watch LPs of these types of games, but I was told it was similar King's Field, so I had to try it out. I started playing it on and off back in July. It wasn't that difficult especially with Naomi's ability. I also loved how crazy it got towards the end. I had some guesses, but I wasn't expecting that. It reminded me of Nemuru Mayu. Hellnight is like an unofficial sequel to ...Iru!. Much better looking through. If you want an obscure PSX horror game and you can't speak Japanese or zTranslate then try Hellnight. I ran it through RetroArch with slight upscaling and it looked wonderful. 

Wikipedia list the composers as Rick Hilman, Ryohei Tomoeda, Kinso, Minehiko Tanaka, Naoki Wato, Harumi Fujita, Masataka Kitaura. Quickly going over what each person as done. Ryohei Tomoeda appears to be an ocarina player and runs a blog now. It also looks like he has a 1994 album called Solo Yang-Chin. Minehiko Tanaka possibly has a 2001 solo album called Mineral Fantasy. Harumi Fujita is an accomplished composer who has worked with Atlus and Capcom. She is mostly known for her work on Mega Man 3, Pulstar, Tomba and the new Streets of Rage game. Assuming it is the same person Masataka Kitaura is a member of the synthpop group Cocott. I can't find any non-Hellnight info for Rick Hilman, Kinso and Naoki Wato. I am guessing they were employees at Dennou Eizou Seisakusho. As for Dennou Eizou Seisakusho, they did a lot of work with Atlus and aside from weird 3D games like this and deSpira also worked on Shin Megami Tensei. Their last game was Growlanser III in 2001. It's likely they were just absorbed by Atlus. 

Okay, this post is getting way too long but that’s to be expected for a game I just beat. I have a lot to write. Okay! The music is dark ambient. It’s actually similar to broken transmission music in it just being a short piece looped a few times. The music really evokes that feeling of loneliness and isolation. I really like Command Center which is this slow and somber instrumental. I can't find anywhere where it is stated who composed what track. Examining the game ISO didn’t help either. 

The game was ripped by YouTuber, Hiandbye95. I tried ripping the music myself but ran into issues doing so. Thankfully he sequenced each track for his playlist. The soundtrack was never released officially so this is the best we got. 

Quality is 128kbps MP3s which is low, but it's not that higher from the original files. It's a PSX game the music was either fully sequenced or massively compressed. I have appropriately tagged the release and that is what you will get below. The cover for the release is the photo above.

Download: aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZpbGUvWEpwVlNRU0ojbURNUGltdlNBbDMwZGtCRmFtUnpvRnotcndlWTZubkQwOXhQbmNzeUMyaw==
Stream: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6B683DDAEC78D7F0
p@ss: allalonenow