The release for Corpse Party on the 3DS promises to be every bit as creepy as the 2011 PSP version (a remake of the 1996 original), with even more added extras. Don’t be fooled by the old school 16-bit graphics, this is a game masterfully crafted to show just enough restraint that each element sends players’ imaginations into overdrive, upping the creep factor.

The story follows a group of students and their teacher who perform a friendship charm for a transferring classmate. Things take a turn when a massive earthquake drags them into a dilapidated elementary school, which they recognize as a local school that was demolished years ago. Separated, the students try to find one another but instead realize all doors and windows to the outside are painted on the walls, and they are surrounded by decaying corpses, malevolent spirits, and deadly traps.

The obvious goal of the game is to find a way to escape the school, but with over 50 ways to die, it’s going to be a challenge. The game is divided into chapters, each with only one correct way to move on to the next. However, you can save at any point in the chapter, and if you’ve saved at a no-turning-back point, chapters can be reset from the beginning.

I played Chapter 2 with Yoshiki Kishinuma and Ayumi Shinozaki, who were near the entrance of the school. Shinozaki is sensitive to the evil spirits and repeatedly broke down as we came closer to questionable areas, effectively warning us as players to keep our guard up.

It was easy to explore as your party is represented by one person on the screen from an overhead perspective. It’s important to inspect everything and talk to everyone you encounter in order to find clues and solve environmental puzzles. To make the game even more gruesome, every time we inspected a dead body, we collected their student ID card in a sort of “catch ‘em all” type quest. Every ID card unlocked information about the student, accessed from the menu, revealing where they’re from and how they died.

A huge part of this game revolves around sound, so get out your best headphones. Small creaks, strange noises, and of course full voice acting (from the original Japanese track) all come into play to build the game's atmosphere. The sound was recorded binaurally to give you the effect of distant dangers and things coming closer as you progress. The whole mood is unsettling as sounds drift in and out, thunder suddenly hits, and death scenarios play out in full.

To prepare for the new 3DS release, XSEED updated sprites, added touches of 3D elements, and improved the UI. Newly translated dialogue felt more natural as well. The 3DS version also features four bonus chapters that should last around 30 minutes each.

If you’re interested in buying a physical copy of the game, XSEED will be releasing a special Back to School edition that comes with a figurine of both Naomi Nakashima and Seiko Shinohara (with interchangeable faces) and an 80 minute music CD. The game won’t be censored and will keep in all the gruesome endings from the previous versions, proudly holding on to their M rating for the western release.