Reviews of the best indie games and horror games

[Review] The Karaoke – Chilla’s Art Japanese Horror Game

There’s finally a horror game about singing Karaoke, and the horror is not the bad singing. The Karaoke (ヒトカラ) is a Japanese horror game developed by Chilla’s art where two high school students plan to go singing after school. Warning that this game does have themes of r**e and s**cide. If you have issues with these, you may wanna pass on this one.

It’s a usual Chilla’s Art horror game to start. You shoot some hoops in a dark, spooky school at night with your friend. Until the coach comes out and yells at you. Strange he’s here this late too. Turns out he’s the antagonist of the game, a super creepy p**o that tapes the locker room and goes after girls from the school.

Besides ghost Moeka, The Karaoke is another one of Chilla’s Art games that strays a bit from the supernatural. Which is good, I enjoy the variety. Hearing the coaches deep, Japanese horror voice is seriously unsettling in the last part of the game where you need to hide. There’s a few good spots where he seemingly can’t find you. Unless I just got super lucky. The lights cut, his voice sounds closer, and it would be an absolute traumatizing experience to live through.

I also always like to see the supporter content included. This time it’s custom CD art that can be found in bins throughout some parts of the game. It’s a pretty good variety of Japanese style horror, and all very fitting for The Karaoke.

Singing Mini Game

Karaoke singing mini game

The songs were pretty catchy, despite me not knowing Japanese. They’re upbeat and something new. The game is definitely tough to keep up with. There’s a lot of options to change it to your liking though, by switching the keys to A, S, D, or the delay amount.

Also there’s an easy mode if you’re just plain bad or don’t care to be too competitive like me. Either way, it doesn’t affect the outcome of the game in any way. So play how you like!

Final Thoughts – Should I Buy?

The Karaoke coach being arrested

While I like the concept of The Karaoke, there’s a few spots that could use some polishing. Plus the plot is heavily flawed in some areas. Like Mira being totally oblivious to every super alarming phone call her friend makes. Not to mention the odd behavior of her friend, and her missing for some of the endings. Anyway, she is a high school girl and it could just be a part of her being gullible and being manipulated by the coach.

Besides that, some of the animations are clunky. Like Moeka running into a wall… the stabbing ending where you get instantly teleported across the place. Small things I know, but it’s noticeable. As always though with Chilla’s Art games, the aesthetic was excellent. As well as the Karaoke horror game theme. It’s a comfortable place, before everything goes wrong and the game gets super dark.

The game does give you plenty of hints to get all of the endings which is nice. Most ending scenes show you where you need to go to see the others. With The Karaoke, it’s themes probably turned a lot of players away, however it’s fitting for horror. It’s realistic (the plot at least) and pretty messed up. If you enjoyed the game, you should check out other games by Chilla’s Art like The Bathhouse or The Convenience Store!

The Karaoke All Endings and Story Explained

Creepy coach taking the camera from you
Take a step back pal..

There are 6 endings to The Karaoke. It’s a wide variety of good and bad endings. There’s one best good ending, and a worst bad ending in my opinion. If you follow the game as it’s presented to you, you’re most likely to get ending 6. Where the coach catches Moeka sending you a photo of him supposedly assaulting her. He finds out and knows you’re at the Karaoke place, and comes to kidnap you.

Watching in horror on the CCTV, he breaks in the back to abduct you. So you phone the police and have to hide for 4 minutes until they get there! This is one of the good endings where the coach gets caught and has to face… the music.

If you’re extra observant when sneaking around, you get a shot at ending 5. There’s a key up front where the employee was before. It’s the key for the janitors office which has a knife in it. So… you sneak up behind the coach and stab him good. Mira has to live for the rest of her life with the guilt of killing someone. She’s cleared of any charges for self defense though. However, an end game cut scene plays… where the coach watches you from afar behind a fence.

It’s getting late…

To get a bunch of the other endings, you have to look at the clock in the gym and tell Moeka it’s getting late. After cleaning up you can get what is probably the second best ending, which is ending 2. Where you find Moeka’s key in her locker after she leaves. She’ll be outside where you tell her you found her key so she doesn’t have to go back. You go and sing at the Karaoke, without ever having to deal with the coach. However this results in him never being caught from the events of the day.

In the other endings, a scene plays that shows a camera under one of the benches in the girls locker room. After cleaning up, you’re able to interact with it. When you find it, the coach comes barging in to take it. Except he probably didn’t expect you to still be here. You get ending 3 by not telling him you saw it and then leaving the school. He stops you after going through the gate, and now it’s a race to the police station.

This isn’t exactly a good ending though, since the coach doesn’t get caught. His fingerprints weren’t on the camera. Only yours since you picked it up. It doesn’t make much sense though, the dude was chasing you there. Pretty bad police to overlook that.

The Karaoke ghost Moeka calling you from outside

Probably the worst ending is ending 4. Where you tell him you found the camera, and give it to him. Then he kindly tells you he’ll drive you home. It turns out how you expect, I won’t go into details but you basically become his next victim. Mira lives the rest of her life with the awful experience on her shoulders and can’t trust men ever again.

Finally, the best ending is arguable ending 5. Where you tell him you found the camera in the locker room. Go into his truck and open the glove compartment, where there’s a binder. It’s filled with pictures of girls from the school… This starts another race to the police station like before and this time he gets exposed and jailed.

3 thoughts on “[Review] The Karaoke – Chilla’s Art Japanese Horror Game”

      • First of all, thanks for your reply.
        According to Mira’s narration In ending 1, the coach was taken to the hospital but he didn’t make it. However, things which cannot be explained in science happen in this world. Plus, there is no indication that whether the coach watching from the distance is Mira’s illusion. Thank you again for your reply.

        Reply

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