Siren New Translation/Blood Curse

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Story-wise yes, she did seem like she was the obligatory "tough chick" of the characters because of her aggressive attitude and fierce determination to protect her daughter. But gameplay-wise she wasn't that much different from Amana other than the fact that she could perform those special attacks on shibito like the male characters. But she still wasn't able to use two-handed weapons like Sol's video camera or the scythes and garden hoes found in the church yard, and when fighting shibito unarmed she performs that ridiculous open palm slap.

But like I said before she does at least get that ability to perform special melee attacks on shibito so I guess that makes up for it a little and helps her to stand out as the toughest of the female characters. Amana shouldn't be that tough because she's a nun yet she was still able to use weapons because she is an adult female, and it makes sense for Bella not being able to fight because of her age. Miyako on the other hand, it does feel kind of silly that she's almost the same age as Howard and has to be babysat. It made more sense when Kyoya protected her in the first game because she was blind and therefor was unable to see to defend herself (and was much younger too), but in this game she's a little older and has no disabilities so she really doesn't have an excuse for being so helpless. However I think maybe they were trying to be true to her character from the first game, in both games her role was the mysterious damsel in distress who leads the protagonist deeper into the darkness of the village and she aids him with her strange powers while he tries to protect her from the shibito and the Mana cult.

Anyways I guess you're kind of right that it seemed unrealistic that the entire Japanese village was wiped out in a matter of minutes and only two Japanese characters survived yet they both ended up dying in the end. However I guess it can be argued from the fact that the buildings looked so old and ruined that when the Americans arrived the village was stuck in time and the villagers had been trapped there for a long time giving the shibito more than enough chances to kill them all. The evil god Kaiko seemed to be controlling things in the village so maybe Seigo and Miyako were spared so that they could play the role they were supposed to play in the story? After all in the first half of the game when certain characters died who weren't supposed to time just reversed back to the first day. The village is trapped in another dimension where the normal rules of time don't apply so anything is possible. Plus it can also be answered by the fact that this game was simply intended to appeal to American gamers, which in my opinion isn't nessecarily a bad thing.

One of the things I liked best about this game was how each character was similar to one or a combination of characters from the first Siren game.

Howard was like Kyoya because he was a teenager with a fascination for dark things and he came to the village after hearing about all the weird stuff that happened and ended up causing the siren to sound by interrupting the cult's ritual. Also because he was the one to protect Miyako and ended up avenging her death by destroying every trace of the village and the shibito in the end.

Sam was like Professor Tamon because he was a college professor who studied cults and mythology and because he was the one who figured out what was going on in the village and attempted to stop it but was too late.

Seigo was a combination of Shiro, Jun, and Akira. Shiro because he was the village's doctor who was a bit insane and liked to experiment on his patients and also murdered his girlfriend who was a nurse, Jun because he was an adobted member of the family who was involved with the cult, and Akira because he was an expert marksman with a shotgun and at one point attempted to kill himself to escape the village but realized everyone who dies in the village becomes a shibito.

Bella was a combination of Harumi and Tomoko. Harumi because she was the same age as her and gameplay-wise plays exactly the same way, and Tomoko because she has a strained relationship with her parents and at one point became a shibito without realizing it.

Melissa was a combination of Naoko and Reiko. Naoko because of the fact that she was a TV reporter visiting Hanuda to do an episode about the legendary cursed village and had an almost equally overbearing personality, and Reiko because of the fact that she was extremly protective of a 10 year old girl and gave her life to save her.

Sol seemed to be based off the Hanuda Elementary school principal, he was a character who dies pretty early in the game and comes back as a shibito who stalks the youngest character.

Amana was based off of Hisako because like her she was a nun who gained immortality by eating the flesh of a dying god and was cursed to remain trapped in the village until she could find a sacrificial lamb to restore his body. Both Amana and Hisako started off as benevolent characters who wanted to help people because they had suffer from amnesia but once they regained their memories they became evil and determined to resurrect their evil gods.

Miyako of course is the same Miyako from the first Siren with the exception of the fact that this time she is slightly older and is no longer blind. She's the mysterious girl that the Mana cult wants to offer up as a sacriface to their evil god and her blood somehow makes people immune to the shibito curse.

There's also the tolkien cop shibito and the nurse shibito who eventually becomes a brain shibito.

Can't really say that the shibito have been around for a long time. They start to rise just as the ceremony is interrupted. And they only begin to mutate some time later. It all began with the nurse. You could imagine though that much of the town was at that ceremony, and it's such a small place that the virus would spread quickly anyway.

I don't know what you mean by "obligatory tough chick". I liked her character. It didn't seem cliche or anything.

My favorite thing about the game was the ability for characters to remember certain things about the previous iteration. It seemed as though this was only possible if that character survived last time. You could see that the mother skipped the mine entirely and made straight for the hospital. Bella, the dad and black guy all died last time and maintained their original pathway. It's a shame the black guy was destined to die no matter what. He was in such a dangerous place at the start of the loop. And Howard pushed him into the Shibito to escape for himself. Bad luck

Even Seigo Saiga made his way to the watch tower again, where he encountered different characters this time around.

This game would have been amazing if there were just a few more iterations. Would have been better if the main character slowly accumulated knowledge/experience over a long period of time, instead of solving the problem so quickly.

The only question I have about the events in the game is, where the hell was the Shibito Nest meant to be? Did they build it up around some part of town while the other characters were hiding, or something? Was it always there?

But the thing is the village is stuck in some sort of time loop, and most of the shibito were villagers from the 1970's when the village was destroyed and the American TV crew arrived at the abandon village in 2008 where they got sucked into the otherworld where the village was surrounded by a sea of blood and the buildings that were destroyed by the earthquake in the 70's reappeared looking badly ruined.

The 70's and year 2008 seemed to merge together in that otherworld, and the village itself looks like it has been abandon for a long time. So the time in the village must be screwed up, maybe the characters only saw villagers being murdered on the first day and then time just sort of speeds up after that day? After all the portion of the village Howard was in on the first mission where he saw all those people being murdered by the shibito cop didn't seem as old and abandon as the rest of the village does in later missions.

Also by "obligatory tough chick", I just meant that every survival horror game like Siren New Translation with lots of playable characters tends to have at least one strong female character such as Alyssa Ashcroft in Resident Evil Outbreak or Ashley Thompson in ObsCure. I didn't mean anything bad by it.

As for the Shibito Nest, in the first game it was built over the entire Hanuda village as a way to shelter the god Datasushi from sunlight because sunlight injures him. This game didn't really explain if Kaiko was allergic to sunlight or not but maybe the Nest was built just to hide him from the survivors so they wouldn't try to destroy him? That's all I can think of.

I didn't notice any difference between the buildings at the start and all the rest. If I ever play it again I'll keep an eye out for it.

Was Kaiko even alive before the ritual towards the end? I always assumed that Amana summoned an incomplete version of it.

When was the Shibito nest built in the original game? Did the characters manage to hid inside of it as it was being built? And how many time loops were there?

Yeah on the very first episode where you play as Howard you will see that the buildings don't look quite as ruined as they do in the rest of the game. The shibito cop chasing him was driving a police car that didn't look dirty and damaged like the rest of the cars in the game, and the house where Howard enters with all the murdered villagers still has a TV going and the house, while it looks trashed (possibly from the shibito cop killing everybody), doesn't look old and ruined like the other houses in the game.

Also Kaiko wasn't alive, Amana had killed him years ago when the village had suffered a famine and she ate him out of starvation which is what caused her to become cursed with immortality. Amana had spent many years trying to ressurect his body by offering human sacrifaces such as Miyako. But Kaiko still existed in a way and was the one who brought the curse on the village.

As for the shibito nest, in the first game it was built on the last day when the game took place. The same with this one. The characters never notice it until the final day and that's when they decide to go inside. It doesn't really cover the entire village, just the area with all the shops and houses close together. I don't think the first game really had any time loops like this one (except when Hisako falls into a time portal and gives the head of Datasushi to her past self so she may complete the ritual). Basically in this game time was messed up when Howard arrived in the village and disrupted the secret ceremony that took place over 30 years earlier. In the end of the game Sam had fallen into a portal that sent him back to the 1970's when the village was destroyed and Bella was sent back many centuries earlier where she became Amana by eating the flesh of Kaiko. Sam realized that the only way to make sure his daughter exists forever is to send an email to Howard and make sure he goes to the abandon village to disrupt the ceremony so that the events in the game can repeat themselves over and over and Bella will keep being sent back in time to become Amana. Howard never escapes the village because he was given Miyako's blood which keeps him from becoming a shibito but also curses him to where he can never leave. So his role is that he is trapped in the otherworld for eternity and always destroying the shibito to avenge Miyako's death (much like Kyoya did in the first game).

I've managed to collect every story and weapon archive.

That's the one thing I love the most about the Siren games is the archives. They're fun to read and help peice together the story in each game. The weapon archives in this game are cool too, I think the funniest weapon has to be the Hanuda Bowling Trophy because of the fact that it's supposedly cursed. I mean who would keep a cursed bowling trophy? XD There's also the irony that all the characters are cursed to begin with so I don't think the bowling trophy will do any worse to them for picking it up.

Also for some reason I love the weakest weapons in the game such as the umbrella, mattress beater, water ladle, and plastic recorder. It's funny the idea of somebody using one of these things to whack a shibito across the head with them in real life.