Dead of the Brain (PC-98) Playthrough [English] - NintendoComplete
3,997A playthrough of FairyTale's 1992 horror adventure for the NEC PC-9801, Dead of the Brain.
Since the game was only ever released in Japan, I am playing using a fan-made English translation patch from Retronomicom. It appears that the project's page is no longer active, but if you'd like to play it for yourself, you can find everything you need at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VHVN9J_zrcUxqNGFmvO7zuTQofTU5tsH/view
Dead of the Brain is the first of three games released as part of the "Nightmare Collection," followed by both Dead of the Brain 2 and Marine Philt in 1993. The two Dead of the Brain games are perhaps most notable for being released together as heavily upgraded remakes for the PC Engine CD. "Dead of the Brain I & II" ended up becoming the final official release for the PC Engine platform when NEC published it in the summer of 1999.
Dead of the Brain is a Japanese-style graphic adventure, similar in style to games like Snatcher, Policenauts, and Cobra: The Space Adventure. It involves a lot of reading, beautifully crafted pixel art (the PC98 truly shines at 640x400 in 16 colors - it's amazing what artists achieved with it!), and a whole lot of zombie violence. It also includes a few scenes of, what is in my opinion, extraordinarily tasteless nudity (duh, it's a PC98 game after all). Please note that I've censored these scenes with a heavy mosaic blur in the playthrough.
The story begins with our "hero," a young guy named Cole, receiving a late-night call from his friend, the eccentric scientist Dr. Cooger. Ol' Coogs has made a huge discovery and asks Cole to come by his apartment immediately. It appears as if the doctor has perfected a serum that can bring dead things back to life, but just as he is demonstrating the process for Cole, the pair are interrupted by a cop who is responding to complaints the neighbors have filed about screaming sounds coming from the apartment.
The visit does not go well. The officer is killed, and Cooger and Cole escape the ensuing chaos to a nearby cemetery where, in a panic, the doctor drops the remainder of his serum and inadvertently creates a horde of undead that quickly overtake the town. Oops.
Over the course of the game, you explore several locations for clues, grill people for information, and solve a few simple puzzles in your attempt to figure out just what is going on. There are the occasional point-and-click shooting galleries that pop up at opportune moments (always shoot for the head!), but for the most part, the game is not looking to test your intelligence or your reflexes. It's just looking to entertain you with its story and its art.
And in my experience with it, it succeeded brilliantly. The story is as schlocky and as "dead of the brain" as you'd expect from this sort of setup, but it's hard to not be drawn in by the way the game frames it gorgeous, gratuitous set pieces. The gameplay portions mostly consist of pixel hunting and exhaustively clicking on anything of note, but the ridiculous plot developments keep it extremely entertaining throughout. I really could have done without a few of the more explicit scenes, though - like I said earlier, it has moments where it's totally tasteless in uncomfortable ways, so if you're easily offended, you should probably give the game a wide berth.
If the idea of an adult-oriented digital comic that has inherited its sensibilities from late 80s Japanese pop culture appeals to you, you'll adore Dead of the Brain. If not, then that title is really going to strike you as too apt before long.
I saved this one especially for Halloween. It's hard to imagine another game so perfectly suited to the holiday!
If you're in the mood for more Halloween-friendly games, you can find my fairly extensive playlist of them here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3gSj_kh1fHuN8U3j4lnYxDOPIpgoQNv3
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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