White Day: A Labyrinth Named School | Xbox Review

Classic survival-horror games have started making a comeback in recent years. The nerve-shredding lack of resources, the malicious enemies, the genuinely tense atmosphere… it’s delicious and something I hadn’t realized that I’d missed. Sonnori has crafted a fantastic entry into the genre, and if you too have had the itch to play a game in this vein, White Day: A Labyrinth Named School is here to scratch that with an added Korean horror twist. It successfully honors the titles that came before it, in both the best and worst ways.

Totally A Normal School

In White Day, you are placed in the shoes of Hee-Min. Hee-Min is a new transfer student to Yeondu High, and he has a major crush on his classmate So-Young. He wants to give So-Young candy for White Day (a holiday where boys and men gift candies to the girls and women who gave them treats on Valentine’s Day a month later), but he’s too chicken to present them to her face-to-face. He decides to sneak into the school at night and leave them in her locker, but of course this isn’t your typical establishment of learning. So many horrible tragedies happened to take place here, and now ghosts inhabit the halls of Yeondu High.

A Hell of a Night

Your goal is to get Hee-Min the heck out of this hellish school, but it’s not a simple task. You have to contend with possessed, murderous janitors who are all too eager to slay you and ghosts that love to scare the bejeezus out of you with jump scares. To progress, you must find certain objects and solve puzzles (some timed). Puzzles are mostly easy to solve if you take the time to thoroughly search everywhere for documents. These documents tell you the solution to many of these brain teasers, and also give fascinating background lore on the school and the ghosts that inhabit it. I loved finding these pages and learning about the horrid history of Yeondu High.

As with many other survival-horror titles reminiscent of the classics, health resources are scarce and you’re only able to save if you have felt-tip pens on your person and you’re at a billboard. Finding pens was honestly one of the most difficult parts of the game for me, and I only found about seven during my entire 11 hour playthrough on Normal difficulty. You’ll need to allocate a good chunk of time for each play session of this game if you aim to partake in it. While playing, though, you don’t need to worry about losing too much progress if you die. The game does have checkpoints, and you’ll be respawned to that section. Just don’t quit your game if you do die. I learned this the hard way and lost over an hour of progress.

Stuck in Purgatory

I adored the horror elements in this game. The ghosts in White Day follow the traditional model of most Korean horror films: grey-faced women with long black hair hanging in front of their faces and creepy children. Some of these ghosts can (and will) harm you, but others that you encounter are just there to give you a heart attack from their sudden appearance and then disappear for the remainder of the game. I highly encourage you to play this with headphones. The eerie music, random atmospheric noises, and disembodied voices add to the terrifying experience.

The janitors, on the other hand, are more annoying than scary. Sure, the first couple of times that you’re spotted and relentlessly followed by one of these men is nerve-wracking, but they soon just hinder your progress. It takes them forever to leave the vicinity (sometimes several minutes), and they occasionally would get stuck on an object in the environment. The only way to fix this issue was to purposely walk in front of them, triggering them to come after you. These scenarios always either ended in me dying or having to run an extreme distance to shake them. I also encountered a few instances of Hee-Min moving after I had stopped pressing the thumbstick forward and of the reticle being a bit finicky to control. These were minor issues, but did hamper the experience a bit.

There are ten different endings, and to unlock each of these, you’ll need to finish each difficulty level twice and choose different dialogue options during each playthrough. The ending I received was intriguing, yet not satisfactory. I’m curious about the other endings, but I don’t know if I could personally go through this game nine more times to unlock them.

The Final Verdict

White Day: A Labyrinth Named School harkens back to classic survival-horror games while adding fresh twists with its nods to Korean horror films. This is a challenging experience even on Normal difficulty, due to its lack of resources and the murderous janitors hindering your progression. I had a blast playing this and it thoroughly creeped me out, but only the most die-hard fans will be inclined to unlock all the different endings. If you’re looking for a truly scary game to play during spooky season, though, this is an excellent choice.

 

This review is based on an Xbox Series X copy of White Day: A Labyrinth Named School provided by PQube for coverage purposes. It is also available on Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Google Play, and PC via Steam.