Banshee's Last Cry

Kamaitachi no Yoru (かまいたちの夜), released in English as Banshee's Last Cry, is a visual novel developed and published by Chunsoft for the Super Famicom in 1994. The game is the second sound novel by Chunsoft and brought a myriad of other companies to develop similar games. The term "sound novel" was a registered trademark, but is regarded as a genre.

A remake, Kamaitachi no Yoru: Rinne Saisei, was released for PlayStation Vita in 2017 and ported to Windows in 2018.

Gameplay
The player reads the text on a gamebook.

Plot
The game follows the characters Toru (Max in the English localization) and his girlfriend Mari (Grace in English), who stay at a ski lodge when a snowstorm takes place. One of the fellow lodge guests are killed and the characters are drawn into a murder mystery, while being cut off from contact with the outside world.

Development
The game was revealed alongside a contest for readers to write related storylines. Ten of such stories were published in a book titled Anata dake no Kamaitachi no Yoru (あなただけのかまいたちの夜). This book was a success. A similar competition started upon the release of Kamaitachi no Yoru 2. It went out of print after many years, but was re-published when the sequel came out.

The story was written by Takemaru Abiko.

Music
Kōjirō Nakashima and Kōta Katō composed the game. The soundtrack gained significant popularity and was reused in television shows about Aum Shinrikyo. Two songs, "Sequence" and "Two People Return Alive" were orchestrated for the fourth volume of Orchestral Game Music Concerts.

Graphics
Background images included the lodge in Hakuba, Nagano. Exceptions are the background for bathrooms and the wine cellar, which were done with miniatures. All characters have silhouettes. Banshee's Last Cry changed the setting (including its graphics) to British Columbia.

Releases
The game was ported to PlayStation on December 3, 1998 and for Game Boy Advance on June 28, 2002. It was released on SoftBank Mobile on April 1, 2002, and on PC on July 1, 2002. i-mode released it on January 30, 2004. The story had minor changes for the script of Kamaitachi no Yoru × 3 for PlayStation 2. It was later ported to other consoles, and was released on the Virtual Console service in Japan for Wii in 2007 and Wii U in 2013.

Aksys Games released the game in English for iOS entitled Banshee's Last Cry in January 2014. It was translated by Jeremy Blaustein.

Changes

 * PlayStation version
 * A flow chart was added and choices were colored according to whether choosing in previous arcs
 * The player may replay the scenes
 * Vibration added
 * Two stories were added
 * Changes in unlocking the extra storylines and parodies
 * Improved graphics
 * Added background information on characters
 * Game Boy Advance version (comparison with PlayStation version)
 * The characters were changed after the ones for the sequel
 * A commercial message for the sequel can be unlocked
 * No vibration
 * Two extra stories were excluded after lacking cartridge spaces
 * Some minor changes in the script

Remake
A remake developed and published by 5pb., Kamaitachi no Yoru: Rinne Saisei, was released in Japan for PlayStation Vita in 2017 and ported to Windows in 2018. The remake has a new Japanese cast, new art by Sharin no Kuni: The Girl Among the Sunflowers artist Alpha and an additional scenario written by Ryukishi07.

Radio drama
A radio drama was released on Compact Disc. The characters appeared in a different storyline with terrorists trying to acquire WMDs somewhere in Nagano. It stars Hikaru Midorikawa and Yumi Tōma.

Television drama
The two-hour drama series was aired by Tokyo Broadcasting System on July 3, 2002. Kamaitachi no Yoru 2 was released on July 18 of the same year, and the first edition of the game contained a bonus DVD of the entire drama. Like the radio drama version, the television is not a rendition of the actual game (the premise is that the fans gathered to shoot a film based on the game, when one of the characters are killed). It was available at Hulu Japan.

Reception
Famitsu scored the Game Boy Advance game 31 out of 40, and for Super Famicom for 30 out of 40.

The game sold 1.25 million units with remakes and ports in April 2002. It sold 750,000 units for Super Famicom and over 400,000 units for PlayStation.

In August 2016, Spike Chunsoft conducted a poll on whether gamers would like to see Kamaitachi No Yoru released via Steam.