Onsen Nozokimi Daisakusen

Onsen Nozokimi Daisakusen is a rhythm video game published by Atlus on July 2, 2008, as part of a promotion for their then-upcoming role-playing video game Persona 4. An Adobe Flash game, it is played through the web browser on the official Japanese Persona 4 website.

The minigame involves the player clicking to the beat of the music to spy on the Persona 4 character Chie Satonaka in the women's side of an onsen hot-spring bath, through a hole in the middle partition. The game took inspiration from how the player visits a bath in Persona 4, but its scenario is otherwise not connected to Persona 4. The game was popular, but saw mixed reception: some were baffled by the concept and the game's existence, while some enjoyed it.

Gameplay


Onsen Nozokimi Daisakusen is a rhythm minigame in which the player, located on the men's side of an open-air onsen hot-spring bath, tries to look into the women's side through a hole in the middle partition to spy on the Persona 4 character Chie Satonaka while she is bathing, while avoiding getting caught.

To do so, the player must repeatedly click with the mouse on the hole to the beat of the music, in double time, to fill up a heart gauge. They have to avoid clicking too rapidly, which results in Chie noticing them and calling them out on being a pervert; but if they on the other hand click too slowly, the fifteen-second timer will run out, and they lose their chance to look any further. Completing the game earns the player illustrations of Chie bathing, and the option to play through a second challenge where they receive an illustration of Chie bathing with Yukiko Amagi, another Persona 4 character.

Development and release
Onsen Nozokimi Daisakusen was developed in Adobe Flash, and took inspiration from a sequence where the player visits a bath in Persona 4, although the scenario is otherwise not connected to Persona 4 plot. Siliconera described it as part of a trend of Japanese video games having Flash-based demos, while noting that Onsen Nozokimi Daisakusen does not actually act as a demo.

The game was published by Atlus on July 2, 2008, as a browser game playable on the official Japanese Persona 4 website, released as part of a promotion for the Japanese release of Persona 4 the following week, together with wallpapers and new trailers. In 2015, Atlus released ''Hanate Wotagei! Rise no Dance Battle, another browser game with similar clicking gameplay but different theming, to promote their rhythm game Persona 4: Dancing All Night''.

Reception
Onsen Nozokimi Daisakusen was popular and well liked, according to NLab, who also noted that their review of it was their most-read article of the week. Hayato Ikeya, writing for the same site, found the game shocking as a long-time fan of Persona, considering it uncharacteristic for the series; despite his initial reservations, Ikeya found the game fun and exciting, and enjoyed the ending. GameSpark merely expressed bafflement at the game's existence when summarizing the domestic game industry news of the week.

Wataru Katou, another NLab writer, described the game's peeping conceit as "a foolish male mentality" and as something that would be illegal to do in reality, but said that he understood the appeal of wanting to see something when you are forbidden from doing so. Wired called it perverted but sexy, and something to tide Persona fans over while waiting for Persona 4, describing the gameplay as simple but hard to master, and were themselves unable to finish the game; New Akiba recommended those who do not want to complete the game to instead watch a video playthrough. Wired described the sequence where Chie notices the player as "[verging] on insane"; Ikeya said that he and his colleagues found the sequence more exciting than the rewards for winning.