Famicom Mukashibanashi - Shin Onigashima - Kouhen (Japan)

"Famicom Mukashibanashi - Shin Onigashima - Kouhen" is the second half of a two-part graphical adventure released for the Famicom Disk System in 1987. Published and developed by Nintendo, this title is part of the Famicom Mukashibanashi series, which adapts traditional Japanese folklore and ghost stories into interactive narratives. The game was released exclusively in Japan, and its text-heavy menus and dialogue are entirely in Japanese, reflecting the era's focus on local storytelling. It uses the FDS's rewritable disk to save progress, a novelty for console games at the time.

The gameplay is built around exploration, conversation, and puzzle-solving. Players move a character through hand-drawn scenes, selecting verbs like "Look," "Talk," and "Use" from a command list to interact with the environment and non-player characters. The story draws on Japanese oni mythology and involves exploring a haunted island, gathering items, and unraveling a mystery. Progression is nonlinear to an extent, with multiple locations to visit and secrets to uncover. The interface is menu-driven, typical of early graphic adventures, with the D-Pad used to navigate choices and the A button to confirm actions.

Today, Shin Onigashima - Kouhen stands as a notable example of Nintendo's early foray into narrative-driven gaming, predating many of its later adventure and RPG experiments. Its atmosphere, rooted in Japanese folklore, gives it a distinct flavor that Western players rarely experienced at the time. For retro enthusiasts interested in the history of adventure games or the FDS library, this is a worthwhile curiosity, though a basic understanding of Japanese is almost necessary to play it without a guide. It is not a flashy action title, but its deliberate pace and eerie tone reward patient players.