In the freeware game Hello? Hell...o? you play as Kazuki, an average man, with an average life. He works from nine to five, and how he pays the price! All he wants is to be left alone in his average home. So why does he always feel like he's in the Twilight Zone? And I always feel like somebody's watching me! And I have no privacy! Oh whoa oh!
Alright, jokes aside, let's talk about this game. Hello? Hell...o? is a short, Freeware horror game made in RPG Maker. And when I say short, I mean "takes you an hour at most" short. In it, as I said before, you play as Kazuki, a man who, one night, goes to a room and sees several strange happenings around him. The room he is in is haunted you see, by the spirit of a woman named Akari. As the player plays through the game, some details emerge that help explain the haunting somewhat: basically, Akari used to be Kazuki's girlfriend before she died in a car accident.
The game is unique in that practically every thing leads to an 'ending'. Answer the phone? You get an ending. Drink wine? That's an ending. Sleep? That's an ending too. And then, after you get your ending, you start over again. It's basically "New Game+: The Game". And like any regular game with New Game+, every time you start again, something different happens. For example, if you answer the phone when it rings, on your next game, you'll find a letter on the ground. Read that letter, and on your next ending, the rug in the room is green instead of yellow. Go to sleep, and on the next game you'll start next to the bed instead of through the door. And so forth.
The story is as follows: One night, Kazuki enters a room and hears his phone ring. He picks it up, no answer. Phone rings once more, Kazuki picks it up. No one answers, but a shadow appears behind him. Kazuki, however, keeps insisting that it is Akari who is calling him. Kazuki reads Akari's diary, which explains how Kazuki missed their sixth anniversary due to a business trip, the two got into a fight because of it, but Akari will still pick him up from the airport once he arrives. Kazuki starts talking to himself, apologizing to Akari. Phone rings once more. No answer, but a letter appears on the floor. Kazuki picks it up, and it reads "I'll be coming for you tomorrow." Next day, Kazuki opens the door, and in walks Akari's ghost. Depending on what the player chooses to do, he'll either scold Akari for haunting him (and die), or he'll embrace Akari, tell her he loves her, and then promise her to be together forever. That's the happy ending.
And like all endings, you're taken back to the title screen, where normally you'd start again. But this time, it's different. You can't start another game, because the option is grayed out. Why? Because the game says Kazuki died. When you close the game window and open it again, you start another game...as Akari, not Kazuki. And no less than three seconds into the game, you are killed by Kazuki's ghost. Then you start again, as Kazuki, as if nothing ever happened...
Why? You had the happy ending, right...? Well, you had a happy ending, yeah, but only from a certain point of view. Once you start another game, you are given a letter, and it changed everything you knew until now: the fireplace is the connection point between two dimensions. So now, we have some Chrono Cross level confusion going on.
Turns out, there are two dimensions. In one, Kazuki is alive and Akari is dead. In the other, the inverse is true. But the way both ghosts don't act the exact same. Kazuki's ghost is far, far more hostile and murderous, while Akari's ghost seems to be seeking more your attention. Why? More on this later.
When Kazuki confronts Akari's ghost, the player should head to his phone. Here, Kazuki will call Akari, tell him he's still alive and he wants to live his life, and that she should let him be. Akari's ghost disappears, and on the phone...is Akari. In the other dimension.
Kazuki's call is the sole deciding factor on Akari's survival on her mode. When Kazuki calls, his ghost on this dimension doesn't immediately burst into her house and kill her. Instead, he knocks on her door, moving menacingly towards her once she lets him in...and is saved again by...
Kazuki, who extends his hand through the fireplace, begging her to take it. As she grabs his hand, the living Kazuki and Akari are reunited and exit the haunted room, leaving behind the ghost Akari and Kazuki, who also crossed the dimension. The two ghosts look at each other, little hearts pop up above their heads, and the last words of the game appear: I wish for your happiness.
So...what the hell happened here? The hell was this? At first glance, it seems like an average ghost story, and in fact, until Akari is made playable, it IS just a normal ghost story. But it isn't, and yet it is. Let me explain.
The game continuously drops hints regarding the nature of the story, in bits and pieces. The single most revealing thing, however, is the diary. In it, the game explains that Kazuki missed his anniversary with Akari, the two had a big fight about it, and two weeks later seemingly made up, before Akari was killed. What does Kazuki do after reading her diary? He apologizes.
Kazuki missed his anniversary because of work. Kazuki fought with Akari because of this. Akari's ghost doesn't kill Kazuki unless he ignores her. But, why then does Kazuki's ghost kill Akari? The game drops a piece of information that really helps put into light Kazuki's character.
If the TV in the room flashes red, the player will actually get to read the fight between Kazuki and Akari. And frankly, Kazuki was an ass. Kazuki blows off Akari, saying that he can't control when he has work and when he doesn't. He does not apologize to Akari, and in a moment that made my jaw drop, he excuses himself by saying he hadn't missed a single anniversary until that moment, so he should be excused from missing this one. Akari had a dinner planned for him. She had a date all set up. And Kazuki said THOSE words.
So, why then does Kazuki's ghost attack and kill Akari, while Akari's ghost doesn't try to kill Kazuki? Well, the thing is, Akari DOES, but she seems to seek his attention more. Ghost Akari wants Kazuki to acknowledge her BEFORE she kills him, while Ghost Kazuki is just more direct and kills Akari without wasting time. The reason for this lays in the fight the two had.
Ghost Akari is still angry with Kazuki because he ignored her wants, and thus she seeks his attention, before ultimately killing him. Ghost Kazuki, on the other hand, is just an angry spirit, a being whose anger at his girlfriend for stressing him out further and questioning his love for her. A revealing contrast exists between the two ghosts; while Ghost Akari is blue (a color associated with gentleness or sadness), Ghost Kazuki is red (the color of love or anger).
The only way to get the true ending of the game, the one where Kazuki and Akari are reunited, is for Kazuki to wish to continue living and telling Akari precisely that...through the phone. Why through the phone? Because the phone is how Ghost Akari, until that moment, had been alerting Kazuki of her presence. Him talking to her on the phone is him taking control of the situation, showing her that he is not going to allow his past actions to haunt him. He is still alive, he still has a future, and although he will always love her, she's gone now.
But then, why is it the living Akari who receives this call? Because she needs to hear his voice. Because, even though her Kazuki is dead, her heart still calls to him. But the ghost haunting her is murderous. And unlike Ghost Akari, Ghost Kazuki has no regrets tying him to the world of the living. Only his rage keeps him tethered to this mortal realm. And yet, he refuses to attack her when Kazuki calls. Why?
I believe that, deep down, Ghost Kazuki still loved Akari, and he wanted to kill her so she could be with him forever in death. Likewise, I believe that Ghost Akari still loved Kazuki, and wanted him to be hers forever. But Akari wanted to see if Kazuki would pay attention to her, unlike in life, so she tested him. But she understood that he needed to go on, that it was unfair to kill him. She knew she was still alive in the other dimension. And that's why, in a letter, she tells Kazuki about how the fireplace connects the dimensions.
How do I know she planned this? It's that one letter, the one that tells Kazuki about the fireplace, that convinces me she did. Every letter Kazuki receives in the game comes from her, so is it a stretch to believe THIS letter was sent from her as well? Of course not!
Everything Ghost Akari did was a test, to see if Kazuki would treat the other Akari better than he treated her. The game can only progress if Kazuki immediately answers the phone. If, when Ghost Akari comes to visit Kazuki and he takes too long to answer the door, the fireplace will become lit, sealing the connection between both dimensions. Kazuki needs to answer the door immediately, but he needs also to tell Ghost Akari that he wants to live.
So, what's the deal with Ghost Kazuki? Well, he's everything negative about Kazuki. Akari is haunted by the angry Kazuki, the unreasonable ghost out for her. He is a monster, one that needs to be stopped. She needs to be saved from this monster, and the only person who can is the wiser, calmer Kazuki, the man who learned from his past mistakes. Thus, Kazuki pulls Akari away from his Ghost counterpart and her dimension, and runs away with the living Akari, leaving to begin a new life together.
Yeah, I noticed the unfortunate implications too. I'll let the feminists and MRA's deal with that one.
Hello? Hell...o? is an unusual story. It's a haunting, it's a love story. It's a story about regrets. It's a love story between two flawed human beings. It's an RPG with no combat, no menus, and only one room to explore. It's horror, it's romance. It's a short game that will leave a big impact.
Alright, jokes aside, let's talk about this game. Hello? Hell...o? is a short, Freeware horror game made in RPG Maker. And when I say short, I mean "takes you an hour at most" short. In it, as I said before, you play as Kazuki, a man who, one night, goes to a room and sees several strange happenings around him. The room he is in is haunted you see, by the spirit of a woman named Akari. As the player plays through the game, some details emerge that help explain the haunting somewhat: basically, Akari used to be Kazuki's girlfriend before she died in a car accident.
Akari's ghost, who would probably fit in the Blue Man Group.
The game is unique in that practically every thing leads to an 'ending'. Answer the phone? You get an ending. Drink wine? That's an ending. Sleep? That's an ending too. And then, after you get your ending, you start over again. It's basically "New Game+: The Game". And like any regular game with New Game+, every time you start again, something different happens. For example, if you answer the phone when it rings, on your next game, you'll find a letter on the ground. Read that letter, and on your next ending, the rug in the room is green instead of yellow. Go to sleep, and on the next game you'll start next to the bed instead of through the door. And so forth.
The story is as follows: One night, Kazuki enters a room and hears his phone ring. He picks it up, no answer. Phone rings once more, Kazuki picks it up. No one answers, but a shadow appears behind him. Kazuki, however, keeps insisting that it is Akari who is calling him. Kazuki reads Akari's diary, which explains how Kazuki missed their sixth anniversary due to a business trip, the two got into a fight because of it, but Akari will still pick him up from the airport once he arrives. Kazuki starts talking to himself, apologizing to Akari. Phone rings once more. No answer, but a letter appears on the floor. Kazuki picks it up, and it reads "I'll be coming for you tomorrow." Next day, Kazuki opens the door, and in walks Akari's ghost. Depending on what the player chooses to do, he'll either scold Akari for haunting him (and die), or he'll embrace Akari, tell her he loves her, and then promise her to be together forever. That's the happy ending.
And like all endings, you're taken back to the title screen, where normally you'd start again. But this time, it's different. You can't start another game, because the option is grayed out. Why? Because the game says Kazuki died. When you close the game window and open it again, you start another game...as Akari, not Kazuki. And no less than three seconds into the game, you are killed by Kazuki's ghost. Then you start again, as Kazuki, as if nothing ever happened...
Why? You had the happy ending, right...? Well, you had a happy ending, yeah, but only from a certain point of view. Once you start another game, you are given a letter, and it changed everything you knew until now: the fireplace is the connection point between two dimensions. So now, we have some Chrono Cross level confusion going on.
Turns out, there are two dimensions. In one, Kazuki is alive and Akari is dead. In the other, the inverse is true. But the way both ghosts don't act the exact same. Kazuki's ghost is far, far more hostile and murderous, while Akari's ghost seems to be seeking more your attention. Why? More on this later.
When Kazuki confronts Akari's ghost, the player should head to his phone. Here, Kazuki will call Akari, tell him he's still alive and he wants to live his life, and that she should let him be. Akari's ghost disappears, and on the phone...is Akari. In the other dimension.
Kazuki's call is the sole deciding factor on Akari's survival on her mode. When Kazuki calls, his ghost on this dimension doesn't immediately burst into her house and kill her. Instead, he knocks on her door, moving menacingly towards her once she lets him in...and is saved again by...
Kazuki, who extends his hand through the fireplace, begging her to take it. As she grabs his hand, the living Kazuki and Akari are reunited and exit the haunted room, leaving behind the ghost Akari and Kazuki, who also crossed the dimension. The two ghosts look at each other, little hearts pop up above their heads, and the last words of the game appear: I wish for your happiness.
So...what the hell happened here? The hell was this? At first glance, it seems like an average ghost story, and in fact, until Akari is made playable, it IS just a normal ghost story. But it isn't, and yet it is. Let me explain.
The game continuously drops hints regarding the nature of the story, in bits and pieces. The single most revealing thing, however, is the diary. In it, the game explains that Kazuki missed his anniversary with Akari, the two had a big fight about it, and two weeks later seemingly made up, before Akari was killed. What does Kazuki do after reading her diary? He apologizes.
Kazuki missed his anniversary because of work. Kazuki fought with Akari because of this. Akari's ghost doesn't kill Kazuki unless he ignores her. But, why then does Kazuki's ghost kill Akari? The game drops a piece of information that really helps put into light Kazuki's character.
If the TV in the room flashes red, the player will actually get to read the fight between Kazuki and Akari. And frankly, Kazuki was an ass. Kazuki blows off Akari, saying that he can't control when he has work and when he doesn't. He does not apologize to Akari, and in a moment that made my jaw drop, he excuses himself by saying he hadn't missed a single anniversary until that moment, so he should be excused from missing this one. Akari had a dinner planned for him. She had a date all set up. And Kazuki said THOSE words.
So, why then does Kazuki's ghost attack and kill Akari, while Akari's ghost doesn't try to kill Kazuki? Well, the thing is, Akari DOES, but she seems to seek his attention more. Ghost Akari wants Kazuki to acknowledge her BEFORE she kills him, while Ghost Kazuki is just more direct and kills Akari without wasting time. The reason for this lays in the fight the two had.
Ghost Akari is still angry with Kazuki because he ignored her wants, and thus she seeks his attention, before ultimately killing him. Ghost Kazuki, on the other hand, is just an angry spirit, a being whose anger at his girlfriend for stressing him out further and questioning his love for her. A revealing contrast exists between the two ghosts; while Ghost Akari is blue (a color associated with gentleness or sadness), Ghost Kazuki is red (the color of love or anger).
The only way to get the true ending of the game, the one where Kazuki and Akari are reunited, is for Kazuki to wish to continue living and telling Akari precisely that...through the phone. Why through the phone? Because the phone is how Ghost Akari, until that moment, had been alerting Kazuki of her presence. Him talking to her on the phone is him taking control of the situation, showing her that he is not going to allow his past actions to haunt him. He is still alive, he still has a future, and although he will always love her, she's gone now.
But then, why is it the living Akari who receives this call? Because she needs to hear his voice. Because, even though her Kazuki is dead, her heart still calls to him. But the ghost haunting her is murderous. And unlike Ghost Akari, Ghost Kazuki has no regrets tying him to the world of the living. Only his rage keeps him tethered to this mortal realm. And yet, he refuses to attack her when Kazuki calls. Why?
I believe that, deep down, Ghost Kazuki still loved Akari, and he wanted to kill her so she could be with him forever in death. Likewise, I believe that Ghost Akari still loved Kazuki, and wanted him to be hers forever. But Akari wanted to see if Kazuki would pay attention to her, unlike in life, so she tested him. But she understood that he needed to go on, that it was unfair to kill him. She knew she was still alive in the other dimension. And that's why, in a letter, she tells Kazuki about how the fireplace connects the dimensions.
How do I know she planned this? It's that one letter, the one that tells Kazuki about the fireplace, that convinces me she did. Every letter Kazuki receives in the game comes from her, so is it a stretch to believe THIS letter was sent from her as well? Of course not!
Everything Ghost Akari did was a test, to see if Kazuki would treat the other Akari better than he treated her. The game can only progress if Kazuki immediately answers the phone. If, when Ghost Akari comes to visit Kazuki and he takes too long to answer the door, the fireplace will become lit, sealing the connection between both dimensions. Kazuki needs to answer the door immediately, but he needs also to tell Ghost Akari that he wants to live.
So, what's the deal with Ghost Kazuki? Well, he's everything negative about Kazuki. Akari is haunted by the angry Kazuki, the unreasonable ghost out for her. He is a monster, one that needs to be stopped. She needs to be saved from this monster, and the only person who can is the wiser, calmer Kazuki, the man who learned from his past mistakes. Thus, Kazuki pulls Akari away from his Ghost counterpart and her dimension, and runs away with the living Akari, leaving to begin a new life together.
Hello? Hell...o? is an unusual story. It's a haunting, it's a love story. It's a story about regrets. It's a love story between two flawed human beings. It's an RPG with no combat, no menus, and only one room to explore. It's horror, it's romance. It's a short game that will leave a big impact.
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