White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies [Review]

White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies, is a Korean horror game developed by Rootnstudio Limited and published by the same company and PQube. It’s a direct sequel to the previous installment, White Day: A Labyrinth Named School, though the games do play differently than each other. In the second game, you try to unravel a mystery involving mysterious arson-related deaths that seem to frequently happen at Yeondu High School.

There’s an intriguing story that you can uncover by reading through diary entries, school notes, suggestion box papers, and various notes throughout the school. Some are written by random individuals and some are even written by the victims of the fires that started the story. Some of the notes seem to get a bit too far from the original story, using myths and fairytales to explain a situation a character was going through or what emotions they felt. It would take me out of the story just a bit since these are supposed to be notes left behind by a teenager, so I don’t know why they were writing down random myths and third-person stories in their diaries.

The gameplay was a bit lackluster. It just didn’t feel scary, it didn’t even feel like I was trying to avoid anything honestly. Around the time I got to the third floor of the school a maintenance man ghost finally showed up and would follow me around. But it was random when it would spawn, I died to him once and then expected to have to avoid him throughout the floor when I respawned but it was like he didn’t come back once I did. I explored the entire floor before finding him again. Even though I only encountered the enemy twice it did successfully kill me both times because once he sees you there isn’t really anything he can do. He runs after you and is faster than the character, so you can’t run and hide. There’s no form of defense, you eventually find a few disposable cameras and I thought taking a picture of him would slow him down but it didn’t do anything and the camera only had one photo in it.

Aside from the lack of undefeatable enemies, the gameplay consists of running back and forth to collect keys. It usually goes like this, a locker is locked and a note next to it informs you where to find the key, after finding the key and unlocking the door, you are rewarded with another key that goes somewhere else. There isn’t really anything to it, not many puzzles or hiding from enemies. In the end, I didn’t find the game all that scary or enjoyable. White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies will be getting a 2/10 from me. The game is currently available on PS4/5 and PC.