White Day: A Labyrinth Named School is a certifiable Korean horror classic and was an impeccable remake of a PC darling. On consoles, it introduced a new audience to its supernatural charm and intense (sometimes annoying) janitor chases. You couldn’t go wrong with its simple yet effective premise of kids stuck in a school after hours, tormented by hauntings of Yeondu’s terrible past, while getting absorbed into the granular details of the setting.
Like many beloved games, White Day demanded a sequel. The original follows Lee Hui-Min’s attempt to confess his love to Han So-Yeong, but staying late after school inadvertently draws him into a cursed ritual. The story unfolds with around 10 different endings, determined by the protagonist’s affinity rating with the various girls he encounters. A sequel’s narrative possibilities seem boundless.
White Day 2 was originally released as episodes for PC and now the entire story has been compiled for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. A lot has changed at Yeondu High since the call of the dead, spirits still lurk, and a new cast of characters find themselves being stalked in its hallowed halls. What can horror maniacs expect from this new generation of Korean horror? Find out in our White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies – Complete Edition review!
White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies – Complete Edition
Developer: Rootnstudio Ltd.
Publisher: PQube
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)
Release Date: August 15, 2024
Price: $29.99
White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies does not put its best foot forward. The original game draws players into its setting with a very simple and understandable premise: a boy stays late after school to give his crush a Korean equivalent of a Valentine’s Day gift. It’s an effective hook to ground the supernatural events to follow. White Day 2 begins with a couple of kids deciding to sneak into the school after hours for a very shaky and vague excuse.
To make matters worse, the presentation of the opening cutscenes is quite rough. Graphical bugs and disappearing background assets are prevalent. The setup is noticeably sloppy as well. Security guards, later revealed as possessed, are initially introduced as ordinary personnel without explanation or visual cues. This jarring inconsistency in storytelling persists throughout all three chapters.
Cutscenes begin and end abruptly, jarringly transitioning players into gameplay. This abrupt shift often leaves players disoriented. For instance, after a thrilling chase, two characters reunite, and the player character is injured. Suddenly, players assume control of the other character. The subsequent cutscene reiterates information just witnessed, followed by another jarring cut to gameplay, this time controlled by the new character.
The lack of clear indication that a character switch has occurred, compounded by the absence of full-body awareness or reflections, exacerbates the confusion. All the mirrors don’t work anymore and you can’t see your body either. These were great features in the original and it’s depressing to see them gone.
The rest of White Day 2‘s story is admittedly hard to follow due to the utterly incoherent storytelling. Characters will be abruptly introduced without being established and the characters will clumsily dump exposition about them amongst each other.
Compounded by the plot’s being told out of order between chapters, understanding a timeline of events becomes unbearable. It doesn’t help that the acting is even worse than the first game. Characters behave abnormally, and when interacting with supposedly possessed characters, there’s no clear distinction between sarcastic and tormented performances.
There are an impressive number of endings, but the reality is that most of them are inconsequential or downright deceptive. A couple are essentially the same cutscenes with minor variations based on player choices. Another ending requires replaying chapters in a specific order, which feels like filler artificially extending an already reasonably long horror game.
No matter which ending you get, completing White Day 2 is unsatisfying. The experience is a confusing mess with jarring starts and stops and nonsensical connections to the first game. It feels cheap with how the story abruptly introduces a character from the first game without proper buildup or an emotional core to latch onto.
The visuals are a mixed bag. The environments look mostly good. Yeondu is less sterile than in the first game, with more grit and texture in the school and picturesque high-contrast lighting. However, there are some gnarly-looking low-rez textures on many surfaces, and unfortunately, assets are reused frequently.
There are also fewer details than in the first White Day. You won’t find little unique doodles on walls with flavor text, or interactable lightswitches. Limited saves and save points are gone and players can freely save whenever. All the hauntings are paired back and force players into QTEs which aren’t scary.
The new art style called for more realistic character models, but this feels like a step backward from the more stylized manga-inspired models from the first game. Everyone is more realistic but the animation quality is not at the same level, making all the characters animated very stiffly. They look more uncanny than the old designs, which were simpler but more convincing despite limited animation.
The gameplay is noticeably simpler than in the first game too. Most of the time players won’t need to venture too far from the immediate area to figure out a puzzle. At worst, they may have to retrace their steps from previous rooms to collect an item that wasn’t there before. Figuring out passcodes or combinations is still a highlight and the developers managed to come up with interesting ways to obfuscate the solutions.
Avoiding the guards is similar to avoiding the janitors in the first White Day, but this time players have a limited form of defense. Disposable cameras are scattered around the school and taking a shot of the guard as they approach can temporarily stun them. When it works, these consumable cameras can be very useful except for the fact that the guards can easily box you against a dead end and there is no getting passed them.
The guard AI can be unpredictable and unfair. If one is on your tail, shaking them off is almost impossible since the player character’s stamina is worse than an 80-year-old with a cough. Expect to get some stick time if caught.
The boss fights in White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies are creative and amount to solving an environmental puzzle under pressure. These were some of the better moments in the game and combined hair-raising scenarios with surreal imagery and you are left to figure out what to do while an increasing threat looms.
Other times there will be a scripted sequence where players will have to avoid a deadly spirit. These paranormal events are scripted and require players to hit specific marks, but it isn’t clear when this happens and they may find themselves staring confusingly at a game over screen. These aren’t common, and thankfully players can save anywhere while not in an alert phase. It feels cheap to die this way and you don’t see it coming when it happens.
Returning to Yeondu might have been a mistake. While there are some new areas and a few of the old hangouts have been remixed, it comes off as lazy to reexplore it in the context of the story. White Day 2 could have been about anything and be set anywhere, but we find ourselves in a rehash of suspiciously similar situations.
White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies – Complete Edition is a disappointing reiteration of the original. It removes features and streamlines the experience, while also telling a story incoherently. At the very least, some scary moments managed to make my blood run cold thanks to the impressive atmosphere and the puzzles were stimulating.
White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies – Complete Edition was reviewed on a PlayStation 5 using a code provided by PQube. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. White Day 2: The Flower That Tells Lies – Complete Edition is now available for PC (via Steam), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
