History VideoGame / SirenGames

* IdiotHero: Abe Soji in the second game is a friendly but somewhat slow construction worker on the run for the murder of his girlfriend. He serves primarily as comic relief, but [[spoiler:gets one of the game's three MultipleEndings]].
* {{Immortality}}: [[spoiler:Hisako Yao, the leader of the Hanuda religion. She gained eternal life after feasting on the flesh of the fallen god Datatsushi, based on the myth of Yao Bikuni ("800-year-old priestess") and the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningyo ningyo]] ("human fish", often translated as "mermaid"). Her descendants in the Kajiro clan gained AgeWithoutYouth instead, with their twisted, inhuman forms supposedly entombed underneath the ancestral mansion. Hisako also has a bad case of TheFogOfTheAges as well, having forgotten the purpose of the ritual over the years, to the point where she's helping Kiyoya to stop it during early missions.]]

* PathOfInspiration: [[spoiler:The Mana Cult of Hanuda. Of course, only Hisako Yao seems to know it's really about the whole Stars Are Right deal with resurrecting Datatsushi.]]

* SealedEvilInACan: [[spoiler:The "alien god", Datatsushi, in the first game.]]
* SeeTheInvisible: [[spoiler:Though never directly stated, in the first game, it seems that one can only see Datatsushi's mature form if they're in the process of turning into a Shibito — Kyoya and Yoriko, having Kajiro blood in them by that point, are thus blind to its presence. In Kyoya's case, this forces him to locate Datatsushi in the final battle by either sightjacking it or looking at its (visible) reflection.]]

* SinisterGeometry:
** Late in the first game, Hanuda is slowly being converted into a hideous nest for [[spoiler:the Datatsushi and its Shibito servants.]]
* SinsOfOurFathers: The events of the first ''Siren'' are rooted well in the ancient past. [[spoiler:On the brink of death by starvation, the inhabitants of Hanuda resort to ''[[{{Squick}} making a meal out of a still living Datatsushi]]''. Needless to say, the big fella didn't care much for this, and his outraged and pained shriek mutates into the familiar siren wail while pronouncing a FateWorseThanDeath on the entire village in a Lovecraftian twist on [[AsTheGoodBookSays The Last Supper.]] The same thing happens to Kaiko in ''Blood Curse''.]]

* AStormIsComing: Hanuda is engulfed in the middle of a storm late in the first game.

* BloodBath:
** The red water being analogous to blood, Naoko Mihama mistakenly gets the idea that bathing in it would make one young and beautiful ''a la'' Elizabeth Bathory. [[spoiler:The red water actually turns anyone who interacts with it into a Shibito]], but the liquid does ''technically'' grant special healing properties.
** The Shibito are compelled to periodically enter and re-enter the sea of red water around Hanuda on a regular basis, so they can further mutate.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: ''Siren Maniacs'' speculates that Datatsushi and its mentality are so alien that we don't know if it approves or disapproves of the village's worship and [[spoiler:sacrifice of Miyako Kajiros]], like Hisako believes it does. It may not even be remotely ''aware'' of it. Likewise it may not have any control over the existence and transformation of the half- or full Shibito; it may just be a thing that happens which the villagers place religious significance upon. The only thing we can say for certain about Datatsushi is that [[spoiler:it's not too hot on being eaten alive]].

* CameBackWrong: [[spoiler:When the ritual to restore Datatsushi failed, it pulled Hanuda into the Netherworld, and caused a landslide. The people trapped within the landslide awakened as Shibito (due likely to the presence of red water in the mud), but [[AndIMustScream trapped in the landslide]], they couldn't immerse themselves in red water properly and evolve into full Shibito. So, they spent twenty-seven years as Type 4s, rotting away, all while cognizant of their fate. "Eternal life brings eternal pain" indeed.]]
* ClosedCircle: In the first game, once Hanuda is drawn into the Other World, it's surrounded by a vast, seemingly endless sea of red water, not to mention being trapped in a different plane of existence. Not much chance of escaping under those circumstances. [[spoiler:And, indeed, even though multiple characters survive, only Harumi manages to actually get out.]]

* AntiFrustrationFeatures
** While the first game is notoriously difficult with no hand-holding, it does offer a few features to grant the player some relief:
*** When escorting Harumi Yomoda in the school, she can be ordered to hide in closets while the player goes ahead to clear the area before returning to collect her. She is also immune to firearms, as the bullets will not register a hit on Harumi.
*** Not all Secondary Objective Keys are required to complete the game. There are some missions that can still be completed even if you missed an important key item in past levels.
*** No matter how much noise your companion makes, with their voice or footsteps, nearby enemies will remain undisturbed.

* TheFogOfAges: [[spoiler:Hisako Yao]], in the first game, has been alive for so long that she occasionally forgets who she really is, and her mission to [[spoiler:revive Datatsushi]]. That's why she helps the protagonists in the early parts of the game. Twenty-seven years ago, posing as the servant of the [[spoiler:Kajiros, she felt sorry for their daughter (also named "Miyako"), the next destined Bride of Datatsushi. So, Hisako tried to rescue her... from Hisako.]] Ditto on [[spoiler:Amana]] in ''Blood Curse''.

* AccidentalHero: [[spoiler:By tossing a lit cigarette into a squat-style toilet in the gold mine plant, Soji Abe inadvertantly detonates the twenty-odd years worth of methane which had been building up in the pipes, destroying the pylon Mother was using to bridge the dimensions and saving the world]].

* BigDamnHeroes: ''*Home run!* *Home run!*'' "[[spoiler:Professor!]] It's no time to be playing happy families! Come on!". Perhaps subverted, in that he may not have been in any danger at the time, and [[UnwantedRescue might not have cared if he was.]]
* BlackDudeDiesFirst: [[spoiler:Sol in ''Blood Curse. Twice'', actually, thanks to the time rewind.]]

* BlindSeer:
** In the first game, the blind Miyako Kajiro is able to use her psychic abilities to see through peoples' eyes, and can apparently see peoples' auras. Averted with the version of Miyako in "Blood Curse".
** In the second, Shu Mikami, stricken with blindness due to childhood trauma (no need for spoilers, as it's the first scenario), finds himself able to Sightjack his seeing-eye dog (and others) when he gets to Yamajima island.

* BurnTheWitch: The villagers of Yamajima island believed that Kanae was some sort of evil being whose presence would lead to misery and destruction. [[spoiler:They were right.]]
* ButtMonkey:
** Yoriko Anno in the first game is inept and oblivious, constantly getting herself into trouble. The only reason she came to Hanuda was because she had a crush on Professor Takeuchi, and he has no patience for her. Unlike most of the other characters, Yoriko being berated and left behind, then getting herself lost and chased by Shibito, is generally played for laughs. Even her reactions to [[spoiler:Akira shooting himself and then, as a Shibito, shooting ''her'']] are so abrupt as to be comical. [[spoiler:As seen in the final unlockable cutscene, when she finally catches up to the professor in the heart of the nest, she's lost her glasses and manages to fall through a hole in the floor, and in the ending she interrupts the professor's long-awaited reunion with his parents -- hitting them over the head with a baseball bat (they're admittedly partly Shibito-fied at this point) and dragging the professor out of his first moment of happiness in decades.]] This is all used as comic relief.
** Shigeru Fujita in the second game has had a lifetime of bad luck. Ostracized by the people of Yamajima for wanting to leave, he tries to fulfill his dream of becoming a police officer -- only to face a string of demotions and pay cuts (he's back working as a beat cop at 52), with his dedication to his job driving his family away and causing his daughter to hate him. He returns to Yamajima in search of a missing woman... [[spoiler:and then two {{Eldritch Abomination}}s awaken and force him into the netherworld, where he gets killed by the adorable schoolgirl he thought he was saving. And even ''then'' he doesn't get to die, coming back to life as a monster. The freedom of death is probably the best thing that happens to him.]]

* ClearMyName: In the second game, Abe Soji is falsely accused of the murder of Ryuko Tagawa. [[spoiler:It turns out that Ryuko, an avatar of Mother who had abandoned her mission, was killed by one who had not.]]

* CoolOldGuy: Local hunter Akira Shimura takes down Shibito with his marksmanship skill and even comes to the rescue of Yoriko Anno in one of his missions. [[spoiler:Before [[DrivenToSuicide flipping out and eating his own rifle]] in the face of CosmicHorror, he even knew about Hisako Yao's true identity and that she was somehow responsible for Hanuda's transdimensional shift.]]

* TheCorruption: [[spoiler:Otoshigo's method for getting onto land involves taking over the corpse of a drowning victim (Ichiko Yagura, in this case), and gradually transforming them into a suitable body for itself. Unlike a case of GrandTheftMe, Ichiko comes to the surface a few times, but is apparently [[OmnicidalManiac driven murderously insane]] by the process.]]
* CrucifiedHeroShot: Played with a bit. [[spoiler:Although Datatsushi's not a "hero", he was sacrificed upon the Mana Cross, proving the savior of the ancient village.]]

* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:Ichiko, who drowned in a ship accident and is now being taken over by an EldritchAbomination from beneath the sea. The game lets you know that the sole survivor of the accident was a female student and lures you into believing that student was Ichiko... only to reveal later that it was in fact her best friend.]]

* DetectEvil:
** In the first game, the Shimura and Takeuchi families have a quality of awareness that makes them immune to the fog which keeps other villagers from noticing strange things.
** In ''2'', [[spoiler:Takeaki Misawa's instincts are sharp enough to pick out avatars of Mother (Yuri), or people under the power of Otoshigo (Ichiko). It's implied that this is due to his brief exposure to the darkness in Hanuda, where he was the one to pull Harumi out of the ruins at the end -- along with a vision of hands reaching up toward him that shook him severely.]]
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
** In the first game, [[spoiler:Kyoya Suda either incinerates the Datatsushi with the Sword Uryen, or ''decapitates'' the EldritchAbomination with the Homuranagi and sets off the collapse of everything around him in the DarkWorld.]] In Blood Curse, [[spoiler:Howard does both.]]

* DreamingOfThingsToCome: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NCXi2t7JJ4 Harumi's intro]] in the website mentions that she had a dream about the dangers awaiting her.

* FacingTheBulletsOneLiner:
-->[[spoiler:'''Takeaki Misawa]]:''' Nice shot.

* FountainOfYouth: Naoko Mihama misinterprets an offhand remark from Akira Shimura and a fairy tale from a random book she found, which lead her to believe that bathing in the red water will make her eternally young and beautiful. [[spoiler:Since Dog Shibito can't talk, we can't ask her what she thinks of how it turned out.]]

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:In the first game, Reiko Takato takes herself out blowing up a truck's fuel tank to save Harumi from a Shibito, then ''saves her a second time'' '''even as a Shibito''' from Eiji Nagoshi. Also, after pretty much doing a Riverdance on the MoralEventHorizon several times Shiro Miyata frees the Onda sisters and a whole bunch of other people trapped in Shibito state by powering the Shield Uryen with his own lifeforce.]]

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Ostensible hero Mamoru Itsuki in the second game just can't resist a pretty face. Yuri acts like a typical damsel at first, but there's clearly something off about her, and especially around the time she starts having him breaking what she literally tells him are ''seals to the underworld'', Mamoru really should have had a few more questions. If not for Ikuko stopping him, he would have singlehandedly freed Mother -- as it is, he paves the way for Shu to do it instead.

* IKnowMortalKombat: Yoriko manages to cut through a gate by a skill that she says she saw in a comic book.

* LockedIntoStrangeness: [[spoiler:Hisako Yao's hair instantly goes stark white after Datatsushi is killed.]]

* MamaBear:
** Reiko Takato, toward Harumi. [[spoiler:Even being Shibito-fied didn't stop her.]]
** Again with Melissa to Bella in "Blood Curse". [[spoiler:Also even after becoming a Maggot Shibito and getting struck by lightning.]]
* MadDoctor: [[spoiler:Shiro Miyata.]]

* MookFaceTurn: [[spoiler:Kanae, one of Mother's Doves/Offshoots ultimately developed motherly feelings toward Shu and rejected her mission to take a human to Mother. Unfortunately, she couldn't entirely slip Mother's control]].
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Shiro Miyata is quite possibly a sociopath. [[spoiler:He crosses the MoralEventHorizon several times, including when his twin brother Kei Makino happens upon him conducting an experiment on the Shibitofied Onda Sisters that wouldn't be out of place in Herbert West's science book. Extra {{Squick}} when he stomps on the Shibitofied fetus that Mina had been carrying before her murder. He later murders his brother for no real reason and takes not only his clothes but his ''role in the rest of the game'' - later levels playable as Kei Makino clearly feature Shiro wearing his dead brother's robes.]]
* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Just prior to the events of the first game, [[spoiler:Mina Onda apparently told Shiro Miyata that she was pregnant with his child. He didn't take it overly well.]]
* MysticalWaif: Miyako, as far as her role and appearance go. Personality-wise, she's more snarky and moody than most examples.
* NewMeat: Private Yorito Nagai starts this way in the second game. [[TookALevelInBadass That changes after a few nasty events break and re-form him.]]
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: In the second game, [[spoiler:when Mamoru Itsuki washes up on the cursed island he wished to investigate, he sees a strange woman, who appears to be extremely sensitive to light, and tells him her mother is imprisoned on the island, and asks for his help, implying that the first person she asked met a bad fate. They're then attacked by the Shibito. As they explore the island, the woman demonstrates strange powers, and when Mamoru finds what looks like a very large fish scale, she tells him it comes from her mother. To cap it all off, it turns out that opening the mother's prison involves opening seven magical seals keeping her bound beneath the island. Mamoru finds nothing about this suspicious, so he opens the gate keeping an EldritchAbomination from escaping to ravage the earth. Fortunately, he finds a way to temporarily close it, but tons of Yamirei escape.]]

* OneBadMother: "Mother" is more or less the ultimate foe in the second game.

* OralTradition: [[spoiler:Hisako Yao is based off the Japanese legend of the Yaobikune, the Eight-Hundred Year Old Nun who became immortal after consuming mermaid flesh. Given a Lovecraftian twist, of course. She even dresses up in a manner similar to a Catholic Nun to [[LampshadeHanging hang a Lampshade]] on this.]]

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:Shiro Miyata, who literally sacrifices himself to power the Shield Uryen and open up a gigantic Shibito Roach Motel sinkhole. The freed souls of the Onda sisters beckon him to join them before he plunges into the blazing sinkhole himself.]]

* ShellShockedVeteran: Takeaki Misawa in the second game [[spoiler:is haunted by visions of Harumi Yomoda, sole survivor of Hanuda, whom he rescued. He's apparently on some sort of anti-psychotic/anti-depression medication as a result. [[SanitySlippage It's not working too well.]]]]
* ShovelStrike: Mina Onda wields the shovel [[spoiler:Shiro Miyata used to bury her]].

* SpiritAdvisor:
** [[spoiler:Miyako Kajiro to Kyoya Suda at the end of the first game.]]
** [[spoiler:Shu Mikami to everyone in the second game, though he generally just stands around looking depressed.]]
** [[spoiler:A different Miyako to Howard in ''Blood Curse''.]]

[[quoteright:334:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/siren_art_box.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:334:Come to Hanuda. But you can never leave.]]

In ''Siren'' (2003) (aka ''Forbidden Siren'' in Europe), a group of people are trapped in the mysterious mountain village of Hanuda, and swept up in a plot to resurrect/resummon an EldritchAbomination into this universe.

The 2006 sequel, ''Siren 2'' (''Forbidden Siren 2'' in Europe) takes place in an isolated island and features an entirely different cast, who must stop a pair of evil beings, [[SealedEvilInACan sealed away long ago]], from returning to this earth. One important change in the sequel is that conventional weapons -- including more actual, modern firearms -- are far more widespread, and one can even take them off of fallen enemies whenever they want rather than only in specific instances, though with the caveat that enemies then get whatever you left them with once they awaken. Sadly, [[NoExportForYou it was never released in North America]].

A remake was released on the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 in 2008. ''Siren: Blood Curse'' (''Siren: New Translation'' in Japan) adds Americans to a roster that are {{composite|Character}} {{exp|y}}ies of the original cast members in a re-imagining of the first ''Siren'', a likely ShoutOut to Western adaptations of classic J-Horror films like ''[[Literature/TheRing Ringu/The Ring]]'' and ''Film/JuOn[=/=]Film/TheGrudge''.

* AbandonedHospital:
** The Miyata Clinic in the first game.

* AlternateUniverse:
** Certain archive items in both games show that they take place in one where the Showa Period is still ongoing, meaning that Emperor Hirohito (who in our timeline died in 1989) was still alive as of 2005.
** [[spoiler:The first game takes place in one, where the Shibito live in harmony with Datatsushi. Those who ingest the red water come here, and it’s unknown if you can escape from it.]]

* AncestralWeapon: The Uryen (宇理炎) figurines (also [[ArtifactOfPower Artifacts of Power]]) and the Kajiro family katana Homuranagi in the first game.

* AnvilOnHead:
** In the first game, it's more specifically an ECG monitor on the head of a Shibito. Of course, with him being a Shibito, it's best to proceed with the mission before he gets better.

* AutobotsRockOut: In the first ending for ''Siren'', and in a bonus level in the second, [[spoiler:Kyoya Suda rocks out to a heavy metal song called "The Buster" while running about exterminating Shibito with all the weapons he's got.]]

* BittersweetEnding:
** In ''1'', [[spoiler: Datatsushi is dead, Hanuda is destroyed (along with the Shibito) and the threat of Datatsushi's revival is ended. Unfortunately, most of the cast is dead, or pretty poor off. Suda is trapped in the dimension the Shibito come from, but he's well armed, nigh-impossible to kill, and dead-set on protecting the world. The only other survivor is Harumi, who manages to make it out traumatized, but alive.]]

* BolivianArmyEnding:
** [[spoiler:Harumi is the only true survivor of the catastrophe. Everyone else is either a Shibito, a Shibito permanently tac-nuked by [[AncestralWeapon one of the Uryens or the Homuranagi]], or trapped in the same temporal dimension as the Shibito with no way back home.]]

* BrickJoke: In the first game, you have the option of removing a specific Shibito from Tamon's first stage early on Day One by knocking him into a well. One of Kei's secondary objectives way later on Day Three takes him down that same well, and if you knocked the Shibito down it, he'll still be down there to greet you.

* CallForward: In the ''[=ReBIRTH=]'' manga, the fake Wikipedia article for the disaster where Reiko Takato's baby died implies that it was caused by Mother from ''Siren 2''.

* ConspicuouslyLightPatch: Averted most of the time in ''Siren 1'', which leads to many cases of GuideDangIt. Sometimes, the camera angle will change and attempt to help you. Keyword: ''attempt''...

* CreepyCrosses: The Mana Cross, a variant which looks similar to the Eastern Orthodox depiction of the cross, is unique to Hanuda and can be found in a number of places throughout the village. [[spoiler:It's actually patterned on [[CrucifiedHeroShot the wooden planks the villagers placed Datatsushi on]], when the alien crash-landed on Earth in 684 AD and the starving villagers began to butcher and eat him. When Christianity later arrived in Japan, that made for convenient camouflage. In addition to being the symbol of the cult, the crosses are a source of spiritual/magical power, as Mrs. Takato accidentally discovers when she lights the candles under the stone crosses in her second mission in Karuwari -- after several other characters have pushed and activated the crosses in their own missions -- releasing the glowing Kiruden which then empower the Kajiros' AncestralWeapon the Homurangi, turning it against the cult and allowing it to permanently kill shibito.]]

* EpicHail: Harumi over the school PA system: "Mrs. Takato! Help! Mrs. Takato!" Loud enough that Prof. Takeuchi hears from the water tower across town.

* GoneHorriblyRight: Archive Item 001 in the first game explains that [[spoiler:Datatsushi only crashed in Hanuda after rituals were performed in the hopes of ending the drought]]. Whether the two events were actually ''linked'' is ambiguous, but either way, from the villagers' perspective, [[spoiler:they got the nourishment they prayed for... along with a centuries-long curse]].

* GuideDangIt:
** In ''Siren 1'', players are often required to pick up items or fulfill sub-objectives (which the game ''doesn't'' tell you) in earlier stages for use in later ones. Sometimes, the game ''will'' give you a hint, but these are vague at best.
** In one of the first missions of the game, you're required to pick up a radio, visit the well, pull up the bucket, put the radio in the bucket, hide, wait for a Shibito to inspect the radio, and shoot the Shibito down the well just so that the Shibito isn't there to kill ''someone else'' in a later stage. Also, you only get this hint (which consists of an extremely vague clue: "Search the Yoshimura house and well") if you decide to revisit this stage for some reason, not on the stage where you actually need it.
** In one of the other first missions, you need to look for a number on the wall of a house, go to a tape recorder, rewind the tape until it reaches that number, listen to the numbers that are said on the tape, use those numbers to unlock a shed door, get a face towel, and put the face towel in the freezer. In a later mission, you need to take the same face towel, place it under a piggy bank, wait for the towel to melt so that the piggy bank falls and causes a distraction, kill the Shibito it attracts, and then get an I.D. badge. Yeah...
** The first game is literally a case of GuideDangIt, as the instruction manual offered slightly more concise clues about accomplishing the alternate objectives.
* HauntedCastle: The entire village of Hanuda as a whole in the first game, but especially relevant to the abandoned house at Tabori where a few characters have their own missions taking place there.

* HideYourChildren: The American release of the first game raises Kyoya Suda's age from sixteen to eighteen, and Miyako Kajiro and Tomoko Maeda's ages from fourteen to seventeen.

* HollywoodCuisine: The recipe for Hanuda Noodles (Archive 022) in the first game. [[spoiler:Of course, watching Shibitocop aka Officer Ishida gorging on a bowlful borders on NauseaFuel.]]

* InfernalParadise: The Manaist version of Paradise shows a blood-red sea with thousands of people bathing in it, winged shibito flying around everywhere, dog shibito roaming the grounds, red flowers all over the ground and the Mana Stone square in the center. [[spoiler:It's a image of the Underworld from which Datatsushi and his like arrived]].
* InterfaithSmoothie: An in-universe example: various archive items reveal that the religion of Hanuda combines elements of Christianity (e.g. depictions of angels, the story of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden) with Japanese and pre-existing Hanuda folklore, as well as worship of an "alien god." And then, of course, there's the Mana Cross, [[spoiler:which, along with the whole "flesh of God" thing, might well be the reason the faiths were so easily combined in the first place.]]

* MadnessMantra: "Won't you look at me? Tell me I'm beautiful! Everlasting youth! Everlasting youth! Please...Won't you look at me...?"

* SettingUpdate: The ''Siren [=ReBIRTH=]'' manga has the modern setting taking place in 2019. This necessitates an explanation for why they can't use cellphones (no signal or their phones get destroyed), but also permits things like fake Wikipedia articles to be used to provide information on the setting.

* ShoutOut:
** Yoriko Anno's manga-esque sketch of Tamon Takeuchi in her class notes (Archive 033) suggests she's possibly a reference to and an {{Expy}} of manga artist Moyoco Anno.
** The air raid siren's usage can be considered a reference to ''Franchise/SilentHill'', or alternatively just a part of creator Keiichirō Toyama's SignatureStyle; he's also the man behind the first ''VideoGame/{{Silent Hill|1}}'', and reportedly the use of sirens in both games was inspired by recurring nightmares he had about the sound.
** The first game shares much of its setup with ''Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth''.
** The scene wherein [[spoiler:Naoko Mihama lowers herself into the red water in a misguided attempt to gain eternal youth, but becomes a monster instead]] is [[https://mangapark.net/manga/ankoku-shinwa/i1904341/v1/c3/27 lifted from]] one character's arc in ''Ankoku Shinwa'' by Daijirou Morohoshi, as acknowledged by the creators.

* StableTimeLoop:
** [[spoiler:In the first game, Kyoya Suda ends up single-handedly committing the historical and legendary slaughter of (Shibito-infested) Hanuda. It was this very story that inspired him to journey to the village and investigate it in the first place.]]
** [[spoiler:The cycle of Ouroborus. Yao both sets into motion and dooms herself, though it's not really a loop since she and Datatsushi's skull show up in multiple spots along time.]]
** The supplemental stories include a case where a girl [[spoiler:dies being chased by a Shibito, revives as one, and spots her past, living self. She tries to warn her not to go that way...]]

* SuperSoldiers: Miyata Clinic received a massive expansion and overhaul during World War Two when the government became aware of Hanuda's Shibito and thought they could make some to be used as troops. This was abandoned during the chaos near the end of the war.

** [[spoiler:After Mother is destroyed in the second game, all the surviving protagonists are sent to a version of their world where she never existed, save for Yorito Nagai who ends up in a completely different universe where the Yamibito are normal and humans are the dangerous monsters - or at least that's how they see it, considering the sight drives him to immediately go on a killing spree]].

** The second game goes even further to offer more helpful features to alleviate the intense difficulty of the first game, while still making the second game reasonably challenging:
*** A pulsating sound will occur whenever an enemy is nearby, giving the player an opportunity to hide and plan ahead.
*** Upon collecting a Secondary Objective Key or Archive Item, they will not disappear from your inventory if you die.
*** The Stage Select feature, which had to be unlocked after completing a certain amount of levels in the first game, is available right away.

* ArchEnemy: [[spoiler:Otoshigo and Mother.]]

** In ''2'', [[spoiler:the threats of Mother and Otoshigo are ended and the island is purified - but only four characters make it out. Ikuko and Mamoru make it out alive, back in the real world and Yorito is stuck in the land of the Yamibito - only he doesn't take it as well as Suda did in the first game, and the poor man loses his mind at the sight of it. Abe also manages to live in the GoldenEnding, and since the new timeline results in the girl he was accused of murdering never being born in the first place, he gets his own happy ending as well.]]

** [[spoiler:At the end of the second game, Private Yorito Nagai is swept into what seems to be an alternate dimension populated entirely by Yamibito. The sight drives him insane, and he starts shooting wildly as we fade to credits.]]

* BottomlessMagazines: In the second game, [[spoiler:as Ichiko Yagura is taken over by Otoshigo, she has periods of murderous insanity, wherein she (somehow) gets a machine pistol with infinite ammo. Yorito Nagai also gets a machine gun with infinite ammo for the battle against Otoshigo.]] Shibito in general also have infinite reserve ammunition for any guns they have, which allows for a roundabout (but slow, very dangerous and counterproductive) manner in which to replenish your own ammo in the second game.
* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: Owing to Hanuda's remote location and the strict gun laws Japan has in reality, most of the guns available in the first game are ancient cast-offs from before UsefulNotes/WorldWarI; it's only in the second game, with protagonists who are part of Japan's military, where the player starts to get access to more recent hardware (and "recent" in this case still means weapons adopted in TheEighties, about twenty years before the game's setting).

* ContinuityNod:
** In ''Siren 2'', Takeaki Misawa was the soldier who was part of the military rescue force that responded to the Hanuda disaster after the events of ''Siren'' [[spoiler:and was the one to rescue Harumi Yomoda]].
** Shu Mikami's father Ryuhei was an acquaintance of Tamon Takeuchi's father, Omito.

** In the second game, [[spoiler:Yorito Nagai kills Otoshigo by weakening it with bullets, causing it to crash into a fuel tank, then setting it ablaze by hitting it with an electric lightbulb attached to a generator. Mamoru, Ikuko, and Kanae (formerly Akiko) arm themselves with the [=YamiNaki=] shards to fight Mother. Kanae stabs herself, weakening Mother through their connection, and Ikuko uses her powers to freeze Mother, allowing Mamoru to strike, sending her to the ground, where Ikuko can hit her. Finally, Mamoru lands the finishing blow, and the threat of Mother is gone forever.]]

* TheEndOrIsIt: [[spoiler:At the end of ''Siren 2'', Ikuko and Mamoru seem to have been shunted to a world free of Mother's influence...but then Ikuko shields her eyes from the light, just like one of Mother's avatars would, as the music turns somewhat menacing and a slight hint of an evil smile starts to creep onto her face]].
* EnemyCivilWar: [[spoiler:Mother and Otoshigo in ''Siren 2''. As a result, the Yambito and Shibito will choose to attack each other before attacking the characters.]]

* EverythingTryingToKillYou: Somewhat averted in ''2''. They still try to kill you, but Yamibito will go for Shibito first and vice versa.

* EvilTowerOfOminousness: The pylon, or Spider's Thread, in the second game.

* FairytaleMotifs: Creator/HansChristianAndersen's ''Literature/TheLittleMermaid'' plays a significant role in the second game.

* ImprobableWeaponUser: Over the course of the second game, Mamoru Itsuki, Ikuko Kifune, and Akiko Kiyota all pick up mysterious fossils known as [=YamiNaki=] or Annuaki shards. [[spoiler:These appear to be fragments of the ancestor god of Mother and Otoshigo, and in the second battle, they actually [[MorphWeapon transform to resemble glowing swords.]]]] Also, at one point while playing as Ichiko, you can kill a Shibito and grab the item he was holding, a trophy about half Ichiko's height, which doubles as an Archive Item and a melee weapon.

* InvincibleMinorMinion:
** Every enemy in the game is unkillable, more or less. No matter how much damage you do to the Shibito, they revive within minutes (and in some cases seconds) due to the healing effect of the red water which is everywhere. Incidentally, [[spoiler:this is also why there's no visible health meter; your character is also healing from the red water. The danger is that if you absorb too much of it, you turn into a Shibito as well.]]
** In the second game, the corpses of the Shibito and Yamibito are simply possessed by new Shiryo or Yamirei within moments, which apparently heals the body. [[spoiler:Explained by the island's belief that if corpses aren't staked with Mekkojou branches, they will be unable to go to Heaven and their bodies will be possessed by evil spirits.]]

* KryptoniteProofSuit:
** In ''Siren 2'', the "doves" Mother sends out are modeled off the anatomy of a human being ([[spoiler:Shu's drowned mother, whose corpse into Mother's dimension]]), and so possess a degree of resistance to sunlight that she and her Yamirei lack. This wears off after extensive time in the sunlight however, even if the dove tries to stay in the shade.
** From the same game, Otoshigo's Shiryo die upon exposure to bright light (such as a powerful flashlight), but by possessing corpses they create Yamibito, who are more resistant, only being stunned by light exposure.

* NotQuiteTheRightThing: In the second game, Yorito Nagai sees Takeaki Misawa, his SDF superior [[spoiler:(who has been acting increasingly unstable)]] holding Ichiko Yagura at gunpoint. [[spoiler:So he shoots him in the back. This comes back to bite him twofold; see TheCorruption and OurZombiesAreDifferent.]]

* RetGone: Played with. The defeat of Mother shunts all those in her presence into an alternate world free of her influence. This has an unexpected benefit for Soji Abe, when [[spoiler:the woman he's accused of murdering never existed.]]

* SetAMookToKillAMook: In the second game, during the few levels where the Shibito aren't outright replaced by the Yamibito, the two will typically attack each other before they go after the player. Additionally, Ikuko can temporarily possess any enemy through sightjacking and take out other enemies with them.

** In the second game, the Yamibito apparently grow shrouds from their bodies that they use to cover up a building's windows and other places where light might get in.

* SurvivalHorror: If we have to explain, we're going to force-feed you some mermaid.

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Siren 2 explores this with both the Shibito and the Yamibito. In Yorito Nagai's ending, he ends up trapped in a world full of Yamibito. This causes him to snap and fire at all the Yamibito around him in blind rage. However, the Yamibito of this world were just normal people living their everyday lives. An archive entry, a picture diary drawn by a Yamibito child, revealed that he was just as alien and terrifying to them as they were to him. There's also a secret mission where the JGSDF helicopter pilot Nitaka Ichifuji, who turned into a Shibito, helps a fellow Shibito recover a steam iron left by a loved one.

** The Saiga Hospital in ''Blood Curse''.

* AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield: The final boss battle in ''Blood Curse'' is quite seizuriffic.

** ''Blood Curse'' lets you drop a neon sign from the second floor on a Shibito early in the game.

** In ''Blood Curse'', [[spoiler: it's the same deal as the first game. Kaiko and Amana are dead, Hanuda is once again destroyed, and the rest of the cast is dead, but things are slightly better- Howard manages to live, and returns to the village to exact revenge upon the Shibito and rid the world of them once and for all. He's also not stuck in their dimension, and the game ends on a montage of him butchering the village and saving the world. Sam, on the other hand, is stuck in the past, and must act on the StableTimeLoop that brings Howard to the village in the first place.]]

** In ''Blood Curse'', [[spoiler:Howard and Sam are the only survivors. However, the former is still in Hanuda, [[IGaveMyWord intent on fulfilling his promise to destroy the village]]; while the latter is dropped in the real world in 1972, the year Hanuda vanished, which allows him to [[StableTimeLoop draw Howard to the area and secure the time loop.]]]]

* TheFlatwoodsMonster: Archive file #25, titled The Gojaku Giant, in ''Siren: Blood Curse'' tells of the arrival of a 9-foot tall alien on August 25th, 1856, near Mount Gojaku. It tried to communicate with the locals, but its foul smell knocked out anyone near it. The accompanying drawing is of the Flatwoods Monster re-envisioned by 19th Century Japanese art standards.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In ''Blood Curse'' Archive 1 [[spoiler:is a much-copied version of Bella's notebook (Archive 11). Note the letters on the cover, the occasional spiders in the upper corner and at one point a face that corresponds to the goth girl on the lower corner. They even kept the purple borders, and an approximation of the wire on the spine.]]

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: [[spoiler:Required to get Shibito Risa Onda off your back in one level. Happens to, well, an arguably good guy in the second with Tomoe Ohta, at least the first time she dies.]] In ''Siren: Blood Curse'', it also happens [[spoiler: to the Police-Shibito, leading to him running around with a stick in his chest for the rest of the game.]]

* InterruptedSuicide

** In ''Blood Curse'', the Uryen (宇理炎) is a cube-like device that casts blue "purging flames".

* {{Leitmotif}}: [[spoiler:In "Blood Curse", the same melody follows Bella and Amana around. It serves as a subtle hint towards the connection between the two characters.]]

* MythologyGag: Miyako whacks her pursuer over the head with a stick in the original ''Siren.'' It doesn't work in ''Blood Curse.''
* NeckSnap: The Shibito use this instead of strangling in Blood Curse, either by shoving you to the ground and requring a QTE to break out of or as a finisher when they kill you in melee.

** In the second game, evolved male Yamibito apparently emit ominous fog. When you're in close proximity to them, everything goes dark around you.'

* SecretIdentity

** ''Siren: Blood Curse'' is made in the style of a Western J-Horror remake, with a composite {{Expy}} cast that includes Americans who decide to pay that quaint little village of Hanuda a visit.

** A couple archive items in the first level of ''Blood Curse'' name the producer for Melissa and Sol's show as one [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor John Titor]]. [[spoiler:It's appropriate, considering one of ''Blood Curse''[='=]s main twists.]]
** Another archive item in ''Blood Curse'' discusses a fictional handheld game system, the "Network King", and how an attempted follow-up system flopped hard, leaving the creators with a mountain of unsold units they ended up burying in an "undiscovered location" before a chain reaction of bankruptcies erupted through the entire toy industry - a clear reference to Creator/{{Atari}} burying unsold stocks of the infamous ''VideoGame/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' immediately before [[UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 the American video game industry crashed]].

** [[spoiler:In the remake, one of the characters has to set everything into motion by e-mailing another one from 1973 after the town goes whacked again. As well Amana, meet Bella. Bella, meet Amana.]]

** In ''Blood Curse'', it's more of a Cube of Plot Advancement, though both the Uryen and the Homuranagi are needed [[spoiler:for Howard to kill Kaiko]].

** In ''Siren Blood Curse'', a player should feel suspicious [[spoiler: when playing Bella again, suddenly sneaking through a flower-overgrown mountain bathed in golden sunlight, even though she just barely escaped a hospital in the middle of the night.]] Cue seeing that person bang at the window as a fully transformed Shibito later.

Currently, the series consists of three games, a movie, and two manga adaptations, with the latter being serialized in 2014 with creative work done by Sony Computer Entertainment production crew veterans.

* AllSwordsAreTheSame: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBZ_zx9hMAg Inverted in the first game]]. The knives, hammers, and sickles only the shibito use and the umbrella and baseball bat the players can use all do the same (crappy) damage in spite of ''appearing'' different and being wielded differently.

* MindScrew: As to be expected from the mind behind the first four Franchise/SilentHill games, only amplified by the games' AnachronicOrder.

* LostInTranslation: In-universe. The unused chorus section of "Hoshingoeika", provided in ''Siren Maniacs'', contains many references to Latin Christian terms, but the pronunciation has been corrupted almost beyond recognition, and even some of the meanings have changed. For example, "gururi ya" was said to represent the spinning of the holy circle (Ouroboros), but was much more likely a corruption of "Gloria".

* LostInTranslation: In-universe. The unused chorus section of "Hoshingoeika", provided in ''Siren Maniacs'', contains many corrupted references to Christian terms in Latin, but the pronunciation has been corrupted almost beyond recognition, and even the meanings have changed. For example, "gururi ya" was said to represent the spinning of the holy circle (Ouroboros), but was much more likely a corruption of "Gloria".

** The Maedas, Tamoko and her parents. Downplayed, as Tamoko ran away in a bout of teenage angst after she caught her parents reading her diary. [[spoiler:Although in the end they're harmoniously reunited... as Shibito.]]

* TheEndOrIsIt: [[spoiler:At the end of ''Siren 2'', Ikuko and Mamoru seem to have been shunted to a world free of Mother's influence...but then Ikuko shields her eyes from the light, just like one of Mother's avatars would]].

* DoingInTheWizard: Inverted. [[Spoiler: Despite all its occult imagery, there were no actual supernatural elements in the first game; all the phenemenon were caused by an alien, and the Shibito aren't even real zombies. The villains of the sequel however are primordial deities of darkness, and the enemies are explicitly undead.]]

* DoingInTheWizard: Inverted. Despite all its occult imagery, there were no actual supernatural elements in the first game; all the phenemenon were caused by an alien, and the Shibito aren't even real zombies. The villains of the sequel however are primordial deities of darkness, and the enemies are explicitly undead.

* GenderIncompetence: Compared to the men, the women have more limited climbing abilities, cannot use higher-skill weapons, and need males to help them get to certain areas when being escorted. These limitations also transfer to the ladies when the player is in control of them and can make a stage that was literally just played as a male much harder. Not even the [[DarkActionGirl evil]] female shibitos are spared from this as they share the same limitations as the human girls.

* TheChick: Risa Onda from the first game is probably the Chickiest Chick ever - she swings her weapon slower than any other character and doesn't knock back enemies she hits, making even one-on-one fights impossible without severe injury at best. Fortunately, the second game averts this trope, as the girls are reasonably tough and useful, [[spoiler:when they're not {{Mook}}s for Mother, or being taken over by Otoshigo. Or [[ArtificialStupidity controlled by the AI]].]]

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:Most of the characters end up dead or undead. The ones that ''don't'' die are [[DownerEnding trapped in Hanuda forever]], with the exception of Harumi]].