Line #32 VideoGame/DeadOfTheBrain


1	[[quoteright:578:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_4583_2.jpeg]][[caption-width-right:578:''[[{{Tagline}} The medicine produced with one scientist's hand trapped the world to the crisis of ruin...]]'']]
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3	''Dead of the Brain'' (''Shinryō no Sakebi'') is a {{Point and Click\|Game}} AdventureGame created in 1992 by Japanese game developer [=FairyTale=] and released by IDES for the PC-9801. It also has the honor of being the very last official game released for the PC Engine CD, in the form of a two-game bundle of ''Dead of the Brain'' and its sequel published by NEC in 1999.
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5	Best described as a Japanese dev team taking a swing at the pulpy, ultraviolent zombie stories popular in the west at the time (such as ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead'', ''Film/ReAnimator'' and ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978''), the game begins with Cole, an industrial painter living in New York who just got home after working for his demanding boss. After cleaning off, he receives a call from one Dr. Hamilton Cooger, who has just succeeded in creating a reanimation serum that brings the dead back to life; in this case, his dead cat was the test subject. Trouble ensues after his cat kills a police officer investigating Cooger's home after getting a noise complaint, and Cooger decides to use the serum to bring him back with the assumption that it won't have any nasty repercussions.
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7	The officer comes back, sure...as a [[CameBackWrong bizarre living corpse that can't be reasoned with]], chasing the two men out of the lab with killing intent. As they're running, Cooger accidentally drops the serum into a graveyard and begins a city-wide undead outbreak…''or did he''?
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9	It's followed by a sequel, ''Dead Of The Brain 2'', which was released in Japan in 1993. These two games, alongside the unrelated ''Marine Philt'', make up [=FairyTale's=] "Nightmare Collection", a trilogy of horror games created by the former {{eroge}} publisher after the Saori incident (where a Japanese teenager was caught stealing a copy of the erotic game ''Saori: The House of Beautiful Women'' from a Kyoto computer store, prompting conversations about minors' access to erotic material) largely killed the eroge genre's marketability in the mainstream Japanese game market.
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11	The series was never officially released in English, but three fan translations of the first game exist -- a 2019 translation patch by Retronomicon for the PC-98 version, a 2023 translation patch by [=WINE=], also for the PC-98 version, and a 2023 translation patch for the PC Engine version by Dave Shadoff. All of these translations were done by separate teams, and the Retronomicon patch notably takes more liberties with the translation than the others do.
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13	!!The ''Dead of the Brain'' series has the following tropes:
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15	* ActionSurvivor: Cole and Kane are this; the former is a painter who's basically just trying to figure out how to stop the outbreak from getting any worse, and the latter is a journalist trying to run away from the outbreak only to stumble into another hotspot.
16	* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: Kitty/Shrodinger's fur is inexplicably a bright purple (and it isn't a [[HairColorDissonance stylized black]], either, since there's a good few minor characters with regular-looking black hair).
17	* AttemptedRape: Sheila almost gets raped by two members of the Bloody Foxes, but thankfully is saved by Kane.
18	* BickeringCouplePeacefulCouple: Sally and Ray are constantly bickering over how to handle the outbreak, whereas Cole and Sheila are relatively tranquil with each other.
19	* BigBad: [[spoiler:Guol is revealed to be the instigator behind the entire outbreak, using Cooger's serum to run his own experiments on people he kidnapped to give himself and Kiel eternal life]].
20	* TheBigGuy: Out of all the survivors holed up in the unfinished hotel, Nose is the biggest of them all.
21	* BoomHeadshot: Zombie heads tend to explode in a very satisfactory shower of gore when they get killed.
22	* BrainInAJar: [[spoiler:Cooger]] is revived this way in the second game.
23	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler: Guol kills Kane by trapping him in a giant vat and releasing a necrotizing gas that [[MakeThemRot causes him to dissolve into sludge]] while he's still alive and conscious. Then he starts flooding the room with it in an attempt to kill Cole and Sheila.]]
24	* TheDragon: [[spoiler:Kiel was this to Guol, albeit reluctantly; he was blackmailed into breaking into Cooger's lab and stealing the first serum he created]].
25	* DubNameChange: Professor Cooger's cat is called "Kitty" in the original Japanese and in the more accurate fan translations, but is renamed "Schrodinger" in the Retronomicon translation.
26	* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Nose is only known by his nickname, and his real name is never found out [[spoiler:even as he's dying from Kiel's gunshot]].
27	* EyeScream: Cole ends up having to take out the first zombie he encounters by driving his thumbs into its eyes so far that they pierce its brain.
28	* FaceDeathWithDignity: Subverted. [[spoiler:Kane initially accepts he's going to get killed, saying sorry to Cole and asking him to avenge his family. As soon as his body begins to rot however, Kane dies [[UndignifiedDeath desperately screaming for help]]]]. This only happens in the Retronomicon translation, while in the other translations [[spoiler:Kane just asks Cole to take care of Sheila, then lets out a scream of pain as he dies.]]
29	* FailureHero: Cole tends to regard himself as such, [[spoiler:given that he fails to save anyone but Sheila]].
30	* GratuitousJapanese: Cooger names his sword Rashomon, after one of the {{Jidaigeki}} films he watched with Sheila.
31	* GuideDangIt: This game is rife with them due to the nature of adventure games; the most notable one is your first encounter with a zombie in Precinct 16.
32	* [[InconsistentSpelling Inconsistent Spelling]]: The names change a fair bit depending on which translation you're using, with some prominent examples being Kane/Cain, Sheila/Shela, Guol/Ghoul and Kiel/Killer.
33	* IntrepidReporter: Downplayed; Kane is certainly intrepid, but he's not really doing his job as a journalist since he has been actively trying to escape and survive the outbreak instead of covering it, while also hunting down Cooger, as he associates the outbreak with him.
34	* KilledOffscreen: [[spoiler:Ray]] and [[spoiler:Sally]] are found naked and dead after [[spoiler:figuring out Guol's true intentions and being killed by the chief with a laser cannon that he had hidden in his body due to being a [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots cyborg]]]].
35	* MartialPacifist: Nose may have been in the army, but he definitely hates fighting...of course, when push comes to shove, [[spoiler:he won't hesitate to go down swinging like he does with Kiel to save Cole]].
36	* MeaningfulName: Cooger's cat is renamed Schrodinger in the Retronomicon translation; after all, she's both dead ''and'' alive.
37	* TheMole: [[spoiler: Kiel and Jack were this for Guol, as the former was meant to keep the other survivors in line at the hotel, and the latter was ''supposed'' to assassinate Cooger in his home the night Cole visited]].
38	* NastyParty: Conversed:
39	-->'''Cole''': ''Did you actually see them? Did you see the zombies that attacked your town?''
40	-->'''Kane''': ''They...attacked my sister's birthday party. My whole family was there. In an instant, such a happy gathering turned into a sea of blood. I made it out, and when I looked back...I was the only one left. I'd lost everything. That's why I swore I'd find the murderer responsible for this and kill him!''
41	* OurZombiesAreDifferent: They're created by a mysterious chemical serum, and can only be killed by RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain. They hunger for brains above all else, but seem happy to eat flesh in general. They move slowly and clumsily, and have no ability to use tools. They're pretty much your standard "Romero" type shamblers.
42	* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: [[spoiler:You'd never be able to tell Guol was a cyborg who gained eternal life from the serum unless you took into consideration the fact that Ray and Sally had abnormally large holes in their bodies that no gun in their armory could leave]].
43	* SelfDisposingVillain: [[spoiler:After Kiel reveals key details about how the outbreak ''really'' began as well as how Guol was pulling the strings, Officer Jack becomes this since he was also blackmailed by Guol; Jack was supposed to kill Cooger at his home, but to maintain his cover, he had no choice but to answer the concerns of the noises coming from his home first...which ultimately would result in his death thanks to Schrodinger slicing his throat]].
44	* ShoutOut:
45	** Cooger's reanimation serum and the first undead you meet in the game being a [[RaisingTheSteaks undead cat]] are homages to ''Film/{{Reanimator}}''.
46	** The outbreak [[spoiler:seemingly]] beginning when Cooger drops his serum in the graveyard and it washes down into the soil, the zombie's raggedy appearance, hunger for brains and ability to "turn" anyone they bite, and the discovery of the massacred police station all homage ''Film/ReturnOfTheLivingDead'', with a little of ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978'' thrown in for good measure.
47	** [[spoiler:Guol's SkeleBot9000 appearance strongly resembles the titular KillerRobots from ''Film/TheTerminator''.]]
48	* StupidScientist: Played for drama; Cooger's obsession with defying death and making a serum that could resurrect anything it touches not only caused him [[NiceJobBreakingItHero to get an officer killed thanks to his undead cat]], [[spoiler: but also gets him killed at the hotel and gives Guol the tool he needed to cause a catastrophic undead outbreak ''before'' the events of the game]].
49	* TooDumbToLive: "Oh my, this dead guy has a gun. But it's empty, so I'll come back for it if I happen to find some bullets."
50	* TrademarkFavoriteFood: A minor example, but Nose mentions he absolutely loves eating hot dogs; specifically, a type that is referred to as a "big dog".
51	* TragicVillain: [[spoiler:Kiel and Jack are such due to being blackmailed into doing Guol's bidding; to make matters worse, the former's family are ''still'' harmed even after he got rid of all the survivors from the abandoned Hotel sans Cathy and Sheila]].
52	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Cooger's toying around with something as serious as a reanimation serum has pretty much caused an outbreak. [[spoiler:It's downplayed later with the reveal that it was Guol who was the perpetrator behind the outbreaks since he intentionally sent Kiel to steal it and caused the outbreak way before the events of the game actually occurred, using Cooger's good intentions as a stepping stool for his agenda]].
53	* WeHardlyKnewYe: [[spoiler:Pretty much every character introduced in the game except for Cole and Sheila are subject to this]].

Context VideoGame / DeadOfTheBrain