History VideoGame / SirenGames

''Siren'' is a series of [[StealthBasedGame Stealth-based]] SurvivalHorror video games. The series is the SpiritualSuccessor to the original ''Franchise/SilentHill'', directed by Keiichirō Toyama. Through heavy use of SwitchingPOV and AnachronicOrder, each game tells the story of several people caught up in the netherworld where they are faced with a supernatural threat over the course of several days.

* FightingFromTheInside: The manga, with is ability to show more story than the game does, demonstrates several examples of people trying to resist their Shibito instincts as they transform.

* DeathOfAChild: Played straight and averted: [[spoiler:Miyako and Tomoko (both 14) die -- the former ends up as a sacrifice in a ritual (although she lives on in spirit) and the latter becomes a Shibito]]). It is also possible to watch them die in-game after taking too much damage. However, ten-year-old Harumi is never shown dying when a Shibito discovers her, [[spoiler:and she is the only character from the first game to actually escape Hanuda]].

* AgeWithoutYouth: [[spoiler:Although members of the Kajiro family (or those with their blood inside) are spared the effects of the red water and live long lives, they cannot die of natural causes and so their bodies eventually age out of human form]].

* BattleInTheRain: Some scenarios will sometimes fighting Shibito/Yamibito in the rain while out in the open.

* TheAlcoholic: Officer Ishida in the first game. [[spoiler:Even Winged Shibito need a drink now and then...but the last one had a bit too much kick to it.]]

* {{Backtracking}}: In the first ''Siren'', justified in that Hanuda is a small village and is isolated in a DarkWorld. Thus, most of the main cast will go through the exact same areas previously visited -- albeit with different objectives in mind and often from another approach. Once missions are completed, alternate objectives of varying difficulty are unlocked for them, which, when completed, add connecting details to the cast's story and unlock paths that move the game closer to its true ending.
** In ''Blood Curse'', in addition to the above, justified in the second half of the game due to it being the [[spoiler:second loop; everyone starts where they originally did, and must go to where they're meant to go, which often means going back through the same areas.]]

* BoozeBasedBuff: Inverted. Officer Ishida's drunkness is suggested to have made him ''way'' more susceptible to the effects of the red water, to the point that he turned into a half-Shibito while the stuff was ''still forming'' in the middle of the night, shot his superior and started wandering around before any other Hanuda citizens.

* JabbaTableManners: One of the focal Shibito of a mission in the first game can be seen gorging on a bowl of noodles with his bare hands. The food is also plastered all over the desk and even the walls.

* OnceMoreWithClarity: One of the final "movie stages" unlocked in the first game is [[spoiler:Yoriko's reunion with Tamon on Day Three. As the player should have guessed by now, ''he'' was the half-Shibito at the time, while she was doing perfectly fine; it also seems that she was unable to see Datatsushi because of this.]]

* OrphansOrdeal: Irritable, sardonic Professor Tamon Takeuchi's parents died in a landslide twenty-seven years prior to the game. The trauma of losing his parents ends up drawing him back to Hanuda. [[spoiler:They come back... [[CameBackWrong sort of.]] Tamon's childlike, almost giddy regression upon finding them, while presumably affected by the red water, seems to suggest he's been holding onto some considerable angst.]]

* PsychicDreamsForEveryone: ''Siren Maniacs'' mentions that numerous people in Hanuda were troubled by visions and hallucinations, implicitly including sight-jacking. Harumi and Miyako explicitly had visions relating to events in the game.

* SiblingYinYang: Kei Makino and Shiro Miyata are basically opposites. Kei is a kind-hearted, but completely ineffectual guy, and Shiro's cold, but gets things done. Shiro envies Kei, due to his place within the community, [[spoiler:and we all know what can happen when [[CainAndAbel brothers envy each other...]]]]

* SuperpoweredEvilSide: [[spoiler:At one point, Ichiko Yagura blacks out and wakes up to find to her horror that she's killed Shigeru Fujita. When she finally goes off the deep end (due to TheCorruption), we see exactly how a schoolgirl could kill a cop, as she becomes an invincible OmnicidalManiac with [[BottomlessMagazines infinite ammo]] and a [[KatanasareJustBetter katana.]]]]
* SwordOfPlotAdvancement: The Homuranagi ''sort of'' qualifies. [[spoiler:Kyoya automatically obtains it after taking down the Shibitofied Jun Kajiro in the Netherworld with the Uryen, but using it to go Franchise/{{Highlander}} [[OffWithHisHead on Datatsushi]] is necessary to achieve the True (or rather, Full) Ending.]]

* TeacherStudentRomance: Female student Yoriko Anno has the hots for Professor Takeuchi. He doesn't have similar feelings for her, though.

* TheyWouldCutYouUp:
** What Shiro ends up doing to [[spoiler:the Ondas]]. Turns out that not much will kill them, no matter how much he cuts.
** Also happens to [[spoiler:the previous Miyako from the last failed ceremony, after her escape attempt failed.]]
* ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: [[spoiler:Shiro nearly quotes the trope verbatim as he goes to finish off the Ondas. But by that point, he had shot his brother Kei and assumed his identity, making the quote darkly funny.]]
* ThunderboltIron: Homuranagi was forged from siderite obtained out of the Mana Stone.

* TookALevelInBadass:
** Kyoya and [[spoiler:Yoriko]] in the first game.
*** [[spoiler:Left trapped in the other world, Yoriko not only survives but reverses roles with the professor, being the one who pulls him out of his days-long embrace with his parents, who may or may not mean well but are still part-Shibito at this point.]]
*** Kyoya, meanwhile, [[spoiler:becomes a kind of heroic revenant who apparently now wanders time and space, a OneManArmy and WalkingArsenal called upon to destroy evil while listening to "The Buster" on his portable CD player... for all eternity. The repeating partial ending has the Shibito wreaking havoc across all the fields... and Kyoya packed with grenades, the [[CoolSword Homuranagi]], and an assault rifle. And he kicks off the massacre by [[DeathFromAbove calling down a celestial artillery strike]] on the Shibito with [[ArtifactOfPower the Uryen.]]]]
** [[spoiler:Yorito Nagai]] in the second game. [[spoiler:He starts the game in sobbing hysterics; he ends it wearing camo ThisMeansWarpaint and killing two bosses in a row, one of them the embodiment of an elder god.]]
** In ''Blood Curse'', [[spoiler:Howard Wright]].

* TwinSwitch: [[spoiler:Shiro kills his twin brother Kei early on Day 3 and goes on to do a DeadPersonImpersonation of him. Even the game doesn't tell the player about it at first, only hinting at it by giving Kei the same weapons Shiro acquired, making them believe they play as Kei in some of the later levels, when they are actually playing as Shiro.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Subverted in the first game. When Miyata activates the [[spoiler:Uryen, two rotting Shibito slink off the screen rather than get caught in the chasm. They have a touching reunion with their son in the ending, until that [[BatterUp goes to hell]].]]

** [[spoiler:Spread by the red water in the first game. If too much of it gets into your bloodstream, you become a Shibito, and the more of it that gets in, the faster you turn. So, as long as you don't drink it, breathe the vapors, soak in it, or let it into your wounds, you'll be fine... Uh-oh. Looks like rain...]]

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: [[spoiler:After the ritual to restore Datatsushi proves successful, no more generations of Kajiros are needed, and so Ayako Kajiro gets roasted.]]
* YoureInsane: Said verbatim by [[spoiler:Kei Makino]] upon seeing what Shiro did with the Onda sisters.