"If you help me get outta here, then I'll kill you,"
Angels of Death (Satsuriku no Tenshi) is an episodic Psychological Horror Adventure Game for PC, made by Stardust KRNKRN (creator of the Forest of Drizzling Rain) using the RPG Maker VX Ace engine. It was originally released in Japanese as a freeware game in 2015. Then, a commercial English-translated version of it has been released and made available on Steam in late December 2016 to support the developer. There are four episodes in total.
13-year old Rachel Gardner awakens to find herself trapped in the basement of an abandoned building known only as the Tower. Without any memories or even a clue as to where she could be, she wanders the building in search of an exit, lost and dizzy. During her journey, she had a chance meeting with a murderer covered in bandages, Issac Foster, and, later on in their encounters as she began to discover more about herself, formed an unlikeliest of bonds through an odd promise that they've made with each other.
Ray has decided that she wants to die and begs Zack to kill her. Zack, who disobeyed the rules of the Tower and has become a fugitive of sorts, promises that if she helps him escape, he will kill her in return. But it will not be easy, for the Tower is managed by a group of Serial Killers whom they will need to face off against. In the process, Ray begins to remember why she ended up here in the first place... and what that means for her and Zack.
The original freeware Japanese game is available on the creator’s website here
while one can get the English-translated version of the game on Steam here.
On July 6th, 2018, an animated adaptation by J.C. Staff aired, a year after its announcement. Funimation's Simuldub of the anime series premiered on July 23th, 2018. Watch it here.
There is also a prequel, Episode: Eddie, which functions as an Origins Episode for the titular Eddie Mason, one of the killers in the Tower. It follows his troubled home life as a child in a family of gravediggers, suffering under the abuse of his Big Brother Bully Albert, and meeting a mysterious girl who he forms a connection with.
Does not have anything to do with the nickname for Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000 or the animated series set in the same universe.
Angels of Death contains examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion:
- The Manga adaptation expands some of the characters backgrounds and thoughts. There is also a prequel, Angel Of Death Episode 0, an expansion to how the facility came to be.
- The anime adaptation gives the viewer more details to Zack's backstory. For instance, a puzzle in B3 forces Rachel and Zack to briefly part ways, leading to Rachel commanding Zack with the assistance of a map on her end, and Zack getting increasingly angry at being told what to do. The anime replaces this puzzle with one that involves Rachel deciphering a series of clues and commanding Zack to arrange a dollhouse accordingly. The puzzle, and Cathy's taunting, force Zack to relive his troubled past, giving Zack every reason, including hating being commanded, to fly into a destructive rage.
- Ambiguous Ending: Whatever happened to Rachel after Zack met up with her after the former went to a rehab facility and the latter escaped from prison is intentionally made unclear. What is confirmed is that they escaped from the facility together, though the final fate of Rachel still remains ambiguous. Word of God confirms that they both disappeared and nobody knows where they went.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: There are occasions where you play as Zack in several parts of the game.
- Big Bad: Doctor Daniel "Danny" Dickens is the one who recruited the other killers of the Tower and brought Rachel to the tower in the first place, and is hell-bent on making sure Ray and Zack never leave.
- Big Bad Ensemble: In Episode: Eddie, Albert Mason and the Girl's adoptive father are the abusers of Eddie Mason and the Girl, respectively, and the conflict is the two trying to deal with the abuse.
- Death Seeker: Rachel eventually comes to cross the Despair Event Horizon, asking Zack to kill her. This freaks out Zack so much that he doesn't kill Rachel.
- Escape Sequence: When you first meet Zack, who gives you a three-second headstart before he chases after you and kills you.
- Foregone Conclusion: In the anime and manga, after fleeing the orphanage, Zack eventually gets taken in by a blind old man, who offers him food and shelter out of the kindness of his heart. Zack doesn't even feel any desire to kill him. Just when it looked like Zack might gain a place to call home, the old man got mugged and killed while out shopping. While Zack wrought his vengeance, this also completed his transformation into a serial killer.
- Foreshadowing:
- Rachel stitches up the two halves of a dead bird to fix it up, under the guise of 'healing' it, before burying its body in the first episode. This is hinting at her not being an innocent, normal girl. It also hints at her having done the same thing to her hateful, dead parents, sewing them together to make them happy together.
- Just before Rachel leaves floor B5, the seemingly dead Danny is shown briefly turning his head and looking at Ray, showing that he is Not Quite Dead and will be returning.
- Gray is the priest of the B2 floor. His entire floor is filled with religious undertones, he doesn't initially seem to harbor any of the main characters any ill intent, and he is the only one who knows how to descend down the floors of the facility. It turns out that he's the master and 'God' of the entire facility.
- Rachel, during Gray's challenge, must shoot down Cathy's prisoners, and later take a bunch of living hands and sew them together. This hints towards what she did that got her in the Tower — she shot her father and sewed him together with her dead mother.
- Formula with a Twist: If you go into this story blind, it would seem to be a typical horror game at first. It starts off with an average person trapped in a dark location, trying to escape while fleeing from killers trying to murder her. However, the typical plot starts to diverge when the main character Rachel starts to show signs that something isn't right with her. Then it completely goes off the normal path when Rachel turns suicidal & wants to die, and one of the killers (Zack) joins Rachel as her partner! From here on, it's a story about a suicidal and a killer working together, with the suicidal helping the killer escape in exchange of getting killed by him.
- Minimalist Cast: Rachel, her parents, and the six floor masters (one of whom is Rachel herself) are the only characters in the original game. The adaptations, especially the manga and the Episode 0 prequel, do add more characters.
- Mythology Gag: In the anime's opening, there's a wanted poster of Zack with an image similar to his in-game sprite portrait.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: With the exception of Gray and Rachel, each floor keepers are recognized by their nickname instead of actual name. Inverted with Rachel, since Zack is the only who call her 'Ray' to help him recognize her name easier, while everybody else is able to call her by her real name just fine.
- Rainbow Puke: When Rachel asks Zack to kill her, he vomits in rainbow colors, absolutely disgusted with the idea of killing someone who wants to be killed.
- Sad Battle Music: On Ray's floor, you get First Quarter Moon.
- Serial Killer: The floor masters, especially Zack (the newspapers scattered around his floor, as well as the guy himself, explicitly call him as such), all have the task of killing whomever comes through their floors, and amass a high body count, with the exceptions of Rachel (who only killed one person) and possibly Pastor Grey.
- Spoiler Opening: The OP of the anime airs from the second episode forward. At the time, Danny seems to be dead, but he heavily features in the OP, indicating that it doesn't stick. In fairness, though, the next few episodes go through the rest of the cast like tissue paper too, and they manage to come back as hallucinatory visions in the second half.
- Villain Protagonist: Zack is an unrepentant serial killer who fully intends to continue his spree once he escapes.
- Yonkoma: Satsuten is an official 4-koma series that is usually Lighter and Softer than the games.
