Video Game / Siren Games

... I see... you've resisted the temptation of the sirens for decades, lying here... Everlasting life means everlasting pain...

Siren is a series of Stealth-based Survival Horror video games, based in Japanese Folk Horror. The series is the Spiritual Successor to the original Silent Hill, directed by Keiichirō Toyama. Through heavy use of Switching P.O.V. and Anachronic Order, 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.

Unique game mechanics include "Sightjacking", the ability to see through your enemies' eyes, and thus know their patrolling and movement patterns, and the fact that enemies cannot be permanently killed, although with the extremely rare circumstances allowing for one to be physically removed from the stage.

Individual Games: (Kindly add tropes exclusive to these works only to their pages)

• Siren 1
• Siren 2
• Siren: Blood Curse

Currently, the series consists of three games, a movie, and two manga adaptations (Siren: Akai Umi no Yobigoe [Siren: The Call of the Red Sea] and Siren: Re BIRTH), with the latter being serialized in 2014 with creative work done by Sony Computer Entertainment production crew veterans.

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The Siren series provides examples of:

• All Swords Are the Same: Inverted in the first game. The knives, hammers, and sickles only the common 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. Ditto (but better) for the large sickle, iron pipe, and crowbar. Finally, Mina's shovel also has the same damage as the Homurunagi, aka the final weapon of the game.
• All There in the Manual: The Siren Maniacs books. Fortunately, fan-translations for Siren Maniacs and Siren 2 Maniacs are available online.
• Alternate Universe: 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.
• Ambiguous Ending: The first game ends on a major cliffhanger: While Suda has defeated Datatsushi, it is unknown if he can leave the otherworld. Even worse, Yoriko and Tamon seem to still be stuck as well, and the game ends before they can leave. The sequel implies that escape is impossible, leaving Harumi the only survivor. Since 2 doesn’t solve this, and Blood Curse is a remake, then this becomes Left Hanging.
• Anachronic Order: The games are comprised of several missions experienced by multiple protagonists, often out of order, accompanied by various flashbacks and Apocalyptic Logs delivered through the archive items. Some missions have optional sub-objectives you can complete to unlock new missions, although these can be a bit obtuse.
• Arranged Marriage: Jun Kajiro was adopted and raised by the Kajiro family so that should the ritual to sacrifice Miyako fail, he could marry Ayako Kajiro and continue the family line.
• Barrier Warrior: Sort of. In the second game, evolved Yamibito can only be attacked from behind.
• Battle in the Rain: Some scenarios will sometimes have fighting Shibito/Yamibito in the rain while out in the open.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Akira in the first game and his expy Seigo in Blood Curse both stick their shotguns in their mouths and shoot themselves in an attempt to escape the Shibito curse. It doesn't work for either of them.
• Black Speech: With some exceptions, the Shibito in the original game constantly mutter and sing to themselves in words that can't quite be made out. Averted in the second and third games, where the Yamibito/Shibito speak English or Japanese, depending on your settings.
• Blessed with Suck: Psychic Powers seem to be a bad thing for whoever has them, either because of their nature or the character's situation.
  • In the first game, Miyako Kajiro's strong powers indicate that she's an even better "bride" for Datatsushi than the other Miyako Kajiros Hisako's been sacrificing over the centuries. Risa Onda has a telepathic link to her twin sister who has been transformed into a Shibito. When they end up fully connecting mentally, Risa turns into one as well.
  • In the second, Takeaki Misawa's ability to sense the supernatural is driving him insane, and Akiko and Ikuko's powers come from their being Unawakened Doves due to their pregnant mothers absorbing the essence of Doves who dissolved in the sun. As Akiko uses her powers to channel the memories of Kanae, a deceased avatar of the Big Bad, Kanae's essence pulls a Grand Theft Me, stealing and transforming her body. Ikuko's powers caused her to be ostracized by her peers while growing up, and it's heavily implied that she awakened as a Dove due to the events.
  • The third game's Miyako is an Expy of the first, however her powers derive from being a blood descendant of the elder gods from another dimension who used to be worshipped in the region before Manaism took over. Her entire bloodline has been used as a tool by the Mana cult, either as sacrifices or living relics, and she's the only one left.
  • The reason you're able to heal rapidly and sightjack people in the first and third games? You've been exposed to the red water, and you're slowly mutating.
• Blood Is the New Black: The red water forces blood out of the system through the eyes, so the Shibito have bloody clothes and faces.
• Body Horror:
  • The evolved forms of Dog, Spider, and Winged Shibito in the first game, and the evolved forms of the Yamibito in the second. The spider, maggot and fly Shibito in the third.
  • Honorable mention goes to the Shibito Brains, the Onda Twins near the end, and Eiji Nagoshi's evolved Shibito form — which is literally a Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong; Yukie in Blood Curse.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: 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 World War I; it's only in the second game, with protagonists who are part of the JGSDF, where the player starts to get access to more recent hardware (and "recent" in this case still means weapons adopted in The '80s, about twenty years before the game's setting).
• Cool Teacher: Reiko Takato and Principal Eiji Nagoshi both tried to cheer Harumi up after the death of her parents by taking her class on a field trip and arranging a stargazing night for her at the school (which goes terribly wrong).
  • After the ritual fails in the prologue, Reiko goes full Action Survivor in order to save Harumi, even after becoming a Shibito.
  • Ultimately subverted with Nagoshi, who becomes a Shibito within the first couple hours and then evolves into a Shibito Brain before the first day is over. Siren Maniacs also hints that there may be a severely-repressed perverted side to him that came out after he was Shibitofied, which adds a disturbing element to his single-minded pursuit of Harumi.
• Cursed with Awesome:
  • Due to her feeding upon Datatsushi, Hisako Yao, anyone descended from her (i.e. the Kajiros), or anyone with the Kajiros' blood in their veins (eventually Kyoya Suda and Yoriko Anno) are "cursed" to never become Shibito. They also apparently age extremely slowly (in Yao's case, not at all), and if the fate of the previous Miyako Kajiro (under the clinic) is any indication, take more than twenty-seven years to starve to death. From the perspective of the townspeople, this means they get to live long, miserable lives with no chance whatsoever of being united with their God. From just about anyone else's perspective...
  • According to the supplemental material, it's not as good as it sounds from a non-Shibito perspective, either. What happened to all the Kajiros who didn't get sacrificed? They gradually lost their human figure. There's a rather literal family reunion nobody wants to join somewhere under their household.
  • In the second game, Sightjacking is said to actually be a curse from Otoshigo and Mother, permitting them to view all that transpires on the island.
  • Blood Curse has Howard Wright, who is armed with the Homuranagi and Uryen—part of his new arsenal to destroy Hanuda and the Shibito. The problem? He might be doing it forever.
• Death of a Child: Played straight and averted: 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, and she is the only character from the first game to actually escape Hanuda and the same is true for child Shu in Forbidden Siren 2 and Bella in Blood Curse.
• Detect Evil: 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.
• Doing In the Wizard: 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.
• Draw Aggro: In addition to attempting to lure enemies, this is the primary function of the "Shout" command, as it will cause any enemies that hear to promptly target you instead of your companions.
• Dysfunctional Family:
  • The Maedas, Tomoko and her parents. Downplayed, as Tomoko ran away in a bout of teenage angst after she caught her parents reading her diary. Although in the end they're harmoniously reunited... as Shibito.
  • The Monroes in the third game, though Sam and Bella are able to set aside their differences in the interests of protecting Bella, even when one of them has turned into a Shibito.
• Eldritch Abomination: Datatsushi from the first game. Mother and Otoshigo from the second. Not the same species, despite some misconceptions. Datatsushi is an alien who crash-landed on Earth in the 7th Century AD and became worshiped as a god by the starving people of Hanuda — after they first tried to eat him. Mother and Otoshigo are primordial beings of darkness who were sealed away in the netherworld aeons ago, when God introduced light into the world. Also Kaiko in Blood Curse.
• Enemy Summoner: Shibito howl in order to alert each other of when they spot humans.
• Elite Mooks: Any named characters who become a Shibito (or Yamibito in the second game) tend to usually be stronger than generic Shibito, usually by reviving faster, having more health/stun resistance or carrying a more powerful weapon even if they're not actually the boss of the stage.
• Escort Mission: All three games feature a number of missions where you must lead and protect another character, which often involves hiding them someplace safe while you try to engineer a distraction that lets them slip through undetected.
• Evil Laugh: The Shibito like to laugh. A lot.
• False Camera Effects: There's plenty of static and film grain all the way through.
• A Fate Worse Than Death: Numerous. Becoming a Shibito and mutating into a monster (even as the red water makes you believe you're living in paradise), refusing to become a Shibito and being buried under a mudslide for decades, living through the disaster without becoming a Shibito but being trapped in the other world, being slowly possessed by one of the ancient evils from the second game and used to do their bidding.
• Fighting from the Inside: 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 and it is occasionally shown in the games.
• Flash Back: Much of the backstory of the characters and main villain is shown through flashback cutscenes.
• Flawed Prototype: The earliest Doves/Offshoots Mother created and sent out to our world, namely Kanae (Offshoot A) and the unnamed Offshoots B and B', shook off most of her control and developed human feelings and sentiments. She managed to correct this error by the time she made Yuri Kishida, who is closer to her in personality and power.
• Forgot About His Powers: A frustratingly common event in the cutscenes of every game is that characters will forget they can sight-jack and will lean around corners to check for danger and often get nearly caught because of it though thankfully the games never go as far as to have this actually be the reason a character gets killed off.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Used in the first 20 seconds of Blood Curse; as Howard runs away, he WILL be shot at least once, but will brush it off. And then he gets shot again in a cutscene and it's a One-Hit KO.
  • Shibito/Yamibito in gameplay are hyperfocused on killing the player/companions upon seeing them until losing sight, in cutscenes however Shibito/Yamibito sometimes ignore/taunt characters instead of outright trying to kill them right away.
  • One cutscene in Siren 2 shows an Evolved Yamibito being lit by a flashlight and no reacting, in actual gameplay merely shinning the flashlight on any Yamibito for a second causes them to enter a stunned state briefly.
• Gender Incompetence: Compared to the men, the women have more limited climbing abilities, cannot use rifles as they lack animations for them, 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 evil female shibitos are spared from this as they share the same limitations as the human girls.
  • Somewhat played around with in Forbidden Siren 2 as legally blind Shu Mikami cannot climb up ledges as tall as he is and needs to be helped up.
  • Switched around a bit in Blood Curse, female characters can now climb ledges as tall as they are but can no longer use two-handed melee weapons or any guns though Melissa uses a .38 revolver in a cutscene. (There's no gun Shibito in any female main character stages and female Shibito cannot pick up the .38 revolver.)
• "Groundhog Day" Loop:
  • Implied to be happening in the original game; see Mind Screw.
  • Hits halfway through the second game.
  • Also hits partway through the third game.
• Hero of Another Story: Siren Maniacs mentions that Naoko Mihama's film crew got dragged into the otherworld as well, and likely had some (almost certainly ill-fated) adventures.
• Heroes Love Dogs: The games' two blind characters have guide dogs. Miyako's only friend growing up was her dog Kereb, and she is the only Kajiro who wants to stop Datatsushi's return. Shu in the second game is less heroic in general but is central to the game's backstory. He take it hard when Tsukasa sacrifices herself to push him out from under a collapsing shack. It turns out Tsukasa is still alive, and she later joins forces with dim but brave Soji, and the two of them eventually makes it out of the netherworld together.
• Hijacked by Jesus:
  • In the first and third games thanks to centuries of rewriting and outside influences Datatsushi and Kaiko take on more conventional forms in the archives, resembling Shinto gods or Buddhas. One story actually fuses the former with Hiruko, and speculates on how a sea deity could get worshipped in the mountains.
  • Another mistaken case in Blood Curse where an Archive mentions that the local shift from worshipping gods from another dimension to Manaism (which focuses around a deity, Kaiko, sacrificing itself to save Hanuda) may indicate the influence of an outside religious influence (implicitly Christianity). Nope! It's based around a rather tasty crash-landing alien..
• Hive Mind:
  • In the first game, the Shibito are mentally linked on some level, and since all the main characters (save Miyako Kajiro and Harumi Yomoda) are slowly transforming into Shibito, they're linked, too. That's how Sightjacking works.
  • It might be more of the village and its cursed nature that provides the link that grants Sightjacking rather than a Shibito hivemind. Even Harumi was able to use it, and she was the sole living survivor of the Hanuda catastrophe, found in the middle of what used to be the village and nowhere near a Shibito state.
    • According to Maniacs and the website Harumi is one of a number of villagers who have a degree of psychic ability. The website shows she was having visions of Shibito and red rain before the game started. That seems to be why she can sightjack.
  • In the first game, when a Shibito Brain is present, all Shibito within a certain vicinity are linked to it. Temporarily killing the Shibito Brain will lay low every other Shibito in the area immediately and is usually an objective in some missions.
• How We Got Here: Told in Anachronic Order and starting In Medias Res, the plot and backstory are often unclear at first, and it takes many missions, flashback cutscenes, and archive items to truly understand what's going on.
• Humanity Is Infectious: Mother's method of interacting with the surface world involves creating human-like avatars ("Doves") whose job is to look for a suitable Unwitting Pawn that will let her out of her prison. Apparently, it's not that uncommon for them to grow fond of humanity and abandon their missions.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: 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.
• Invincible Minor Minion: 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, 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.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Homuranagi.
• Keystone Army: In the first game, incapacitating a "Brain" Shibito will cause all other Shibito in the area to collapse and several levels are entirely based around destroying it just to paralyze the rest so you can get on.
• Kill It with Fire: The purifying flames of the Shield and Sword Uryen figurines can permanently destroy a Shibito.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Any Shibito that gets knocked out while pursuing your current character will forget about that pursuit and resume their normal routine after reviving. Unless, of course, you stood there to watch the whole time.
• Laughing Mad: Shibito regularly have laughing fits and cry out in joy, because as a whole they're having an ecstatic religious experience, wandering around in a paradisaical world of shining light and angelic creatures. Naturally, they want to share.
• Lost in Translation: In-universe. The unused chorus section of "Hoshingoeika", provided in Siren Maniacs, contains many references to Latin Christian terms, but the pronunciations have 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".
• Mama Bear: It's borderline tradition for each Siren game to have one of the protagonists be female and defend a child against the Shibito with Reiko Takato in the first game and Melissa Gale in Blood Curse both facing the Shibito in direct combat in order to protect Harumi and Bella as playable characters, somewhat downplayed with Kanae in Forbidden Siren 2 as while she is armed during a level where we play as child Shu and will defend him, she's not super effective and she loses it for her playable stage, forcing her to use more stealthy tactics/shoving enemies off ledges as opposed to beating them down directly.
• Mind Screw: As to be expected from the mind behind the first Silent Hill game, only amplified by the games' Anachronic Order.
• Mood-Swinger: The Shibito randomly exhibit various different emotions at any given time. They may be crying one moment and giggling the next.
• Nigh-Invulnerable:
  • Present in both games. In the first, the Shibito take a lot more damage than a normal person would, and when they finally get knocked out, curl up and stay down for anywhere from a couple of minutes for the non-evolved Shibito to about half that or less for the evolved ones. At one point Shiro Miyata does vivisections on the Shibitofied Onda sisters... while they're still squirming and screaming. In spite of having their organs taken out and analyzed, they're good as new within no time. The only thing that can permanently destroy a Shibito is being set aflame by the Uryen. In the second, it seems endemic to Yamajima Island that people who die there come back to life as nigh-invulnerable Shibito or Yamibito if they aren't stabbed with a Mekkoju branch upon death.
  • The remake uses this, but it is much longer, as you can go through an entire level without it waking up.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: No matter how hard you beat down a Shibito or Yamibito, they always get right back up a short time later. There are occasionally ways to permanently remove specific enemies from a stage, however.
• Not Blood Siblings: Jun Kajiro was adopted by the Kajiro family for this specific reason, so that he could be raised by the family to marry his adoptive sister Ayako.
• Ominous Fog:
  • Even the daylight moments in Hanuda are depressingly cloudy and misty.
  • In the second game, evolved male Yamibito apparently emit ominous fog. When you're in close proximity to them, everything goes dark around you.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: The track, "The Gates of Paradise Are Open", which Hisako is seen playing on an organ to celebrate the resurrection of Datatsushi, graudually builds up, first adding an Ethereal Choir on top, before then also adding creepy Shibito throat singing.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder:
  • Harumi. She's a ten-year-old girl who also can't run or use weapons, so for the levels you play as her, you must be ninja-level stealthy.
    • There's also a plot reason: any graze means she's compromised by red water.
  • A level played as young Shu in the second game is the same case.
• One-Woman Wail: Karuwari II
• Only Sane Man: The Shimura family is possessed of extremely sharp perceptive abilities and intuition that make them immune to whatever means Hisako is using to keep the other villagers complacent and oblivious. Akira ignores it all, being strongly traditional. His cousin Takafumi makes a stink about it and gets committed, and Akira's son tries to run away with the Previous Miyako and causes her ritual to fail, getting him killed and causing the landslide twenty-seven years ago.
• Our Zombies Are Different:
  • The Shibito in the first game. They apparently retain a degree of the intellect they had before they mutated, but are given to strange, neurotic behaviors, such as repeating mindless tasks or endlessly patrolling. After bathing in the red water often enough, they mutate into more powerful and horrifying forms. And all of them are thrilled that this has happened to them because being a Shibito means being one with their god. They want you to be happy, too. And that means opening you up and letting the red water in.
  • In the second game, "Shibito" are more conventional zombies, corpses animated by "Shiryo", which are spirits controlled by Otoshigo. "Yamibito" are Shibito who have been taken over and altered by "Yamirei", spirit-creature-thingies controlled by Mother.
• Parental Abandonment: Several of the playable characters lose their parents, before or during the games.
  • In the first game, Professor Tamon's parents died in a landslide in Hanuda when he was a child, while Harumi lost her parents in a freak car accident, forging a surrogate mother-daughter relationship with her teacher Mrs. Takato before the latter gives her life to protect her.
  • In the second game, Shu's mother died giving birth to him, while as a young boy, he woke one night and came downstairs to find his father Ryuhei bleeding to death on the floor. He's then taken in by Kanae, whom he had come to view as a surrogate mother, but she drowns while ensuring he makes it to the mainland. Unbeknownst to Shu, Kanae killed his father while under Mother's influence — and, as Shu's mother was also one of Mother's 'doves', Kanae looked exactly like Ryuhei's wife, and was apparently recovering some of her memories, meaning in some sense Kanae really was Shu's mother. The part of Kanae that was Shu's mother was driven to get him away from Yamajima, to save him from the part of her which was the entity Mother.
• Parasol of Pain: Umbrellas can be used as weapons in both games. They work about as well as you'd expect.
• Rain of Blood: Type 3 variant in the first game and in "Blood Curse".
• Recurring Boss: Tomoe and Tsuneo Ohta in the second game. Interesting in that, thanks to Time Travel, you actually run in to them in three different forms: Human, Shibito, and then evolved Yamibito.
• Reviving Enemy: The Shibito.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Each surviving main character in the second game.
• Running Gag: The incredibly ill-conceived entertainment products that show up as archive items in the second game.
• Shaky P.O.V. Cam: Sightjacking uses this as a very important gameplay tool.
• Stealth-Based Game:
  • Most of the first game's missions involves the main cast trying to avoid detection by various Shibito to reach a certain location. This is usually compounded by the characters having neither effective weapons (at least in the beginning) nor Bottomless Magazines in the case of characters who pack or happen across firearms. Not to mention short of drastic measures (i.e. permanent death by Uryen or Homuranagi) the Shibito will revive eventually. Aggravated especially in the thankfully few instances of an Escort Mission.
  • Siren 2 also follows the same route; although some enemy weapons can be picked up and used, it is best not to be seen if you can help it.
• Stylistic Suck: The Urban Folklore Society, supplemental material stylized as an in-universe website about unexplained, possibly paranormal incidents (namely, the plot of Siren and Siren 2), has a poorly-tiled background for the home page and is rife with minor spelling and grammatical errors.
• Summoning Ritual: Two attempts to revive Datatsushi in the first game. The first one is sabotaged by Miyako Kajiro as Kyoya Suda arrives and Hilarity Ensues. The second one succeeds.
• Symbolic Baptism: The rituals of umi-okuri and umi-gaeri involve half-Shibito being compelled to immerse themselves in the sea of red water when the siren calls and to leave it, respectively. Once they've done so enough times (depending on the individual), they evolve into the next form of Shibito. Some resist complying or are unable to, and so stay miserable half-Shibito.
• Tears of Blood: As the red water replaces the blood within the human body, said blood is forced out from the eye sockets.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Thankfully for the player, Shibito tend to give up their pursuit quickly and go back to what they were doing once the player drops out of sight which is good considering the somewhat small levels in the series and only in rare scripted instances will Shibito take measures to prevent the player escaping as easily again.
  • Shibito never react to the player's flashlight itself (outside of a few scripted instances in Blood Curse) instead it simply increases the range they can see the actual player.
• Time Travel:
  • Both games take place in an alternate dimension where the past and present versions of the setting are mashed together. In the second game it's subtly hinted that the main characters are from an Alternate Universe, and that with the defeat of Mother and Otoshigo, and the collapse of the combined timeline, they're scattered across the dimensions. Then there's the third game, in which not only is there time travel, there's a time travel loop that has the main characters stuck in a spiritual sideways 8 eternally.
  • After she's caught in Datatsushi's collapse, white-haired Yao falls outside of time with Datatsushi's skull. You can actually catch Miyako smashing the skull early in the game to sabotage the ritual, only to be surprised later when it's found intact. The skull, also existing outside time, can and has been replaced as needed.
• Town with a Dark Secret: The villages of Hanuda and Yamajima. One is home to a cult of immortals trying to bring their alien god back to life, the other to a cult of fishermen trying to stop an elder evil buried under their island from returning to the world of light.
• Two-Faced: Spider Shibito develop an arachnoid face complete with mandibles on the top of their head, which they use as their primary "face" after transformation. Their vestigial original face is now on top of their head, with their neck twisted to face backwards..
• Unreliable Narrator:
  • Characters who come closer to becoming a Shibito (and so death in general) start seeing things. A complete Shibito sees the cursed setting as a paradise filled with angels.
  • Towards the end, a disoriented Tamon sees Yoriko with the pale face of a Shibito running at him. From Yoriko's less infected view, we see Tamon was the one becoming a near-complete Shibito.
  • Miyata sees a rather optimistic welcome to the afterlife, complete with the women he vivisected and/or murdered along with their unborn child happily calling him over.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: Played straight in the first game, averted in the second and remake.
• Unstoppable Rage: Yorito develops a case of this near the end of the second game.
• Walk the Earth: If the second game is any indication, Kyoya, unable to return to our world, wanders the Netherworld defeating supernatural menaces with the Uryen and the Homuranagi. One wonders where he gets batteries for his portable stereo player...
  • Same fate for Howard in Siren Blood Curse.
• Weaksauce Weakness: In the first game and its remake, Spider Shibito can't open doors, so it's rather easy to lure one into a room you don't plan to use, knock it out, and trap it (an objective in one stage of the remake actually tasks you to do just that so a character you're escorting can follow you safely). In the second, most of the enemies are vulnerable to bright light, which kills Shiryo and Yamirei, and briefly stuns Yamibito.
  • Applies to the female characters, every single one of them. The game has three tiers of characters in adult male, adult female, and child. The only child is Hirumi and she is understandably weaker than an adult in every way but the adult female characters are generally not as capable as the males. Female adults have less HP, less stamina, weaker melee proficiency, can't use automatic guns and one of the most frustrating features is that adult females can't climb ledges higher than half their body height usually just above their hips. In missions with a male and female adult the player will always be the male and could usually cover for the weakness such as help the female climb a ledge she can't on her own and these tend to play more like any damsel escort mission in any other game but in missions where you play as a sole female character (or an adult female with a child) these weaknesses become more glaring. Funnily enough even the female mooks share these weaknesses.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: Naoko Mihama in the first game. Once a famed idol at nineteen, her career went steadily downhill as she aged, until, at twenty-eight, she's been reduced to reporting for a crappy "Ghost Hunters"-style supernatural show.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child:
  • Played straight with Harumi Yomoda, who is the only cast member to escape Hanuda alive and intact.
  • Gruesomely subverted in the case of Tomoko Maeda. At the end of her mission to reach the local church, she peers into the window and sees her parents taking shelter there. And they see her... weeping Tears of Blood that mark her gradual transformation into a Shibito. The Japanese commercial that used this cutscene was reported to have been very disturbing to viewers and was actually banned.
  • Again subverted in Bella Monroe's case in Blood Curse. In the first loop, she reenacts the same scene as Tomoko's last mission, all Tears of Blood and window pounding, plus an accompanying Maggot Shibito after reaching the church where her parents are. In the second loop, you - and dear old dad Sam - finds out that she's Amana, the one who started the mess by eating Kaiko after being flung into the past.
• The Virus:
  • Spread by the red water in the first game and Blood Curse. 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...
  • The red water is actually a physical manifestation of the Datatsushi's curse upon the village of Hanuda, somewhat understandably resentful of the ancient inhabitants going way overboard with the whole Body of Christ communion.
• Yandere: The conflict between Mother and Otoshigo boils down to this, essentially. Once there was a race of ancient beings who lived on Earth but were driven away by the light. Some of them escaped to another dimension, and some to the very bottom of the sea floor where the sun couldn't reach them. Both lost their forms and melded into Mother and Otoshigo, respectively. By chance, their minds managed to briefly come into contact millions of years later, and Otoshigo developed both an obsession with becoming one with Mother once more and (rather unfounded) resentment for Mother separating themselves all that time ago. For Mother's part, she regards Otoshigo and his spawn as annoying lesser beings who keep bothering them. Therefore they attack them, which doesn't help Otoshigo's mood.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Once you have red water in your system, you can never leave the Netherworld, even if you don't become a Shibito.

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