Siren (video game)



"... 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. The series is the Spiritual Successor to the original Silent Hill, directed by Keiichirō Toyama. Each game tells the story of several people caught up in the netherworld over the course of several days.

A unique mechanic employed in the games is "Sightjacking", the ability to see through your enemies' eyes, and thus know their patrolling and movement patterns.

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 a Eldritch Abomination into this universe.

The 2006 sequel, Siren 2 takes place in an isolated island and features an entirely different cast, who must stop a pair of evil beings, sealed away long ago, from returning to this earth. One important change in the sequel is that conventional weapons are far more widespread, and one can even take them off of fallen enemies.

Recently, a remake that's a likely Shout-Out to Western adaptations of classic J-Horror films like Ringu/The Ring and Juon/The Grudge has been released on the Play Station 3. Siren: Blood Curse adds Americans to a roster that are composite Expys of the original cast members in a re-imagining of the first Siren.

Has a character sheet.

This game series provides examples of:
 * Abandoned Hospital: The Miyata Clinic in the first game.
 * The Alcoholic: Officer Ishida in the first game.
 * Alternate Universe: The second game's Archives show that both games 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.
 * Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The final boss battle in Blood Curse is quite seizuriffic.
 * Amnesiac Dissonance: Of a sort., in the first game, has been alive for so long that she occasionally forgets who she really is, and her mission to . That's why she helps the protagonists in the early parts of the game. Twenty-seven years ago, posing as the servant of the
 * Ditto on in Blood Curse.
 * Anachronic Order
 * Ancestral Weapon: The Uryen figurines and the katana Homuranagi in the first game.
 * Anvil on Head: 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.
 * "Blood Curse" lets you drop a neon sign from the second floor early in the game.
 * Arch Enemy:
 * Arranged Marriage / Not Blood Siblings: Jun Kajiro was adopted and raised by the Kajiro family so that, he could marry Ayako Kajiro and continue the family line.
 * A Storm Is Coming: Hanuda is engulfed in the middle of a storm late in the first game.
 * Back Tracking: In the first Siren, justified in that Hanuda is a small village and is isolated in a Dark World. 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.
 * Badass, by the end of the first game. In the second, there's Takeaki Misawa and.
 * Barrier Warrior: Sort of. In the second game, evolved Yamibito can only be attacked from behind.
 * Better To Die Than Turn Into A Shibito: in the first game and his expy  in Blood Curse both stick their shotgun in their mouth and shoot themselves in an attempt to escape the shibito curse.
 * Big Damn Heroes *Home run!* *Home run!* " 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 might not have cared if he was.
 * Black Speech: The Shibito constantly mutter and sing to themselves, in words that can't quite be made out. Averted in the second game where the yamibito speak English or Japanese, depending on your settings.
 * Blessed with Suck: Pretty much everyone with psychic abilities suffers from Class 3 of this. In the first game, Miyako Kajiro's powers apparently qualify her Risa Onda has a telepathic link to her twin sister  In the second Akiko uses her powers to channel the memories of Kanae, a deceased avatar of the Big Bad,  Takeaki Misawa's ability to sense the supernatural, Ikuko's powers caused her to be ostracized by her peers, and
 * The reason you're able to heal rapidly in the first game?
 * Blind Seer: 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. 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.
 * Averted with Miyako in "Blood Curse".
 * 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.
 * Honorable mention goes to the Shibito Brain,.
 * Bolivian Army Ending:
 * Bottomless Magazines: Averted in the first game. In the second,
 * Burn the Witch: The villagers of Yamajima island believed that Kanae was some sort of evil being whose presence would lead to misery and destruction.
 * Butt Monkey: Shigeru Fujita in the second game. First he gets demoted, then forced to go back to Yamajima island. His dedication to his job drives his family away, causing his daughter to hate him...
 * Came Back Wrong
 * The Chick: Risa Onda from the first game is probably the Chickiest Chick ever. Her arms must be made of overcooked noodles. How else could she swing an umbrella that slowly? Fortunately, the second game averts this trope, as the girls are reasonably tough and useful,
 * Clear My Name: In the second game, Abe Soji is falsely accused of the murder of Ryuko Tagawa.
 * Conspicuously Light Patch: Averted most of the time in Siren 1 which leads to many cases of Guide Dang It. Sometimes, the camera angle will change and attempt to help you. Keyword: attempt...
 * Cool Old Guy: 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.
 * The Corruption:
 * Creepy Cool Crosses: The Mana Cross, a strange variant, shows up all over the place in Hanuda.
 * Crucified Hero Shot: Played with a bit.
 * Cursed with Awesome
 * According to the supplemental material, they got worse. What happened to.
 * In the second game
 * : Dead All Along:
 * Detect Evil:
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In the first game,
 * In the second game,
 * Dysfunctional Family: The Maedas.
 * The Monroes in the third game.
 * Eldritch Abomination:
 * Epic Hail: "Mrs. Takato! Help! Mrs. Takato!" Loud enough that Prof. Takeuchi hears from the water tower across town.
 * Escort Mission: All three games feature them.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Somewhat averted in 2. They still try to kill you but Yamibito will go for Shibito first and vice versa.
 * Evil Laugh: The Shibito like to laugh. A lot.
 * Evil Tower of Ominousness: The pylon in the second game.
 * False Camera Effects (static and film grain all the way)
 * Fan Nickname: Suda Kyoya's abbreviated name and internet handle is SDK. His American counterpart in Blood Curse became known as USDK.
 * Shibito Burger.
 * A Fate Worse Than Death: Numerous.
 * Flash Back (much of the backstory of the characters and main villain)
 * Fountain of Youth: Naoko Mihama misinterprets an offhand remark from Akira Shimura, which leads her to believe that bathing in the red water will make her eternally young and beautiful.
 * Groundhog Day Loop: Implied to be happening in the original game; see Mind Screw.
 * Hits halfway
 * Also hits partway
 * Guide Dang It: 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 Guide Dang It, as the instruction manual offered slightly more concise clues about accomplishing the alternate objectives.
 * Hair of Gold: Amana is said to have 'hair of the sun'.
 * Haunted Castle
 * The entire village of Hanuda as a whole in the first game, but especially relevant to the house where a few characters have their own missions taking place there.
 * Heroic Sacrifice
 * Hide Your Children: 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.
 * Hive Mind: Kinda. In the first game the Shibito are mentally linked on some level, and
 * 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.
 * Hollywood Cuisine: The recipe for Hanuda Noodles (Archive 022) in the first game.
 * How We Got Here
 * Humanity Ensues:
 * Idiot Hero: Abe Soji in the second game.
 * Immortality:
 * I Know Mortal Kombat: Yoriko manages to cut through a gate by a skill that she says she saw in a Comic Book.
 * Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
 * Improbable Weapon User: 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. 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.
 * Infant Immortality: Both averted and played straight: ). 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,.
 * This trope is probably the reason the aforementioned characters had their ages raised in the US version.
 * Infernal Paradise
 * Interrupted Suicide
 * 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,
 * 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.
 * Kill'Em All:.
 * 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.
 * Leitmotif:
 * Likes Older Women: Twenty-three year old Yoriko Anno clearly has a thing for thirty-four year old Professor Takeuchi.
 * The Load: In the first game, every character you escort becomes this, even if they showed competence when you controlled them. In the second, companions will actually defend themselves, averting this. Save when they decide to go charging into battle wielding an umbrella.
 * Locked Into Strangeness:
 * Mama Bear: Reiko Takato, toward Harumi.
 * Again with Melissa to Bella in "Blood Curse".
 * Mad Doctor:
 * Madness Mantra: "Won't you look at me? Tell me I'm beautiful! Eternal youth! Eternal youth! Won't you look at me...?"
 * Mind Screw
 * Mood Swinger: The shibito randomly exhibit various different emotions at any given time. They may be crying one moment and giggling the next.
 * Mook Face Turn:
 * This apparently happens to a lot of Mother's Avatars.
 * Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: Shiro Miyata is quite possibly a sociopath.
 * Murder Is the Best Solution: Just prior to the events of the first game,
 * Mystical Waif: Miyako, as far as her role and apperance go. Personality-wise she's more snarky and moody than most examples.
 * Mythology Gag: Miyako whacks her pursuer over the head with a stick in the original Siren. It doesn't work in Blood Curse.
 * New Meat: Private Yorito Nagai starts this way in the second game. That changes after a few nasty events break and re-form him.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the second game,
 * 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 fifteen seconds for the evolved ones.  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.
 * No Export for You: Since the first game did so badly in the U.S., the second was only released in Europe and Japan.
 * Non-Lethal KO: No matter how hard you beat down a shibito, they always get right back up a short time later.
 * Not Quite the Right Thing: In the second game, Yorito Nagai sees Takeaki Misawa, his SDF superior holding Ichiko Yagura at gunpoint.
 * 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.
 * One Bad Mother: "Mother" is more or less the ultimate foe in the second game.
 * 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:
 * 108: The number of levels/movies in the first game, provided that you do the secondary objectives.
 * One-Woman Wail: Karuwari II
 * Oral Tradition:
 * Our Zombies Are Different: The Shibito in the first game. They apparently retain a good degree of the intellect they had before they mutated, but are given to strange, neurotic behaviors, such as repeating mindless tasks or endlessly patrolling. Over time they mutate into more powerful and horrifying forms. And all of them are thrilled that this has happened to them
 * In the second game "Shibito" are more conventional zombies, corpses animated by "Shiryo", which are spirits
 * Parasol of Pain: Umbrellas can be used as weapons in both games. They work about as well as you'd expect.
 * Parental Abandonment: Professor Tamon Takeuchi's parents died in a landslide twenty-seven years prior to the game.
 * Path of Inspiration:
 * Rain of Blood: Type 3 variant in the first game and in "Blood Curse".
 * Recurring Boss: 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.
 * Redemption Equals Death:
 * Ret-Gone: The defeat of Mother apparently wipes all of her avatars from history itself. This has an unexpected benefit for Soji Abe, when
 * Reviving Enemy: The shibito.
 * Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory:
 * Secret Identity
 * Shaky POV Cam: Sightjacking uses this as a very important gameplay tool.
 * Shell-Shocked Veteran: Takeaki Misawa, in the second game
 * Shout-Out: Possibly a few.
 * Yoriko Anno's manga-esque sketch of Tamon Takeuchi in her class notes (Archive 033) suggests she's possibly a Shout-Out to and an Expy of manga artist Moyoco Anno.
 * 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.
 * The air raid siren's usage can be considered a Shout-Out to Silent Hill, or alternatively just a part of creator Keiichirō Toyama's Signature Style; he's also the man behind the first and original Silent Hill, and reportedly the use of sirens in both games was inspired by recurring nightmares he had about the sound.
 * Sibling Yin-Yang: Kei Makino and Shiro Miyata are basically opposites. Kei's 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,
 * Sinister Geometry: Late in the first game, Hanuda is slowly being converted into a hideous nest for
 * 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.
 * Sins of Our Fathers: The events of the first Siren are rooted well in the ancient past.
 * Spirit Advisor:
 * Stable Time Loop:
 * The supplemental stories include a case where a girl
 * 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 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.
 * Summoning Ritual:
 * Super-Powered Evil Side:
 * Survival Horror: If we have to explain, we're going to force-feed you some mermaid.
 * Sword of Plot Advancement: The Homuranagi sort of qualifies.
 * They Would Cut You Up: What Shiro ends up doing to . Turns out that not much will kill them, no matter how much he cuts.
 * Also happens to
 * This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself:
 * Time Travel: Both games take place in an alternate dimension where the past and present versions of the setting are mashed together.
 * Took a Level In Badass: and  in the first game.
 * in the second game
 * Town with a Dark Secret: The village of Hanuda.
 * Twin Switch:
 * Ultimate Evil (The titular siren, in the original game... maybe. Going strictly by the game, you don't actually see it and skip over it in the Sorting Algorithm of Evil; Word of God says that what you skip to actually is the siren, after all.)
 * The siren is.
 * Mother and Otoshigo in the second game
 * 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
 * Miyata sees
 * Unusable Enemy Equipment: Played straight in the first game, averted in the second.
 * Unstoppable Rage: develops a case of this near the end of the second game.
 * Walk the Earth:
 * Weaksauce Weakness: In the first game, 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. In the second, most of the enemies are vulnerable to bright light, which kills Shiryo and Yamirei, and briefly stuns Yamibito.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Subverted in the first game. When Miyata activates the
 * 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
 * Word of God (An interview with the director clarifies some points about the original game... but leaves some mysteries, and actually outright contradicts the game itself at one point. See again Mind Screw)
 * The Virus:
 * You Can't Go Home Again:
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
 * You're Insane!: Said verbatim by
 * Unusable Enemy Equipment: Played straight in the first game, averted in the second.
 * Unstoppable Rage: develops a case of this near the end of the second game.
 * Walk the Earth:
 * Weaksauce Weakness: In the first game, 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. In the second, most of the enemies are vulnerable to bright light, which kills Shiryo and Yamirei, and briefly stuns Yamibito.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Subverted in the first game. When Miyata activates the
 * 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
 * Word of God (An interview with the director clarifies some points about the original game... but leaves some mysteries, and actually outright contradicts the game itself at one point. See again Mind Screw)
 * The Virus:
 * You Can't Go Home Again:
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
 * You're Insane!: Said verbatim by
 * You Can't Go Home Again:
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
 * You're Insane!: Said verbatim by
 * You're Insane!: Said verbatim by