Since I was reminded of the Corpse Party D2 series recently, I figured it might be interesting to post a summary of the game that was never finished: The Dragon Mask. While a part of me hopes that I can properly finish it one day, it’s been years since I’ve worked on it seriously. To that end, I decided to write up a little summary of the main story beats so that those who followed the series can see what the game might have looked like. I also ended up writing a set of notes about the game to explain some of the details that don’t come across in a summary, so hopefully those are interesting as well.

Act 0

University student Aiko Niwa meets the programmer Ishiko Yanagi, a girl who is obsessed with the macabre and occult. Aiko teaches Ishiko about ghosts in exchange for Ishiko’s coding skills, and the two work on the smartphone applications Spirit Ward and GhostSense. Over time, Aiko’s mercenary arrangement with Ishiko transforms into a real friendship.

However, Aiko’s inferiority complex in regards to her genius sister Kuon leads her to rush development on GhostSense, leaving major flaws in its security measures. During the beta testing phase, Ishiko is possessed by a digital spirit that uses her body to go on a killing spree before being gunned down by the police. Aiko immediately pulls the programs they worked on from the internet and drops out of school in shame.

Realizing that she has to atone for the pain she caused, Aiko decides to track down the beta testers for GhostSense and try to make sure they’re safe. This begins Aiko’s path to being a troubleshooter for supernatural problems.

Act 1

Aiko is approached by Hinoe Shinozaki and the Wiccan Institute to track down a dangerous artifact known as the Dragon Mask. With unwanted help from Kuon, Aiko tracks the legends of the mask to a derelict building once known as the Twinface Theatre. Seeing that the mask has already been moved, Aiko reluctantly accepts her sister’s tickets to a play being staged by the Suzurai Acting Troupe.

During the play, the lead actor–Sakutaro Morishige–is stabbed by a woman wearing the Dragon Mask. In the ensuing chaos, the mask disappears and the woman is revealed to be Mayu Suzumoto, who does not remember what she did while possessed by the mask. Aiko then sets up a meeting with Mayu and her production partner Jun Arai to find out how the mask ended up with the troupe.

With information from Mayu, Sakutaro, Jun, and Kirie Ishida, Aiko learns of a mysterious man that sold them a collection of old props. Tracking down information about this man leads Aiko back to the Twinface Theatre. There, she meets Misuto Kiriya, who now offers to give Aiko the Dragon Mask.

But as Aiko takes the mask, Misuto delivers an ultimatum: if Aiko returns the mask to Hinoe, he will release his backup copy of the GhostSense beta. He explains that the mask’s compulsions are particularly powerful on those with spiritual power, and he does not want Hinoe to come to harm from it. He is prepared to make ordinary people suffer if it means keeping the mask away from Hinoe, and so forces Aiko to promise to not deliver it to Hinoe.

Act 2

Aiko returns to the Suzurai Acting Troupe to explain some of what is going on, eventually deciding she should give the mask to one of the troupe members for safekeeping until she can find a way to destroy it. Uncertain of the next step, Aiko investigates the legends of the mask’s nature and creation.

Learning that the mask was created by a witch in order to seal away an actor’s split personality–back in the time when the Twinface Theatre was active–Aiko tries to secretly visit Hinoe to ask for information about how a witch would learn such spells. Hinoe seems to buy into Aiko’s lie that she hasn’t found the mask yet, and so explains that a witch would probably keep her knowledge of spells in a grimoire. As Aiko leaves the Shinozaki residence, she is approached by Ayumi with a warning that grimoires will try to test or punish their users based on the spells within.

Aiko tracks down the residence of the witch, which turns out to be an abandoned apartment building that is mysteriously not scheduled to be demolished. Entering the building, Aiko’s memories become hazy and she is presented with a reality where she and Ishiko live together, while also being friends with some of Aiko’s high school classmates. Seeing through the illusions, Aiko manages to find the grimoire, which then seems to accept her as its new owner. With her new power over the grimoire, Aiko asks it to show her the spells used to make the Dragon Mask. She discovers that it is possible to destroy the mask, but it would mean setting free the violent spirit living within.

Act 3

Aiko returns to the Suzurai members to discover that Sakutaro has recovered, but the mask is gone. Before long, Aiko is approached by Misuto, who reveals that he discovered Aiko’s visit to Hinoe. As punishment, he decided to hide the Dragon Mask somewhere, allowing it a chance to claim someone else before Aiko can find it. He then gives Aiko his old phone with the GhostSense beta, saying it may be her only way to find the mask before it can cause more harm.

Reluctantly working with the Suzurai members to cover more ground, Aiko hunts down the location of the mask, always seeming one step behind or finding false leads. Eventually, they discover that the Dragon Mask is at the Twinface Theatre, and Aiko goes in alone to destroy it.

Using spells from the witch’s grimoire, Aiko unbinds the spirit from the mask, causing the Dragon Mask to become inert as the spirit breaks free. Aiko then uses a spell suggested to her by the grimoire to bind the spirit to her own body, leading to a struggle to suppress the violent tendencies this personality tries to instill in her. Containing the spirit for now, Aiko senses that the grimoire is pleased with her choice to bind the spirit to herself rather than let it go free to possess others.

Act 4

Aiko returns to the Suzurai members one last time to explain that the Dragon Mask has been dealt with. Some of the members offer to meet with Aiko again, which Aiko decides to consider without committing one way or the other. She also runs into Misuto, who is amused that Aiko was willing to take on the responsibility of suppressing the violent spirit. He allows her to keep the phone with the GhostSense beta and retracts his moratorium on meeting with Hinoe, considering the threat dealt with. He then disappears, leaving no way of tracking him down.

Returning to Hinoe, Aiko delivers the inert mask. Hinoe realizes what Aiko had to go through, sensing the other spirit bound to Aiko’s body, and deducts that Misuto had been involved. She promises to look for a way to stop Misuto, despite her former relationship with him.

Aiko then meets with Kuon, who has begun to realize how her perfectionist expectations have hurt Aiko over the years. Having overcome the issue with the Dragon Mask mostly without Kuon’s interference, Aiko realizes she’s not as resentful of Kuon any longer, and the two begin to reconcile as Kuon offers to look for a way to exorcise the violent spirit.

The Extra Chapters did not have finished outlines, and were not necessarily planned to be included in the finished game, depending on how they turned out. If the project is picked back up, these chapters may be dramatically different, if included at all.

Ex 1

Magari Mizuki, leader of the Tomb of Martuba cult, seeks to acquire a powerful grimoire to expand her spiritual power. With the help of her butler Waldo, she tracks down Reiko Shinozaki, who seems to be old and weak to Magari.

However, when Magari confronts Reiko, she is defeated quickly by a spell that causes her body to seemingly age rapidly. Reiko explains that the grimoire’s price is to take the thing that matters most to its owner, and that her husband died not long after she used the grimoire to eliminate a love rival and trap her in a sealed pocket realm. Reiko had assumed that the grimoire might consider Magari if her youth were taken away, but sensed that the grimoire still did not see Magari as a worthy master.

Swearing revenge, Magari used artifacts stolen by the cult to restore her vitality, though she could not return her outward appearance to normal. Hunting down Reiko again, she expressed her intent to kill Reiko to take the grimoire. Reiko tried to use a spell to kill Magari in self-defense, but Waldo appeared from hiding to absorb the spell in Magari’s place.

As Waldo died, Magari realized that he was one of the few people she actually cared about. As she begged him to survive, Reiko sensed something from her grimoire that caused her to leave it behind. Once Magari stopped crying, she realized that the grimoire had chosen her as its new master.

Ex 2

Haruyuki Inumaru had put together a psychic detective agency to put his skills to use, hoping to solve cases that no one else could manage. While originally a way to try to impress Sayaka Ooue, he had grown into the job and now took it very seriously.

His assistant was Miyu Shinohara, who had herself once gone missing due to a situation that others couldn’t solve. After being rescued by Haruyuki in one of his first cases, she remained with him to assist in his cases.

The two were planning on investigating a haunted hospital in a nearby town, only to discover that Naho Saenoki had already resolved the situation there. Now needing a new case to solve, Miyu brings up a series of news articles about girls going missing from Heisui Junior High. Haruyuki agrees that this is a case worth looking into, preparing to take a trip to visit the school.

Notes

The grimoire owned by the witch who created the Dragon Mask has a theme and personality based on “chains”. The witch used it to bind the split personality of her friend to a mask, and many of the other spells in the grimoire are based on binding and unbinding.
The grimoire owned by Reiko Shinozaki (the wife of Hideo and rival of Machi) has a theme based on “loss”. When Reiko used its powers against Machi without having become its true master, the grimoire forced her to endure the loss of her husband, the man she hurt Machi over, to truly understand its nature.
As seen in the remake of Depths of Despair, the “black grimoire” that Hinoe was translating before Ayumi stole it is a particularly powerful grimoire. It has themes such as “sacrifice” and “black magic”.
The terminology of “grimoires” is to differentiate the spellbooks from the actual Wiccan “Books of Shadows”, since the canon Corpse Party franchise has only one true Book of Shadows. The term “grimoire” was picked because of its common use in fantasy and its use in the English localization of Blood Drive for Misuto’s “black book”.
The theme of grimoires having a personality of their own, based on their contents, is partially a callback to Act 0’s digital spirit (which arose from a red room-esque web forum). This also allowed some retcons to explain the fickle nature of magic in the CPD2 series. (For instance, the Depths of Despair remake made more use of the terminology created for this game.)
Act 0 was later repurposed–with some alternate scenes and a different perspective–to create “Those That Linger: GhostSense”. In that continuity, Aiko is replaced by “Asumi Niwa”, who has slightly different motivations but a similar visual design.
The game was planned to have mini-routes based on which Suzurai member Aiko spent the most time with (Mayu/Sakutaro, Jun, or Kirie). Kirie’s route was planned to imply that Kirie had a crush on Aiko at the end of the game.
The planned wrong ends were:
- Aiko keeps the mask for herself instead of entrusting it with the Suzurai members, eventually falling victim to its compulsion to wear it.
- Aiko decides to live in the illusion where Ishiko is alive, not willing to part with her again.
Misuto was not in the initial idea for the story, and was added later to provide a more human antagonist to explain the nature of the mask without needing to demonstrate each detail.
When Aiko is given Misuto’s backup copy of the GhostSense beta, the plan was to have the program always play “The Gonk” from Dawn of the Dead, and she couldn’t mute it or turn down the volume. Aside from showing Misuto to be cruel enough to make a joke out of the situation, this references how the tune made appearances in Blood Drive (the sand spiral of corpses scene) and Dead Patient (heard on a radio near the end of Chapter 1).