Dead of the Brain, FairyTale’s 1992 PC-98 horror adventure, has been released on Steam with its first official English port. The cult title follows a zombie outbreak sparked by an experiment intended to revive the dead, bringing its graphic, irreverent take on classic horror to modern hardware.
The story begins when Dr. Cooger develops a formula capable of reanimating corpses. After an initial test on his cat goes wrong, the animal kills a police officer and the formula begins spreading. Players take control of Cole as he investigates the city’s growing population of ghouls and uncovers a wider conspiracy through point-and-click exploration and shooting.
Dead of the Brain draws inspiration from George Romero’s Living Dead films and Brian Yuzna’s Re-Animator movies. Its new localization preserves the game’s tongue-in-cheek tone, including its self-aware treatment of familiar horror conventions.
The game was FairyTale’s first move from its predominantly erotic catalogue into horror. It later received a direct sequel and a spin-off included in the Nightmare Collection. The Steam release is published by FAKKU, which has started bringing other retro Japanese non-pornographic games to current platforms.
According to FAKKU, some more suggestive sequences were removed from the Steam version to avoid a stricter rating. Players can restore them through a free patch available on the publisher’s homepage. FAKKU also plans to publish the 1992 role-playing game Dengeki Nurse in the future.
Sources: Kotaku.