There's simply no denying it - Forbidden Siren was very, very hard. Setting the tone for the whole game with an opening level where you died repeatedly (guaranteed!) and often featuring obscure tasks that took a lot of puzzling and patience to figure out, Forbidden Siren didn't want to be your friend. It's a shame that this was the case, because this high difficulty probably stopped a lot of people persevering through the early stages of what was possibly the greatest survival horror game ever made. With Forbidden Siren 2, however, things are a lot easier. It's still tough, and you will die plenty, but the developers have crafted a successor that breaks you in gently with a number of tutorial levels and features subtle hints in each level that give you a clue without leading you by the hand.

From the moment the unsettling, deliberately off-key wailing emits from your speakers and the strange, unpleasant visuals swirl into form on your screen, you know that Forbidden Siren 2 is going to be just as eerie, tense, disturbing and, at times, downright terrifying as the original. Those of you that persevered with Forbidden Siren would have found, like me, that once you get the hang of sightjacking, start to find weapons, and stop being so terrified that you can hardly breathe while sneaking past (or running away from) all those Shibito, what you've got is a very original take on survival horror, with a compelling, interwoven story featuring sixteen characters (ten of whom are playable) that flits back and forth across a period of time where all hell breaks lose.

Forbidden Siren 2 has all the above - and more. Although there's a nice tie-in here and there to the disaster in Hanudu, FS2 features an all-new location and cast. The setting this time Yamijima, a deserted island off the coast of Tokyo that isn't so deserted after all. Through chance or fate, various people end up trapped upon the island, only to find that its inhabitants have been transformed into muttering homicidal maniacs that attack you on sight and just won't die. These shambling creatures aren't your average zombies - sure, they'll try to eat your flesh, but they're smart enough to patrol around, construct primitive structures, carry out simple tasks and even, unfortunately, fire guns.

The Shibito, as they are called, are very unpleasant to look at, and great at striking fear into your heart, especially when relentlessly chasing you, breathing heavily and giggling with glee as they hunt you down and try to beat you to death. Rather than being decomposed they're still very human looking, but with vivid white skin and crazy wide eyes, which are usually bleeding. They shamble towards you with a twisted, inhuman gait, lunging at you to sink their teeth in, or swing whatever weapon they're holding. While the Shibito don't mutate as much this time, the Yamibito most certainly do, beginning with the inevitable transformation of one of the main characters into something truly horrific and utterly disturbing (eat your black, rotten heart out Silent Hill!)

To say too much about the Yamibito would be to give away a stunning plot twist that I simply did not see coming at all, but suffice to say, they're a great addition to the game, and indeed to the mythology of Forbidden Siren. And wait until you see the first 'dog mutation' Yamibito; it's the most disturbingly twisted mutation based upon a human I've ever seen, and it will haunt you. They get worse too, becoming more and more ghastly and disturbing. This time around you get to find out what's controlling the Shibito too - you soon come across ghostly foes composed of flitting black smoke. At first they swarm around attacking you, until you shine your torch on them to cause them to dissipate, but it soon comes apparent that they are the previously unseen force controlling the Shibito - when you take a Shibito out, it's only a matter of time before it gets up again, and when it does, it's because one of these ghost creatures has entered and reanimated it.

Going up against these hellish foes is an even more eclectic cast of characters. Arriving on a boat you have bespectacled magazine editor Mamoru Itsuki, fiction writer Shu Mikami (who lived on the island as a boy), Soji Abe (who's on the run for murder) and clairvoyant Akiko Kiyota. There is a military presence on the island too, resulting in two more playable characters, terrified young Yorito Nagai and his increasingly unhinged superior, Takeaki Misawa. Unfortunately, as the rest of their team does not survive, this results in a number of Shibito being fully armed with automatic weapons, which usually prove lethal if you're caught out in the open. Then there is the mysterious girl Yuri Kishida, who looks just like the even more mysterious Kanae, plus the police sergeant Shigeru Fujita and a schoolgirl named Ichiko Yagura. Later on you'll meet one of the most pivotal characters, Ikuko Kifune, who turns the tide of events, leading to one character surviving and another dying - that's right folks, as with the first game, don't expect everyone to survive, and those that do die usually get resurrected as a powerful enemy. This is an exceptionally cool idea that's implemented just as brilliantly here as it was in the original, and it's often really sad when a likeable character dies and you later see them reduced to a twisted, shambling parody of their former selves.

Another very cool idea is the way the story unfolds like an interactive puzzle game, where you must piece together the many clues presented in the various items you find, along with the events of the cut scenes, of which there are a huge number, to truly understand what is going on. I don't want too give much away here, because the story is so excellent, but there are a number of things that just don't add up - people that have been missing for decades turn up having not aged a day, while Shu Mikami finds himself back at his childhood home on the island, only to walk in and see his four-year-old self crying over the body of his murdered father. The more you pay attention to the details, the more you'll realise that not everyone on the island is from the present day, and that's when things start to fall into place.

There are 100 items to find that give you clues and background information about the island, the folklore, the characters and the events - driver's licenses and IDs, letters and diaries, newspaper articles and ancient scrolls, trinkets and artefacts… the list goes on. As you sift through the information contained within the archive you build up, you begin to piece the story together and figure out not just how and why everyone ended up on the island, but when. I'd love to tease you more, but I've already said too much - suffice to say it's the finest survival horror story ever written and could easily make a great Japanese horror movie in the style of Ju-on: The Grudge.

Coming back to the gameplay, the initially confusing Link Navigator makes a return as a way of playing the many episodes of the game's story. Set out like a spreadsheet, with the names of the sixteen characters across the top and the times down the left hand side, the hours count down to a momentous event, after which they count up from this 'zero hour'. Often you'll play a level only to find that it links to a new cut scene set a few hours in the past, shedding new light on the events you've already played, answering questions often with stunning revelations that have real impact. It's so wonderful to be forced to really work to follow a story, rather than being handed everything on a plate, and as you read, listen to and watch all the archive items, and study the haunting cut scenes, the many questions you didn't even know you had will be answered, often in unpredictable and shocking fashion.

As before, there are two missions to play on every level, giving you a different objective and outcome each time, as well as unlocking further new missions. The catch is that every Mission 2 has to be unlocked by carrying out a certain action in another mission. In the first game you had no way of knowing what actions unlocked a mission, but this time the Link Navigator not only tells you which mission needs to be replayed, but the map screen gives you the specific action you need to unlock the Mission 2, which is a real relief when you're stuck - but if you explore every level thoroughly (go on, master your fear and have a look around!) you'll carry out most of the actions without needing the hints. These actions are things like discovering items you'll need later on, or opening routes that can be used by other characters.

For example, in one level, Takeashi discovers an explosive charger that he then uses in a subsequent level to blow a door open and reach a room that he couldn't previously access. While it's confusing sometimes to see the two different outcomes, the story generally takes all this into account in a pretty clever way, adding to the depth and lifespan of the game. Unfortunately, certain puzzles cannot be completed until you play Mission 2, yet most (but not all) of the elements are in place during Mission 1 - I spent over an hour trying to get Takeashi to blow damn door off its hinges, only to realise upon finally giving up and completing Mission 1 without succeeding that in Mission 2 I started with the charger, which was one of the missing pieces of the puzzle. So, it's best to just complete Mission 1, then go back and explore more thoroughly during Mission 2.

There are a number of locations to play through, such as a ruined harbour, a deserted fairground, a dilapidated gold mine, an abandoned military bunker complex, a passenger ferry, several areas of the village with regular houses or apartment blocks, a couple of schools and plenty more. In a clever twist, most levels are visited by several different characters at different times, each instance featuring different enemies to combat, and often subtly different or changed layouts with new routes opened up and old ones closed off, so things don't get stale. There's more variety to the gameplay than before, too; sometimes you're an unarmed adult searching for a torch and/or weapon, sometimes you're a soldier with an automatic rifle (including sniper attachment) and sometimes you're a child on the run with no way of defending yourself. The story keeps splitting up characters and then uniting them with others, which works very well - you often have another character to protect, meet up with, or lead through the whole level, giving you extra responsibility and making things feel a bit less lonely. What's also very clever is that the enemies become tougher as you do - if you're a child then you tend to be able to avoid them fairly easily, but when you're an armed soldier the enemy are armed and on one level they will hunt you down and patrol all over the place, making it just as tense (if not more so) than those where there's nothing between you and death but a torch and an iron bar.

The controls are very well put together - the triangle button calls up an action menu where you can switch weapons (now you can carry two weapons, which is so handy), reload a gun, carry out special actions for certain characters like deploying a smoke candle or setting a hunter's trap, and you can now shout to attract the attention of an enemy - something that comes in handy for protecting a companion, or just leading a Shibito away so you can sneak past them while they're searching for you. When you have a companion, you can also command him or her to wait, run or hide. There's more flexibility this time, too - if you're careful, you can get away with sneaking up behind a Shibito, smacking him in the back of the head and stealing his gun. Shooting is just as tricky as before - going for realism, your shots often miss, and with no crosshairs other than when sniping, you have to be careful and conserve your ammo wisely. Thankfully the balance is just right so that skill and timing make a difference, while enemies react to being shot, staggering backwards, and a couple of head shots will take out an enemy (temporarily) rather than a dozen or so body shots - so aim carefully! You'll survive for longer than before too - you can take a good few hits, from bullets or blunt objects, before you bite the dust, and while this might not feel quite as realistic, it sure is a lot less frustrating!

Of course, the most integral feature that sets this game apart from the crowd is sightjacking - the ability to see through the eyes of your enemies. Pressing L2 turns the screen to static, then you rotate the left thumbstick to tune into the minds of nearby enemies, locking in up to four individual enemies (or allies) using the face buttons. This also tells you the direction an enemy is in (the thumbstick position relative to where you are standing gives it away), which is useful for checking how many enemies are ahead and how many are behind, or to the side. Patience is key here - once tuned in, you need to watch your enemies' actions, get familiar with their routes and use this knowledge to avoid them. Enemies can also be used to spot items that you need as well, or information that's vital, such as the combination on a padlock, so stay observant when looking through their eyes. As before, you appear as a blue glint (regardless of how far away and how many walls there are between you and the enemy) to help establish your relative position, while your ally appears green. And that heart-stopping moment still occurs - when spotted by an enemy, the screen goes red and you see yourself through their eyes for a split second - whether you're stalking them or avoiding them, it's always scary to see!

There are a number of new gameplay features for the sightjacking - certain characters have special abilities, like Yuri Kishida, whose eyes you must use in one level to reveal spooky pillars, then listen carefully to the words of the songs she sings to manipulate and activate them. Akiko Kiyota can sightjack people from the past, in order to gain vital information to solve problems in the present, while Shu Mikami, who has very blurred vision, must use his guide dog to see. This will cause frustration for a lot of people, as you have to walk ahead of your dog, who watches you as you see yourself through its eyes, rather than the regular camera (which can be first or third person at the touch of a button), but it's an ingenious idea that only adds to the tension. The best power of all though comes with Ikuko Kifune - I'm not giving it away as it's such a brilliant surprise, but it changes the whole dynamic of the gameplay for her levels.

The presentation is fantastic all-round - the maps are extremely useful, marking key locations and having multiple layers, while also showing your current position, the Link Navigator is easier to use than before, the Archive is filled with information including audio and video recordings this time around, while you're given sub-missions that guide you through key objectives of each level, plus the hints you get (which you can read or not, as you like). All this adds up to a much more streamlined and less frustrating experience than before, but there is still plenty of exploring and figuring out to do, despite being given guidance on how to proceed.

Graphically, Forbidden Siren 2 looks even more evocative and haunting than the original. The darkness of the levels makes them instantly foreboding, the torch and light effects are dynamic and realistic, the vision of sightjacking gives you a real sense of the movement of being in someone else's head, while the character animation is some of the most fluid and natural motion capture work I have ever seen. Watch the way little Shu pads around in his pyjamas - he looks like a real boy! Every action, from running and sneaking to reloading your gun or swinging a club, is a joy to behold, and a very nice touch is that when dropping down from a height you sometimes fall over when you hit the ground, then struggle back to your feet and shake off the dazed feeling - I can't recall that ever happening before in a game!

This realism is further enhanced by the sound, which is simply phenomenal - the sound of your footsteps, the breathing and muttering of Shibito (particularly creepy when heard from inside their heads), the ambient background noise and a good assortment of inhuman cries and grunts from your enemies when they spot you, or are under attack, all add up to one very atmospheric game. The only downside is some dodgy voice acting at times, although there are no awful Cockney accents like in the original. You can have the original Japanese with English subtitles if you want, but in the end I found that I related more to the characters when I listened to the English voice cast. There isn't that much music during gameplay, which actually works in its favour, while the uneasy orchestrations of the beautifully filmed cut scenes ratchet up the horror and tension to boiling point. The music is masterfully composed, and all the cut scenes have that same dreamlike quality to them as before, like a cross between moving photo realistic paintings and watching a worn film with patchy interference, which all adds up to a game that's dripping with as much class and atmosphere as it has horror and frights.

You will be scared, too - certain moments in the game are bound to make you jump, and freak you out, and a couple of the cut scenes really got me in a big way, making me jump out of my skin (you'll know the ones after you jump too!) It doesn't go for too many 'cheap' jumpy moments, instead putting the emphasis on psychological horror, with constantly high tension and foreboding environments that keep you feeling uneasy throughout - just make sure you play it with the lights out, because this is one game that will be ruined if not played in the dark.

Moments of frustration do crop up - the slight delay of raising your weapon and then swinging or shooting takes some getting used to, moving around can feel a bit clunky in times of crisis, your companions can be very annoying and fight when you tell them to run (subsequently dying), and certain levels are so tough that you might lose heart after repeated deaths, or being stuck on a particularly tricky puzzle - but none of these factors are big enough to get in the way of an overall excellent gameplay experience, or stop you coming back for more.

Forbidden Siren 2 is a triumphant sequel to one of the most original, engaging, frightening and difficult survival horror games ever made. It really is wonderfully put together, and with a host of new features and enemies, a compelling new storyline that jumps back and forth through time as you play its missions with multiple characters, it really is much enhanced and improved over the original, while retaining that same uniqueness. The extra presentation touches, like the hints and the tutorials, make it far more accessible to the average gamer (and there's an easy mode too!) so there's really no excuse not to take a look - it's time to venture into the world of horror that awaits all those who dare to answer the call of the Forbidden Siren…

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).