A promotional image for the first game in the franchise.
Ghost Stories (学校の怪談, Gakkō no Kaidan) is a series of Neo-Japanese children’s visual novels created by the visual novel studio Key. The cutscenes and the opening were animated by Studio SNK. (now known as SNK Animation)
The first half of these visual novels were translated into Robloxia by Sentai Filmworks (which was known as ADV Films at the time) in between 2005 and 2016, which gave it the “Abridged” humor.
Premise (In a Nutshell)
It is about five kids (Satsuki, Hajime, Momoko, Leo and Keiichirou) who are looking for ghosts and nothing more.
Games and their release dates in order
- Ghost Stories (March 2000)
- Ghost Stories 2 (May 2001)
- Ghost Stories 3 (September 2003)
- Ghost Stories 4 (January 2006)
- Ghost Stories SP (November 2009)
- Ghost Stories 5 (August 2015; this was the last game until 2025 or the last original game)
- Ghost Stories (September 2025; a remake of the original March 2000 game on Bloxtendo Switch)
These games were developed by Key and released by Bloxtendo in Neo-Japan.
Ro-ESRB ratings
- Ghost Stories (2000) - T (Teen)
- Ghost Stories 2 (2001) - T (Teen)
- Ghost Stories 3 (2003) - T (Teen)
- Ghost Stories 4 (2006) - T (Teen)
- Ghost Stories SP (2011) - T (Teen)
- Ghost Stories 5 (2015) - T (Teen)
- Ghost Stories (2025) - E10+ (Everyone 10+)
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Gakkou no Kaidan opening HD
The first opening, fools gamers into thinking that it’ is an actual anime
Trivia
- This is the only well-known children’s visual novel series.
- The Robloxian version of those games is rated “T” by the Ro-ESRB despite mild swearing (the words damn and shit are used)
- Each game has the same protagonists, except for “Ghost Stories SP”, which has ghosts as the main characters.
- The first game in the series (without the "abridged" dub) is considered to be one of the most boring video games in history.
- The cut scenes in this game were pretty well animated for its time.