Continuing with the Mary Skelter series, now, I will be covering the remake of the 1st game, Mary Skelter Nightmares, if you are seeing this review first, you should know that I am covering this series in the recommended play order, which means, 2 then 1 then Finale.
This remake, was originally a DLC, but, for the PC version (which is the one I am reviewing) and subsequent re-releases, its included for free with Mary Skelter 2 (together with extra classes DLCs and cosmetic DLCs, for both games).
In order to get access to the Mary Skelter Nightmares Remake, there are 2 ways, either you enable it via the DLC management menu (not recommended, trust me), and the good way, by finishing Mary Skelter 2 and getting the true ending, the game will automatically switch to Nightmares after the credits, don’t worry, you are free to switch between the 2 while on the main menu.
What does the remake include? Quite a lot of reworks, 1 damage type (lighting) was removed, all dungeons and enemies were reworked, and the post-game now has a new dungeon (which also brings back some familiar faces), also, some new collectible items which are needed to get the new true end which ties in both Mary Skelter Nightmares and Mary Skelter 2.
The game will also give you the option to skip to endgame, just in case if you have already played Nightmares before and just wanna see the new stuff.
Without further ado, let’s get on with it.
Story & Setting
What was once the city of Tokyo has caved in, consumed by a living Jail which feeds upon human suffering.
Withing the Jail, Marchen and Nightmares reside, the purpose of these creatures, to torture humans in order to satisfy the Jail’s desires.
Jack and Alice, 2 prisoners which live out their days in constant torture by their Marchen captors, only having each other for comfort, hope for the day in which they are finally freed from such hell.
Their hopes finally answered, when Red Riding Hood, a member of Dawn, and part of the Liberated human settlement fighting back against the Jail, shows up and rescues them.
Red Riding Hood is a blood maiden, a group of young women capable of fighting Marchen on equal footing, and, it seems that Alice is one as well, which is why she is being rescued, but, Alice won’t leave Jack behind, no matter what.
Yet, complications happen, which leads to the girls finding out Jack’s blood is capable of saving them from corruption.
With this new revelation, both Alice and Jack are recruited by Dawn, now together with the other blood maidens, they will fight the Jail, and hopefully, finally escape.
Things are about to get quite bloody.
Withing the Jail, Marchen and Nightmares reside, the purpose of these creatures, to torture humans in order to satisfy the Jail’s desires.
Jack and Alice, 2 prisoners which live out their days in constant torture by their Marchen captors, only having each other for comfort, hope for the day in which they are finally freed from such hell.
Their hopes finally answered, when Red Riding Hood, a member of Dawn, and part of the Liberated human settlement fighting back against the Jail, shows up and rescues them.
Red Riding Hood is a blood maiden, a group of young women capable of fighting Marchen on equal footing, and, it seems that Alice is one as well, which is why she is being rescued, but, Alice won’t leave Jack behind, no matter what.
Yet, complications happen, which leads to the girls finding out Jack’s blood is capable of saving them from corruption.
With this new revelation, both Alice and Jack are recruited by Dawn, now together with the other blood maidens, they will fight the Jail, and hopefully, finally escape.
Things are about to get quite bloody.
There is a prologue novel, which gives more context to certain moments, as well as expand on some relationships, but, its completely optional, also, if you finished Mary Skelter 2, you have already seen the most important moment.
There is also an in-game prequel novel, for which you collect pages in the dungeon, this novel follows some secondary characters (whom are more relevant in Mary Skelter 2 and Finale), and its a lead up to the escape at the start of the game.
And, there is another novel which happens at the same time as Mary Skelter Nightmares, which expands upon the lore and gives more characterization to many secondary characters, and, its completely optional as well.
Yes, Nightmares has a lot of side material.
As to how its connected to Mary Skelter 2, beat the post-game and you will see.
And, there is another novel which happens at the same time as Mary Skelter Nightmares, which expands upon the lore and gives more characterization to many secondary characters, and, its completely optional as well.
Yes, Nightmares has a lot of side material.
As to how its connected to Mary Skelter 2, beat the post-game and you will see.
Presentation
Anime art-style, with dark fantasy fairy-tale inspired locales, using 3D models for enemies, and a visual novel style to tell the story.
There is quite a significant amount of fanservice, which is to be expected of Compile Heart, mostly skimpy outfits, and some lucky pervert moments.
The VN moments have some added visual flair, with character’s mouths moving when speaking, blinking, and hair and clothes swaying, which does enhance the experience.
All the blood maidens have alternate portraits and stills for their different classes, which are shown in VN cutscenes.
Marchen and Nightmares follow the dark fantasy inspiration, mostly staying somewhat themed after the area they are in, or, after one of the fairy tales for which blood maidens reference (most of the time is pretty obvious which), with a few exceptions for endgame and post-game areas. But, when it comes to the Marchen, there is a lot of recolors when it comes to representing stronger variants of the same enemies, sometimes their models have little extra things added as well.
Nightmares do have secondary models for when you actually engage them on a proper boss fight, and there is a very unique one with 3 models.
Each dungeon has its own design and feel, mostly with specific themes, like, city, metro station, bamboo grove, etc. Sadly, when it comes to props for traps and gimmicks, variety is almost non-existent.
There is quite a significant amount of fanservice, which is to be expected of Compile Heart, mostly skimpy outfits, and some lucky pervert moments.
The VN moments have some added visual flair, with character’s mouths moving when speaking, blinking, and hair and clothes swaying, which does enhance the experience.
All the blood maidens have alternate portraits and stills for their different classes, which are shown in VN cutscenes.
Marchen and Nightmares follow the dark fantasy inspiration, mostly staying somewhat themed after the area they are in, or, after one of the fairy tales for which blood maidens reference (most of the time is pretty obvious which), with a few exceptions for endgame and post-game areas. But, when it comes to the Marchen, there is a lot of recolors when it comes to representing stronger variants of the same enemies, sometimes their models have little extra things added as well.
Nightmares do have secondary models for when you actually engage them on a proper boss fight, and there is a very unique one with 3 models.
Each dungeon has its own design and feel, mostly with specific themes, like, city, metro station, bamboo grove, etc. Sadly, when it comes to props for traps and gimmicks, variety is almost non-existent.
The map is pretty utilitarian on the way its shown, with very basic use of legends and icons, it works, albeit it can be bland to look at.
Sound wise, per usual, the English Voice Acting is garbage, so, highly encouraged to go for the original.
The game likes to convey gameplay mechanics through sound, specially when it comes to the moon, and if a Nightmare has spawned, mostly with roars or howls, eventually you learn to understand what indicates what.
Characters like to comment when things happen while on exploration mode, they also scream or say they are hurt when you step on a trap, the same goes for combat, albeit some characters like to scream their lines, it isn’t a problem per se, but if you got a party consisting of the loud ones, good luck to your ears.
Biggest strength of the game is on the music, which heavily enhances the feel of each area, although, it has the problem of going back to the start of the track when switching from another track, but, for the most part, it isn’t too noticeable.
Sound wise, per usual, the English Voice Acting is garbage, so, highly encouraged to go for the original.
The game likes to convey gameplay mechanics through sound, specially when it comes to the moon, and if a Nightmare has spawned, mostly with roars or howls, eventually you learn to understand what indicates what.
Characters like to comment when things happen while on exploration mode, they also scream or say they are hurt when you step on a trap, the same goes for combat, albeit some characters like to scream their lines, it isn’t a problem per se, but if you got a party consisting of the loud ones, good luck to your ears.
Biggest strength of the game is on the music, which heavily enhances the feel of each area, although, it has the problem of going back to the start of the track when switching from another track, but, for the most part, it isn’t too noticeable.
Mechanics
There are quite a few mechanics, but, far less when compared to Mary Skelter 2.
Besides HP and mana, the girls have the blood splatter bar, which when full makes them turn into massacre mode, greatly enhancing their stats, and giving them temporary access to very strong low cost skills, it is random how many turns massacre mode lasts, and, in order to have more abilities, you have to increase the girl’s affection towards Jack, and watch the subsequent affection events.
They gain blood in multiple ways, by hitting enemies weaknesses, by hitting crits, or by doing overkills, some weapons and attacks bring out more blood than others. And, when the combat is done, you can see the blood splatter in the dungeon.
There is however an issue, when characters take damage, or party members are downed, the blood splatter bar will become darker, when its dark, there is a chance that when its full, characters will turn into blood skelter instead, in this mode, they will have their stats increased by a lot, with the downside of you not being able to control them, in order for them to be turned back to normal, Jack has to use Life Purge on them. In order to avoid getting into that situation, you can simply use Jack’s Purge skill to reduce corruption.
You can manage blood splatter, by using the lick command, which completely cleans a character’s blood splatter bar, and, trigger a very good support ability, which varies depending on who got licked.
At the end of battle, any character in massacre mode will turn to normal, and Jack will automatically use Life Purge on any character who turned blood skelter, having to pay the cost as well.
What cost? You see, although the party consists of 5 blood maidens, Jack is technically the 6th party member, he doesn’t have any offensive capabilities (besides throwing damaging items, I guess), he has access to the Mary Gun, which allows him to use skills, at the cost of his blood.
Besides HP and mana, the girls have the blood splatter bar, which when full makes them turn into massacre mode, greatly enhancing their stats, and giving them temporary access to very strong low cost skills, it is random how many turns massacre mode lasts, and, in order to have more abilities, you have to increase the girl’s affection towards Jack, and watch the subsequent affection events.
They gain blood in multiple ways, by hitting enemies weaknesses, by hitting crits, or by doing overkills, some weapons and attacks bring out more blood than others. And, when the combat is done, you can see the blood splatter in the dungeon.
There is however an issue, when characters take damage, or party members are downed, the blood splatter bar will become darker, when its dark, there is a chance that when its full, characters will turn into blood skelter instead, in this mode, they will have their stats increased by a lot, with the downside of you not being able to control them, in order for them to be turned back to normal, Jack has to use Life Purge on them. In order to avoid getting into that situation, you can simply use Jack’s Purge skill to reduce corruption.
You can manage blood splatter, by using the lick command, which completely cleans a character’s blood splatter bar, and, trigger a very good support ability, which varies depending on who got licked.
At the end of battle, any character in massacre mode will turn to normal, and Jack will automatically use Life Purge on any character who turned blood skelter, having to pay the cost as well.
What cost? You see, although the party consists of 5 blood maidens, Jack is technically the 6th party member, he doesn’t have any offensive capabilities (besides throwing damaging items, I guess), he has access to the Mary Gun, which allows him to use skills, at the cost of his blood.
All skills which use the Mary Gun, will consume some of his blood, and, it will have a chance of knocking him out, the lower his blood the higher the chance of him passing out, and, if Jack runs out of lives, he will be downed, becoming unavailable for the rest of the encounter.
The Mary Gun is really good, besides purging corruption and curing blood skelter, it can be upgraded with special items found in the dungeons to give it extra abilities, like recovering a character’s mana slightly, or giving a character 2 random buffs, or giving everyone some man while healing some corruption. Of course, at the cost of Jack’s blood, thankfully, he has create blood command, and, his maximum amount of blood increases as he levels up.
Bear in mind that Jack has his own slot in the turn order, and some enemies can attack him to make him bleed.
He also has a guard command, which lets him tank a hit for 1 of the girls, with a chance of knocking him out, but this command is mostly a desperate measure.
While on base, Jack can use his blood in another way, in the rescue center, you can conduct the “special ritual” to clean a girl’s corruption, to increase her resistance to corruption, and give her some minor buffs to her stats. This ritual is the mini-game, in which you must massage the girls, and clean the corrupted blood from them, make sure you are alone so you don’t have to give awkward explanations.
As for the girls, they can switch around classes, albeit with the restriction that each girl follows an archetype, like some having access to the magical classes, others to the pure physical classes, others to the support classes, and the all-rounders. Besides their default, they have access to 4 others (not counting DLC ones) which they can equip while at home base.
Unlocking new classes, requires the characters to use 1 job right (which they get every 10 levels), and spent blood crystals (which are dropped by enemies, found in dungeons, or given as quest rewards), once unlocked, they can freely switch around for free, but, it can only be done at base.
Each class provides a catalog of skills to learn, when characters level up, they earn skill points to buy them, both active and passive, once an active skill is unlocked, it can be used regardless of equipped class, but, passives are only available for the class, and cannot be given to other classes, even after learning.
You also have access to blood devolution, which means that you can level down characters, there are a few reasons to do it, it allows you to get back your skill points, and when the girls level up again, they will gain better numbers for their stats, how good those numbers are, depends on how far they leveled down. This isn’t necessary for Normal difficulty (except the post-game which is brutal), but very necessary for FEAR (hard) difficulty.
You can also use blood crystals to upgrade weapons and equipment, up to a maximum of +9, with a crown indicating that the item is already max level.
The Mary Gun is really good, besides purging corruption and curing blood skelter, it can be upgraded with special items found in the dungeons to give it extra abilities, like recovering a character’s mana slightly, or giving a character 2 random buffs, or giving everyone some man while healing some corruption. Of course, at the cost of Jack’s blood, thankfully, he has create blood command, and, his maximum amount of blood increases as he levels up.
Bear in mind that Jack has his own slot in the turn order, and some enemies can attack him to make him bleed.
He also has a guard command, which lets him tank a hit for 1 of the girls, with a chance of knocking him out, but this command is mostly a desperate measure.
While on base, Jack can use his blood in another way, in the rescue center, you can conduct the “special ritual” to clean a girl’s corruption, to increase her resistance to corruption, and give her some minor buffs to her stats. This ritual is the mini-game, in which you must massage the girls, and clean the corrupted blood from them, make sure you are alone so you don’t have to give awkward explanations.
As for the girls, they can switch around classes, albeit with the restriction that each girl follows an archetype, like some having access to the magical classes, others to the pure physical classes, others to the support classes, and the all-rounders. Besides their default, they have access to 4 others (not counting DLC ones) which they can equip while at home base.
Unlocking new classes, requires the characters to use 1 job right (which they get every 10 levels), and spent blood crystals (which are dropped by enemies, found in dungeons, or given as quest rewards), once unlocked, they can freely switch around for free, but, it can only be done at base.
Each class provides a catalog of skills to learn, when characters level up, they earn skill points to buy them, both active and passive, once an active skill is unlocked, it can be used regardless of equipped class, but, passives are only available for the class, and cannot be given to other classes, even after learning.
You also have access to blood devolution, which means that you can level down characters, there are a few reasons to do it, it allows you to get back your skill points, and when the girls level up again, they will gain better numbers for their stats, how good those numbers are, depends on how far they leveled down. This isn’t necessary for Normal difficulty (except the post-game which is brutal), but very necessary for FEAR (hard) difficulty.
You can also use blood crystals to upgrade weapons and equipment, up to a maximum of +9, with a crown indicating that the item is already max level.
As for formations, its pretty standard, characters in front do and take full physical damage, characters in the back do and receive less physical damage (unless equipped with certain weapons). The order doesn’t matter, except for 1 instance, in which a cutscene triggers depending on who has the highest affection, and is at or closest to slot 1.
Every character provides a skill for dungeon exploration, including Jack (who gets a 2nd one when you fully upgrade the Mary Gun), these skills are used either to help traverse the dungeon, solve puzzles, and/or make it easier to get loot.
Since the Jail is a living organism, it has desires, which you are rewarded for satisfying, those desires are hunger, sleep, and libido.
Hunger is satisfied by killing enemies, hitting crits, hitting weaknesses and doing overkills.
Sleep is satisfied by simply not taking damage.
Libido is satisfied by finding loot, finding special libido points in the dungeon, and by using the lick command.
Satisfying the Jail’s desires will give you access to the roulette, which gives you bonuses ranging from worthless (10 gold), to saving you from a hopeless situation (automatically stunning regardless of resistances), the items on the roulette change depending on if it was triggered during exploration, or combat.
You can actually add items to the roulette if you wish, first you have to find roulette pieces, and then you can equip them on the roulette, it will randomly pick among those and random ones when triggered, but, each roulette piece has a cost, and the maximum amount increases the more you explore the dungeon. Keep in mind you can only do this before entering the dungeon.
You can also add Jail trials, which are handicaps to yourself, for extra bonuses, like more exp, more money drops, better item/equipment drops, etc. You can add as many as you want, the only limit is your own masochism, keep in mind, this can only be done before entering the dungeon.
The dungeon has a chance of giving you the traveling merchant as a random encounter, he often sells far better items than what you would find at base.
Once you have found a new area, or have killed a Nightmare, you get to unlock work orders, which are requests, they often payout on money, gift items, or blood crystals. They can range from extremely easy, to extremely tedious.
Finally, the coolest feature, while you are exploring around, The Nightmare (boss) of the area has a chance of spawning, before you find the dungeon core, the boss is immortal, and, when you enter its zone of control, you most escape from them, if it corners you, you can fight them and hopefully do enough damage to stun them for a moment, giving you a chance to escape. While you are being chased, you can’t look at your map, and the world will become very dark, so, make sure to remember at least a little bit of the dungeon layout.
But, when the core is broken, its role reversal, its you on the hunt for the boss, as they are cowards, they will only spawn on designated areas once they are vulnerable.
There are a few boss fights against giant enemies, in which you have to make use of environmental weapons to get an edge, and you most climb multiple floors (while still being bothered by random encounters) to break the multiple body parts of the boss.
And, that’s pretty much it.
Every character provides a skill for dungeon exploration, including Jack (who gets a 2nd one when you fully upgrade the Mary Gun), these skills are used either to help traverse the dungeon, solve puzzles, and/or make it easier to get loot.
Since the Jail is a living organism, it has desires, which you are rewarded for satisfying, those desires are hunger, sleep, and libido.
Hunger is satisfied by killing enemies, hitting crits, hitting weaknesses and doing overkills.
Sleep is satisfied by simply not taking damage.
Libido is satisfied by finding loot, finding special libido points in the dungeon, and by using the lick command.
Satisfying the Jail’s desires will give you access to the roulette, which gives you bonuses ranging from worthless (10 gold), to saving you from a hopeless situation (automatically stunning regardless of resistances), the items on the roulette change depending on if it was triggered during exploration, or combat.
You can actually add items to the roulette if you wish, first you have to find roulette pieces, and then you can equip them on the roulette, it will randomly pick among those and random ones when triggered, but, each roulette piece has a cost, and the maximum amount increases the more you explore the dungeon. Keep in mind you can only do this before entering the dungeon.
You can also add Jail trials, which are handicaps to yourself, for extra bonuses, like more exp, more money drops, better item/equipment drops, etc. You can add as many as you want, the only limit is your own masochism, keep in mind, this can only be done before entering the dungeon.
The dungeon has a chance of giving you the traveling merchant as a random encounter, he often sells far better items than what you would find at base.
Once you have found a new area, or have killed a Nightmare, you get to unlock work orders, which are requests, they often payout on money, gift items, or blood crystals. They can range from extremely easy, to extremely tedious.
Finally, the coolest feature, while you are exploring around, The Nightmare (boss) of the area has a chance of spawning, before you find the dungeon core, the boss is immortal, and, when you enter its zone of control, you most escape from them, if it corners you, you can fight them and hopefully do enough damage to stun them for a moment, giving you a chance to escape. While you are being chased, you can’t look at your map, and the world will become very dark, so, make sure to remember at least a little bit of the dungeon layout.
But, when the core is broken, its role reversal, its you on the hunt for the boss, as they are cowards, they will only spawn on designated areas once they are vulnerable.
There are a few boss fights against giant enemies, in which you have to make use of environmental weapons to get an edge, and you most climb multiple floors (while still being bothered by random encounters) to break the multiple body parts of the boss.
And, that’s pretty much it.
Final Thoughts
The biggest difference between the games, is that 2 is character driven, while Nightmares is lore driven. And this reflects heavily on the way the story progresses, and characters interact with each other.
For good and for ill, for the remake, most mechanics were left as is, the only actual changes were to make the game far less tedious, many of the dungeons are far smaller and far less horrid to traverse, that dungeon redesign alone is enough to stick to the remake over the original.
There are quite a few downsides, specially if you are coming from Mary Skelter 2, the most notable, is having only 5 party members, having a lot of skills unavailable because they weren’t in the 1st game, having known skills work differently in the 1st game, and, not having access to passives from other classes, all of these combined, makes it so the characters and party overall feel far weaker than their counterparts in 2.
The post-game is quite difficult, to the point that I actually had to use blood devolution and do some grinding in order to tackle it, and, keep in mind that the Metropolitan Office dungeon is exclusive to the remake, and its far more difficult than the final dungeon of the main game.
Still, as difficult as the post-game is, having access to the true end of both Mary Skelter 2 and Nightmares, makes it worth it.
The biggest reason to play this one, is to follow the story, and to get quite a lot of reveals regarding the world of Mary Skelter, and, to see how the game was in its original iteration (without most of the negatives).
BTW, the fanservice on this one is far more risque than in 2.
If only there was a game which took the best from both games… Oh yeah, Mary Skelter Finale is next.
For good and for ill, for the remake, most mechanics were left as is, the only actual changes were to make the game far less tedious, many of the dungeons are far smaller and far less horrid to traverse, that dungeon redesign alone is enough to stick to the remake over the original.
There are quite a few downsides, specially if you are coming from Mary Skelter 2, the most notable, is having only 5 party members, having a lot of skills unavailable because they weren’t in the 1st game, having known skills work differently in the 1st game, and, not having access to passives from other classes, all of these combined, makes it so the characters and party overall feel far weaker than their counterparts in 2.
The post-game is quite difficult, to the point that I actually had to use blood devolution and do some grinding in order to tackle it, and, keep in mind that the Metropolitan Office dungeon is exclusive to the remake, and its far more difficult than the final dungeon of the main game.
Still, as difficult as the post-game is, having access to the true end of both Mary Skelter 2 and Nightmares, makes it worth it.
The biggest reason to play this one, is to follow the story, and to get quite a lot of reveals regarding the world of Mary Skelter, and, to see how the game was in its original iteration (without most of the negatives).
BTW, the fanservice on this one is far more risque than in 2.
If only there was a game which took the best from both games… Oh yeah, Mary Skelter Finale is next.
Pros
- + Creative use of combat mechanics.
- + Fun puzzle solving while exploring.
- + Very unique story and setting.
Cons
- - Its prone to exposition dump without warning.
- - Very tedious near the endgame.
- - Weird difficulty curve.
7
Gameplay
Classes are quite limited on their skill sets, and the game does require a certain amount of grinding to avoid falling behind enemy's stats, fun exploration and engaging combat at least.
8
Graphics
The anime artstyle is very good, and the fanservice is alright, the creature and dungeon designs are pretty cool and stay visually interesting most of the time.
8
Story
It focuses quite a lot in the lore and world-building, leaving very little time for character exploration, overall, its pretty interesting albeit filled with anime tropes.
8
Sound
The music is its biggest strength, and the original voice acting perfectly encapsulates the personality of each character, each dungeon's vibe and fight is always enhanced by it.
5
Replayability
It can get tedious to explore, although the worse dungeons are near endgame, you could try different team comps, as well as try to catch any reference to the 2nd game.
7.5
out of 10
Overall
As it was the 1st game in the series, its quite rough around the edges, even with the reworks, many mechanics have the air of still being experimental, and you can tell why some didn't return or were vastly changed for the 2nd game, its quite dialog heavy, and both endgame and post-game can be very tedious. Overall combat is fine, albeit options are quite limited on the player's side, there is an obvious shotgun approach with the way some skills work, the exploration is quite fun, and the encounter rate only gets out of hand in the post-game dungeons, the affection events are quite limited and don't expand too much upon the characters, feeling more like generic scenes from a shonen anime. All in all its a pretty good game, its necessary to understand the overall story, and gives good closure to both games, as well as set everything up for finale.
