Mary Skelter: Nightmares is a JRPG dungeon crawler, that’s currently available on the PS Vita, but was brought to the PC on the 19th July 2018. The game was developed by Idea Factory, the same team behind many other popular JRPG games, such as the Hyperdimension, Agarest, and Mugen Souls, so the developers are no strangers to the genre. In the world of Mary Skelter, a large prison has popped up from the ground, and within the player will find many recognizable characters to interact with to escape the jail.
How to Download Mary Skelter: Nightmares
The game can be downloaded from GOG.com or from Steam. To start your download click on the Download button at the end of this awesome review.
The Game Review
The story takes place in Japan, in a peculiar structure known as “the jail” that seems to have appeared completely out of nowhere. The protagonist of the game is a young man named Jack, alongside his friend Alice, both of which who are currently imprisoned in the jail. One day, a girl shows up out of nowhere and destroys the cells that house the pair, and then proceeds to reveal herself as Red Riding Hood. From there, it’s a case of trying to figure out how to escape the jail with all of the game’s protagonist, whilst encountering other famous fairy-tale characters, such as Snow White and Cinderella.
Just like many other dungeon crawlers, the perspective for the game is in a 1st person perspective, where at no point the player ever sees their characters as they play. Even when they enter into combat, which is one of the biggest parts of the gameplay, the only visuals of their characters they can see is through their portraits that are off to the side. For anyone that’s played a dungeon crawler before, they’ll know what to expect. Other than just the combat, the player is going to spend a lot of time crawling through the dungeon, figuring out puzzles, acquiring items, picking and avoiding fights when necessary. Once again, it’s very similar to many other dungeon crawlers out there on the market.
As with any other dungeon crawler, the combat revolves around making turn-based decisions for each of the player’s characters and then allowing the enemies to make their attacks. It’s simply, easy to understand turn-based RPG combat that’s been seen before. Some changes that have been made, however, is through the use of overkilling enemies. By attacking an enemy’s weakness or overkilling them with high-damaging attacks, their blood will be splattered onto a character. That blood can be used in one of two ways: it can be used as a way of healing or if the player gives that character a chance to acquire some more blood, they can use it to go into a rage state, increasing the damage of all of their attacks and will even give them access to new, stronger abilities.
In terms of comparisons, the game clearly takes some inspiration from both classic and modern dungeon crawling titles, games like Persona Q, Stranger of Sword City, Demon Gaze, and many others. It’s taken a lot of these dungeon crawlers and what they do best and made it into a singular experience.
Any fan of good dungeon crawlers is going to find more than enough to enjoy in this rather darker rendition of a dungeon crawler. While it is a little on the darker side, older audiences are bound to appreciate it that much more.
Mary Skelter: Nightmares Characters
The cure heroines and heroes of the game are the following. Meet their lot and enjoy their names based on famous fairy tales characters.
- Alice, the member of Blood Maidens, a playable character with the graphite hair and an awesome blade
- Gretel, a blonde cutie who wears glasses and wields a mighty scythe, another Blood Maidens member, and a playable character,
- Jack with light grey-blue hair, carries a pistol,
- Red Riding Hood, holds a pair of gargantuan-proportions scissors, light-brown hair,
- Princess Kaguya, another Blood Maiden, an unlockable playable character of the game, a cute Japanese girl with fan, wearing a kimono,
- Thumbelina, a red-haired pink-loving cutie, the oldest in the group, a playable character as well,
- Rapunzel, the youngest of the Blood Maidens, with blond hair tied in pigtails, she carries a peculiar bullet-shaped hammer,
- Sleeping Beauty shoots barbed arrows with her giant bow, her green-blue hair is adorned with a red rose, she looks awesome although she’s a bit difficult to cope with,
- Cinderella wears a skimpy outfit to show her sides and muscled thighs, she can deliver a mighty punch, her hair is pastel-blue,
- Lady Michiru, a priest clad in white and violet, the head of the Order of the Sun,
- Snow White. another BM member, she can be played as too. She has purple hair and carries a lot of stuff on herself. Her modest outfit coves almost all parts of her body,
- Little Mermaid wields a two-blade spear, has blue-pink long hair and wears a miniskirt, another BM playable character,
- Hitsuka is a male Order of the Sun member reporting directly to Lady Michiru,
- Tuu wears pants and holds a pink sword. Graphite hair with white and red touches here and there. She’s a Blood Maiden too.
