One of the nice things about having your own website is that you can take your time over things you want to write about rather than rushing through them in order to meet a deadline. And I knew as soon as I started Mary Skelter 2 that I wanted to take my time over it.

100 hours of gameplay later, and I’ve finally beaten it. So I think it’s time that we talked about it in great detail. Because whew, there is a lot to talk about, and I’m certain that I’m going to miss at least a few things that struck me along the way. (I reserve the right to add to this piece as I think of things!)

I know I’ve written a few pieces about this game already, but I intend this piece to be a full, summative roundup of my experiences with the game and my overall thoughts on it. So let us begin.

The basics

For the benefit of the unfamiliar, Mary Skelter 2 is a dungeon-crawling RPG in the “gridder” style. It was originally released for PS4 in Japan in 2018, but was subsequently ported to Nintendo Switch and PC for worldwide release; the PS4 version remained confined to Japan, presumably due to publisher Idea Factory quite understandably not wanting to have to deal with Sony of America’s increasingly opaque policies with regard to nudity.

Despite the “2” in the title, narratively most Mary Skelter fans recommend that you play Mary Skelter 2 before the first game in the series, Mary Skelter Nightmares. To that end, Mary Skelter 2 actually includes a full remake of the original Mary Skelter Nightmares as an unlockable extra once you beat Mary Skelter 2, effectively doubling the length of the game package as a whole.

For those who previously played Mary Skelter Nightmares on its original host platform, the PlayStation Vita, it’s worth noting that the remake included with Mary Skelter 2 features a number of differences from the original, such as redesigned dungeon maps and tweaked mechanics, but the narrative is broadly the same.

If you’re wondering exactly why you should play Mary Skelter 2 first, it’s hard to explain without spoiling things to at least a certain degree; we may well get into this a little more deeply later in this article, but for now let’s just say that Mary Skelter 2 is effectively an alternate story in the Mary Skelter universe that kind of acts as a 100-hour long “bad ending” to the original.

This is an admirably gutsy approach for a sequel to take, but it explains why it’s good to play Mary Skelter 2 first: through Mary Skelter 2’s narrative, you get to see quite how disastrously wrong things can go, then have the opportunity to “fix” things to at least a certain extent in Mary Skelter Nightmares.

For today, we won’t be talking about Mary Skelter Nightmares because I haven’t played it at all yet; we’ll focus entirely on Mary Skelter 2.

The darkness within and without

Some spoilers ahead.

Mary Skelter 2 places you in the role of Otsuu, a young woman who habitually dresses as a man and positions herself as the “prince” to her beloved “princess”, Little Mermaid. As we join the story, it’s clear that there’s a pre-existing relationship between the two of them; this is alluded to throughout the story, and made explicit in a companion novella that is available digitally or in hardcopy form as part of the Mary Skelter Finale limited edition box set. (The latter also includes some bonus reading material that explains the “Crane Wife” or “Tsuru Nyoubou” legend on which Otsuu is based, as well as some further background material that makes a lot more sense once you’ve beaten Mary Skelter 2.)

While Otsuu and Little Mermaid’s relationship is unconventional in many respects, it’s clear that at its core is a genuine bond. Little Mermaid herself admits that despite stumbling somewhat blindly into “matrimony” of sorts with Otsuu, it took time for her to truly warm up to her new spouse. Understandable, since in many respects it was almost an “arranged marriage” — one that both parties felt compelled into accepting despite neither feeling like they had complete control over the situation.

Otsuu’s love for Little Mermaid is one of several examples of a phenomenon explored throughout the game’s narrative known as “Blood Libido”. And to understand this, it’s necessary to look more broadly at the setup for the Mary Skelter series in general.

At some indeterminate point in the near future, something horrible happened to the world — or, at the very least, the part of the world with which we’re concerned, which is strongly implied to be Tokyo (despite the presence of what appears to be the Palace of Westminster in one of its areas) — that plunged everything into a horrible hellscape controlled by the sentient “Jail”. With a huge tower at its centre, and terrible beasts known as Marchens and Nightmares rampaging around the various areas of what was once a lively city, humanity is forced to retreat to a “Liberated District” in an attempt to stay safe… or as safe as possible, under the circumstances, at least.

Amid the chaos, a curious phenomenon arises: that of the Blood Maiden. These are young women who are blessed with extraordinary strength and abilities, able to fight back against the Marchens and even make use of the strength in Marchen blood. By splashing blood upon themselves, they are able to grow in strength and power, “awakening” into a form known as “Massacre” after a certain point of exposure, during which they are temporarily even more powerful.

But that’s not all. Should a Blood Maiden become too corrupted with the darkness of this hellscape in which they live, their “awakening” from exposure to Marchen blood will escalate even beyond Massacre into a form known as “Blood Skelter”, during which they lose all control of themselves, lashing out at friend and foe alike. At the outset of Mary Skelter and Mary Skelter Nightmares, there is no known cure to Blood Skelter, meaning falling into this state effectively turns a Blood Maiden into a monster. It is due to falling into Blood Skelter that Little Mermaid is killed in the “true” timeline.

Blood Maidens are also subject to the aforementioned Blood Libido, which is an uncontrollable urge to do… something. The exact form of Blood Libido varies enormously from individual to individual, and usually relates to the fairy tale or mythological character after which the Blood Maiden is named.

Across Mary Skelter 2 we see a wide variety of different examples. Otsuu, as previously noted, is obsessed with Little Mermaid to a fault, along with having a compulsion to track things that people “owe” her, and repay the debts she believes she “owes”. Little Mermaid needs to sing in order to express herself. Gretel is addicted to sweet things. Cinderella feels a compulsion to dress herself in finery, otherwise she won’t be “beautiful”. Red Riding Hood cannot feel comfortable without wearing some sort of hooded garment. Rapunzel is obsessed with the idea of “making babies”, despite being a child, and, of course, won’t let anyone do anything to her hair.

The list goes on. Snow White cannot look in mirrors. Sleeping Beauty is borderline narcoleptic. Thumbelina prefers to hide in cramped spaces. Kaguya (based on the Japanese Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) is obsessed with finding five “treasures”, and is exceedingly lazy. Alice has an uncontrollable urge to host tea parties, and a strong attachment to the accoutrements required to host such an event. And Hameln (after The Pied Piper of Hamelin) is obsessive-compulsive with regard to the formation of the party and her self-perception as a “hero”.

It should be abundantly clear by this point that all the Blood Maidens are “damaged” to one degree or another, and over the course of Mary Skelter 2 this only escalates as a result of various happenings in the narrative. Red Riding Hood, for example, develops some serious anger issues over the course of Mary Skelter 2, to the extent that she becomes a danger to both herself and others on several occasions. And probably the most potent example of this forms the basis for the game’s final confrontation — and one of the reasons why everything goes so disastrously wrong in Mary Skelter 2 compared to the supposedly “true” fate of Mary Skelter Nightmares.

Part of the point of Mary Skelter 2’s narrative, then, is showing how it is possible to live with varying degrees of mental “damage”, and how it is important to seek and accept help from others when the opportunity arises. At numerous points throughout the main story of Mary Skelter 2, it’s abundantly clear that many of the characters simply would not be able to survive by themselves — indeed, this is literally the case when it comes to characters who have fallen into Blood Skelter in the absence of anyone else to protect them, since the only means of breaking them out of this state is through the blood of a character named Jack.

Jack requires a bit of explanation, too. While he’s the main hero of Mary Skelter Nightmares, in Mary Skelter 2, towards the opening of the game as a whole he is grievously injured and then, in an utterly horrifying scene, transformed into a Nightmare. Unlike other Nightmares, however, he manages to maintain something of a grip on his sanity, and cooperates with the Blood Maidens in an attempt to protect them — and perhaps, ultimately, to reunite with his one true love, Alice.

Jack is an utterly tragic figure throughout Mary Skelter 2, but he’s also a prime example of someone attempting to make the best of a terrible situation. His transformation into a Nightmare left him with terrible mental damage, leaving him almost completely incapable of communicating with anyone other than Otsuu, and his horrifying visage is a constant reminder that where once stood a human being is now a barely recognisable monster.

But at the same time, Jack’s kindness continually shines through. His selfless willingness to donate his own blood to those who need it to cleanse their corruption or break out of Blood Skelter shows that he only has the best interests of those around him at heart, and he regularly places himself in harm’s way to protect those who have shown him kindness and understanding. He’s a potent reminder that even those who have suffered a fate that left them disfigured both physically and mentally are still people within, and deserve to be treated with both respect and dignity.

Core to Mary Skelter 2’s narrative is a mysterious, bloodthirsty Nightmare who continually shows up, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Mysteriously, the Nightmare appears to show fear whenever it encounters the Blood Maidens, despite clearly being powerful enough to splatter them all across the nearest wall with a single stroke of its arm. This Nightmare appears to show some sort of awareness and intelligence rather than acting purely on instinct like most of the other Nightmares in the game, but it’s not until the final moments of Mary Skelter 2 that we learn the horrifying truth.

Towards the opening of Mary Skelter 2, we’re introduced to both the aforementioned Jack and Alice in their human forms as Otsuu and Little Mermaid rescue them and some other survivors from being locked in jail cells. When Alice uncontrollably falls into Blood Skelter during the group’s escape attempt, she knocks Jack, Otsuu and Little Mermaid down a pit and believes herself to have killed them. This, in turn, causes her to transform into a Nightmare filled with rage and guilt at having murdered the one she loves, her only desire being to destroy everything and everyone in her fury at being left alone. We don’t see these latter events at the time they happen.

Recognising that this rage-filled Nightmare is Alice leads to Mary Skelter 2’s tragic True Ending, where Jack splits his being into two to reflect his shared desires to both be with Alice, regardless of what form she takes, and his desire to protect everyone who has become so important to him over the course of their adventure. The group of Blood Maidens — including a mimicked copy of Alice, created by one of the Jail Tower’s cores — are left with no choice but to fight the “True Love Nightmare”, an amalgamation of Jack and Alice’s desire to be together, and their rage at the sheer unfairness of the world in which they live.

This all leads back to how Mary Skelter 2 is a “bad ending” to the original game. Everything that transpires in Mary Skelter 2 is a result of Otsuu’s interference. Otsuu is actually a Nightmare herself, you see, and her own grief at the death of Little Mermaid in the narrative setup to Mary Skelter Nightmares caused her to wish upon the Jail Tower in order to change the past. Ultimately, while Otsuu’s wish to save Little Mermaid brought herself some degree of happiness, it brought pain, misery and death to everyone else around her, with no means of repaying this “debt” she owes other than to return fate to the way it is “supposed” to be.

At its core, then, Mary Skelter 2 is a story about grief, death and how we cope with such things. While it is indeed possible to delude oneself and live in a pure fantasy world where you believe everything can and will turn out okay, the healthiest approach for everyone — including both you and the people around you — is to accept that while your loss may be painful and leave you feeling utterly inconsolable, it’s not something that you can change. Instead, you should do your best to move forward with your life, honouring the fallen in your own way as you can, but not destroying your own life — and potentially the lives of others — in the process.

Not quite lost in translation

Mary Skelter 2 is an attractive game with a distinct audio-visual aesthetic. The character and background art has a rather “painterly” aspect to it, with soft outlines and smudgy brush strokes, and the the dungeons that you spend the majority of your time exploring are designed to blend elements of reality with the horrifyingly uncanny. There’s a fair bit of “body horror” to Mary Skelter 2’s environments, with walls and floors often sporting blinking eyes, gibbering mouths and throbbing pustules.

Like most Idea Factory games, Mary Skelter 2’s narrative is primarily delivered in a visual novel style through character sprites and dialogue. In many instances, things that are happening are not depicted literally, instead effectively being “narrated” by the characters and leaving things up to the imagination of the player. This is actually quite an effective approach for a game such as Mary Skelter 2, where a lot of the horror comes from picturing what the characters might be seeing rather than being presented with an explicit depiction of it.

Various important moments in the narrative and your developing relationships with the various Blood Maidens are accompanied by event scenes, including occasional “sexy” scenes. This isn’t a super-fanservicey game by any means, but it is worth noting that there are a few mildly ecchi scenes in there — particularly during the optional “Purge” minigame, whereby you can remove corruption from various blood maidens by “rubbing” Jack’s blood into their swimsuit-clad form.

Music throughout the game is excellent, featuring elements of Gothic rock and a strong focus on violin-based lead lines. There’s a great contrast between the event music, the dungeon themes and the various battle themes — and, to keep things interesting, the latter changes every couple of dungeons to keep things fresh.

In fact, the music is probably the single biggest contributing factor in occasionally, temporarily lifting the darkness that swathes the entire Mary Skelter 2 experience. Despite the bleakness of the overall narrative and the characters’ setups, there are plenty of opportunities for light-hearted moments — and these are accompanied by some delightful tunes that really help to raise the mood a little.

By contrast, a notable weak point in the game’s overall presentation is the translation to English. While not unreadable by any means, it’s clear that it could have done with a bit more naturalisation, because as it stands a lot of it comes across as very literal. Since Japanese and English have quite different grammar and sentence structure, translating literally can lead to some rather odd turns of phrase now and then — and even some non-existent words and idioms being used on multiple occasions.

The issue with the translation as a whole isn’t one of technical proficiency as such — there aren’t that many outright errors in terms of spelling and punctuation — but more one of style. It would have probably been to the whole project’s benefit if there had been a second, thorough editing pass by a native English speaker, which doesn’t appear to have occurred, judging by the credits.

The result is a translation that lacks a certain amount of punch to it in English, and which reads rather oddly on a frequent enough basis for it to be actively noticeable. There are even cases where homophones have been confused and not caught in editing; in character abilities, for example, the word “law” and “lore” are often used interchangeably, when it’s clear that it should have been one or the other consistently.

This will doubtless be a familiar situation to many fans of localised Japanese games from over the years, but in a game with lore as well-crafted as that seen in Mary Skelter 2, it’s a tad jarring when the in-game English writing just doesn’t quite seem to match up to the quality of the material it’s working with, particularly when said material (in the form of the novella) has been translated to a much higher quality. As noted, it’s by no means a deal-breaker — the translation is readable; it could have just been a lot better.

Dungeon-crawlin’ fools

The core of Mary Skelter 2 is relatively conventional for the modern Japanese grid-based dungeon crawler. You form a party of up to six combatants (who, if you have enough members in your total squad, can be supported by rear-line members) and enter a series of labyrinthine dungeons.

As you explore the dungeons, battles occur at semi-randomised intervals and unfold as turn-based encounters. Successfully clearing a battle rewards the participating members with experience points, gold and loot, and inactive or supporting members receive lesser experience point rewards.

Dungeons often contain traps and gimmicks that aim to make exploration more challenging. Many of these have a real-time element where damage can be avoided with the appropriate timing: for example, spike traps can be avoided if moving through when the spikes are retracted, while animatronic statues that strike at the party can be dodged if you move out of their square immediately after passing by them.

There are often locked doors to contend with; some of these require keys to open, some require special items to be inserted into slots and others are triggered by switches. Some switches remain in effect permanently, while others are timed, requiring that you pass through the door triggered by the switch before it closes automatically.

One distinctive feature that Mary Skelter 2 adds atop the usual formula is the fact that every Blood Maiden has her own special exploration ability. Some of these are more obviously useful than others, but all are used at least once over the course of the entire game to “gate” progress in various ways. The abilities cover a wide range of possible uses, with some aiding in traversal, while others manipulate objects to aid progression and others still provide a means of avoiding or mitigating dangerous dungeon elements.

Use of these exploration abilities is the main source of “puzzles” in Mary Skelter 2; unlike some other grid-based dungeon crawlers (Sting and Aquaplus’ Dungeon Travelers 2 being a good example), the dungeon designs in Mary Skelter 2 are not super-intricate, eschewing complicated multi-level traversal puzzles in favour of mostly self-contained floors. The emphasis is on thorough exploration with occasional “roadblocks” which can be passed either with key items or exploration abilities, and the result is a game where it always feels like you’re making forward progress.

Later in the game, the environmental puzzles sometimes demand the use of multiple abilities in concert to achieve particular effects. For example, clearing large pits sometimes requires you to combine Cinderella’s speed-enhancing “Twelve Dash” ability with Alice’s “Rabbit Jump” in order to make a longer leap than usual; elsewhere, clever use of Gretel’s “Bread Portal” teleportation ability allows you to outwit some of the switch puzzles that have rather unforgiving timing.

Each dungeon does have a distinct feel, but most have some shared elements that become a comforting sight after a while. Notably, the fact that most dungeons have a “shortcut staircase”, allowing you to quickly and easily reach the upper floors when exploring over the course of multiple expeditions, is very welcome indeed — though a couple of later dungeons do subvert this expectation somewhat.

Likewise, the fact that you can almost universally rely on each dungeon’s main objective being on its 5th floor (with a couple of exceptions — most notably in the 11-floor final dungeon) helps bring a sense of structure and direction to your exploration, giving you an idea of how much progress you’ve made in a session and how much further you have to go.

Most dungeons also have an optional “secret” floor that is unlocked via use of the “Jail Roulette” system. This is a mechanic whereby the sentient Jail has three “desires”, indicated by coloured meters in the corner of the screen. Hunger is satisfied by spilling Marchen blood, Libido by collecting items or licking one another in combat (more on that in a moment) and Sleep by performing actions without taking damage while the Jail is specifically indicated to be asleep.

Upon filling one of the three “desire” meters (which can occur both inside and outside of combat) you’re presented with a roulette wheel with various benefits. Sometimes these allow you to immediately acquire items, sometimes they provide temporary buffs — one marked “Unknown Effect” even immediately causes your entire party to immediately level up and fully heal, making it a godsend during difficult fights. And, if you trigger one of these roulette wheels after defeating the dungeon’s main Nightmare boss, it brings down a wall somewhere in the dungeon, allowing access to the optional secret floor.

Interestingly, the Jail Roulette can be manipulated by acquiring “pieces” throughout your explorations. Prior to beginning a new expedition, you’re given the option to load up both the exploration and battle roulettes with various pieces, making it more likely that certain benefits will appear. There’s a limit on how many pieces (and how “valuable” those pieces are) you can apply to a single dungeon, though, so you can’t simply stack the deck completely in your favour — though it is worth noting that outside of a rarely seen result that temporarily swaps all characters ATK (physical attack) and TEC (magical attack) statistics, which generally makes everyone absolutely terrible at their “job” in battle, most roulette results are positive for you and your party.

Loot in Mary Skelter 2 is unusually handled. Consumable items and equipment can be found in non-respawning treasure chests and respawning collection points, but can also be “farmed” by planting Blood Flowers in dungeons. These can be planted anywhere, but tend to yield better results if planted in specifically marked locations and covered in blood, a resource which is gradually collected following successful battles.

Blood Flowers take several battles to bloom, at which point they can either be harvested individually, or harvested as a group using Hameln’s Magnetic Piccolo ability, which not only harvests all Blood Flowers within Hameln’s line of sight, but also has a chance at “updating” acquired loot to more powerful versions of itself. These “updates” can either take the form of a numerical modifier, which reflects the number of additional stat points over and above the type of equipment’s baseline statistics that the particular item provides, or a syllabic prefix that denotes added special abilities or bonuses. The best equipment has both, potentially boosting an item far beyond its usual capabilities.

By contrast, loot found from battle drops and in dungeons is always in its base-level, unmodified form. At home base between dungeon expeditions, it’s possible to upgrade an item to a maximum of +20 with the appropriate resources, but given that the “updated” items from Blood Flowers can go up to +99 and have even further increased capabilities, it’s fairly rare that you’ll be relying on regular drops for your characters’ equipment — to such a degree that much of the loot you find can feel a bit useless at times.

That is, until you realise that at least part of the reason you get so much loot is that it is a primary means of acquiring money. Gold drops from battles are fairly stingy, so bringing an armful of equipment back to base and then selling it for a tidy profit is generally a much more reliable means of securing an income. And, given that it’s helpful to have a backpack full of consumable items on hand to make longer expeditions self-sufficient, it’s always good to have a pocket full of gold ready to spend.

Risk, reward and licking ladies

A core element of Mary Skelter 2, as you may have surmised from the mention of the “Jail Roulette” above, is risk versus reward. And this is most apparent during the game’s battle sequences, which demand that you strike a good balance between taking significant risks and reaping big rewards for doing so.

At heart, Mary Skelter 2’s combat system is straightforward turn-based. Characters line up in the turn order according to their agility stat and a semi-randomised initiative value, then their next move occurs based on the hidden “speed” value of whatever action they choose to take. At its most basic level, this exhibits some elements of risk versus reward: you can see an enemy’s turn is coming up, so do you risk unleashing your most powerful skills in an attempt to defeat them before they get their turn, or do you hunker down and get defensive?

But it doesn’t stop there. As the narrative shows, Blood Maidens are uncommonly sensitive to the blood of their enemies, and during combat they will get covered in the stuff. This is represented by each character having a five-step meter that gradually fills as enemies bleed, and enemies bleed more when hit hard, are hit with abilities specifically designed to induce bleeding, are hit in their weak points or are killed with a significant degree more damage than was necessary to defeat them.

When the blood meter fills, the Blood Maiden’s next turn will see one of two things happen. If you’re lucky, they’ll enter Massacre mode, which makes them stronger and provides access to some new abilities, usually elemental-based area-effect skills good for clearing out a full party of enemies. If you’re unlucky, they’ll enter Blood Skelter, which makes them even stronger and completely uncontrollable; in this state, they’re just as likely to attack friend as foe (or even themselves) and generally get more actions per turn than they usually would have.

Whether a Blood Maiden enters Massacre or Blood Skelter is determined by the corruption they have built up, indicated by the darkness of the blood in their meter. The darker the meter, the higher the corruption and the higher the risk of Blood Skelter.

You’re not left to the whims of fate to deal with this, though; the blood meters and corruption can be managed and mitigated in various ways.

Firstly, if a Blood Maiden has three or more blood splashes in her meter, she can be “licked” by another Blood Maiden, which empties the meter and triggers a character-specific Blood Soul ability — as well as filling the Jail’s Libido meter to a certain extent. Pervert.

Blood Soul skills benefit the whole party in some way and include things like a full-party heal, restoration of skill points, cleansing of debuffs or completely blocking the next attack. Very useful — but, of course, if you do this, you can’t take advantage of Massacre’s benefits.

Secondly, on Otsuu’s turn, she can ask Jack to “Purge” either an individual Blood Maiden completely or the entire party partially by making use of his blood. This can mitigate the risk of Blood Skelter entirely, but carries its own risk: the more of his blood he uses without having the opportunity to take a rest or be soothed by Otsuu, the greater the strain on Jack’s mind. And the more strained Jack’s mind is, the more likely he will become Ripper Jack temporarily, becoming uncontrollable and unleashing his own abilities at random. Not only that, but this immediately maximises Otsuu’s Corruption, making her likely to hit Blood Skelter on her next turn.

To make matters even worse, if Jack becomes Ripper Jack three times in one combat, it’s an immediate Game Over; most battles are resolved quickly enough for this to never be an issue, but in boss battles and on harder difficulties it becomes a consideration.

Once combat is over, all Massacre and Blood Skelter states end immediately, and full blood meters that would have triggered one of these states on the character’s next turn drop back a level. This means you’ll never enter a battle with the possibility of all your characters immediately entering Blood Skelter and getting you killed, which is blessed relief.

There are a couple of other risk versus reward mechanics to consider alongside all this. As well as the aforementioned Jail Roulette, you can also trigger various Jail Trials prior to kicking off an expedition. These allow you to exchange various drawbacks for benefits; for example, disabling your ability to save in the dungeon rewards you with 30% more experience points, while deliberately choosing to take more damage can boost your stats somewhat. In this way, you can tinker with the game’s difficulty somewhat — and it can be especially useful to boost item drop rates for certain sidequests — but can also be freely ignored if you see fit.

Finally, the longer you hang out in the dungeon, the worse the Jail’s mood gets, indicated by a percentage meter in the corner of your exploration view. As this rises, the dungeon takes on more of a red tint and the enemies become stronger, potentially leading to greater rewards — but also significantly increasing the risk to your party. Do you press your luck and continue exploring, or head for home base and take a rest before continuing?

Bloody Nightmare

One of the core features of both Mary Skelter 2’s narrative and mechanics is the presence of Nightmares. These are extremely powerful enemies that guard each of the main dungeons. Some liken these to the F.O.E. enemies in the Etrian Odyssey series, but the comparison isn’t particularly apt; F.O.E.s move as you move, allowing you to tactically manoeuvre around them, while Mary Skelter 2’s Nightmares are a real-time component.

If a Nightmare spots you — which can occur either randomly or by you stumbling into their line of sight if they’re actively wandering your current dungeon level — a Chase sequence begins, during which your main goal is to get as far away from the Nightmare as possible: specifically, to get a reasonable distance outside the large white “aura” they have around their current position.

Here’s the twist, though: on all difficulties other than Easy, while being chased you have no access to your minimap, meaning you have to run in a panic based on only your own memories and sometimes blind luck. And if you find yourself forced into a dead end, you have only one choice: fight, even though Nightmares are a foe you can’t defeat until you’ve beaten the current dungeon’s Guardian and destroyed its Core.

You can, however, break parts off them, which causes them to be stunned for a moment, letting you slip past them and make your escape. At the conclusion of each dungeon, you’ll have to break all the parts off the dungeon’s Nightmare before defeating them once and for all — always a satisfying moment.

In the early game, the Nightmares honestly don’t feel like a super-significant threat because the dungeon designs make them relatively easy to escape from. As the game progresses, though, the dungeon layouts become more complex and the Nightmares get faster, making it harder to get away. The final dungeon in particular has an exceedingly tenacious Nightmare that it feels really good to finally get the better of – particularly as this leaves the last few floors relatively quiet as you approach the final confrontation.

Build a better Blood Maiden

Dungeon crawlers often live or die on their character progression and customisation systems, and Mary Skelter 2 thankfully provides plenty of options for building a team that functions in a way you find enjoyable and efficient, with your choices expanding considerably as the playable cast expands with each new dungeon.

Each individual character begins with a base job, which determines what weapons they are able to use, their base statistics and what skills they are able to learn with points acquired via levelling up. Every 10 levels, they earn “Job Unlock Rights”, which allows them to unlock one of the other four jobs (and costumes!) they have available to them; again, each of these has a specific range of usable weapons, base stats and skills.

All characters are able to cross-class their skills once learned, though skills are generally more effective if used by their original host job, indicated by them being marked as “Specialty” in the game’s menus. It’s helpful to learn at least a few skills from each job available to a character, though, particularly when it comes to passive bonuses, resistances and automatic counterattacks.

Equipment is a consistently interesting consideration, because it’s never as simple as just picking the item with the higher numbers. This is because pretty much every item of equipment provides bonuses to some statistics and penalties to others; many also affect the characters’ resistances to various elements, too, meaning there are always very enjoyable decisions to make on how to outfit your characters.

Risk versus reward enters the picture here too, of course; for powerful physical attackers, do you eschew their defensive capabilities in favour of getting that ATK stat as high as possible? Can mages get away with a low DEF if they’re sitting in the back row? Is it worth setting aside someone as a “tank” and, if so, how are you going to ensure the enemies provide them with the majority of the attention?

Given the strongly randomised nature of the loot, particularly that acquired from Blood Flowers, it’s highly likely that no two playthroughs of Mary Skelter 2 will be quite alike, providing plenty of replay value. And while the normal difficulty doesn’t really provide any real incentive to make use of the level-resetting “Blood Devolution” system, which provides bonuses to base stats and the ability to respec characters’ learned skills, it’s clear that the increased difficulty of the Fear level will make that something of a necessity — so those who enjoy a good grind will doubtless have plenty to enjoy there.

Conclusions

Mary Skelter 2 is an excellent game, and ranks high among the dungeon crawlers I have enjoyed to date thanks to its interesting risk-versus-reward mechanics and its extensive, fascinating lore. It’s a shame that the English translation lets things down a bit, but as previously noted, it’s thankfully not enough to ruin the experience; it’s just a little bit of a cumbersome read at times, and I feel just a simple editing pass and a touch of naturalisation by another pair of eyes after the initial translation would have probably helped that enormously.

It’s a super-long game, which will doubtless put some people off, but it’s actually designed in quite a considerate manner whereby the individual “chunks” of things you have to do are easily digestible, meaning you can set aside an hour or two to play and feel like you’re making some meaningful progress. At very few points will you feel like you’re at a standstill; there’s constant forward momentum and a pleasant feeling of discovery pretty much the entire time you’re playing.

There are a couple of exceptions to this — if playing on the harder difficulties and using Blood Devolution, a certain amount of grinding is unavoidable, and some of the sidequests that require you to defeat rarely spawning monsters or acquire rare item drops can be a bit annoying. But it’s worth noting that anything which could become annoying in Mary Skelter 2 is pretty much always on the optional side of things. There’s no reason to do all the sidequests other than to say you’ve done them all, for example (I did!) — so if you find them tedious, just skip them.

With lovely art, an excellent soundtrack and an incredibly likeable (and constantly fascinating) cast of very, very troubled characters, Mary Skelter 2 strikes a great balance between solid dungeon crawler mechanics and compelling lore. All this makes for a real “best of both worlds” experience, whether you’re a narrative junkie or someone who likes to dive deep into the intricacies of game systems.

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More about Mary Skelter 2

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