Mary Skelter: Nightmares
The "Jail" suddenly appeared a number of years ago, sinking the city deep into the ground. There, this impenetrable living prison 666 metres beneath the surface, held power over eerie creatures called "Marchens." Within the prison was a boy named Jack – living a life of suffering, tortured day in and day out, in a world where all dreams, hopes, peace, and humanity had been lost for as long as the people could remember. Then one day, amidst the darkness that prevailed, a girl who called herself a member of the Blood Team appeared before Jack, holding giant scissors dripping in blood! This marked the beginning of fate – of Jack's and the Blood Maidens' escape from the Jail… Jack and the Blood Team will face countless perils in regaining all that has been lost, to finally escape once and for all!
Game Discussion
Steam User 15
This may sound completely nuts, but there is actually a remake of this game, and it's on PC despite not having a dedicated Steam page.
Mary Skelter 2 comes with a built in full remake of the original. If you enable the DLCs in the game settings, they aren't listed on Steam since the Steam release comes with the Switch DLCs, there's one that unlocks a full remake of the original in the improved engine of 2, with entirely new maps, but without most of 2's gameplay changes like casting time.
On Switch, this was a free DLC released because the Switch never got the original game. There's also a secret ending added in the remake that ties into Mary Skelter 2 and sets up Finale.
However, that doesn't mean this version isn't worth playing, this version of the game is much harder, and also acts almost as a remixed version of the game, with much larger and sprawling maps. On release, this game was criticized for having maps that were considered way too big, and a high encounter rate. But, as someone who likes a good challenge, that just entices me to play more of this version.
Truth be told, I need to play more of this version, but since none of the reviews here mention that the remake is very different, I felt like it had to be mentioned that this version is still worth playing even if you've played the remake, and so, here I am.
Steam User 7
There's a remake included in Mary Skelter 2, if you like the gameplay I recommend this version, but if you favor story, play the remake since it can be completed faster and has the area that connects Nightmares to Mary Skelter 2. The remake has the new visual changes/upgrades, faster movement speed, smaller maps... but I still recommend this one since you get more game, as well as steam achievements and other stuff that is not included in the remake.
Steam User 13
- IMPORTANT NOTE: Mary Skelter 2 includes a remake of this game.
- Good game in general.
- Turn based combat with a corruption mechanic you need to stay on top of.
- Dungeon crawling is straightforward with a few gimmicks to change things up. Nightmares are invincible and are an obstacle to avoid and run away from.
- Didn't like how skills were tied to jobs and can't be upgraded. If you want to replace a minor damage skill with a regular/heavy skill you will have to unlock different jobs and hope you get what you want.
- In the post game area I found a shortcut that would freeze the game when I tried to use it.
Steam User 5
Not really a review and perhaps I'll write one in the future, but suffice to say that I already played the heck out of this on the Vita and have every intention of playing it again here despite my ridiculous backlog. It's sometimes lewd, but mostly just an excellent contemporary DRPG that has some fun systems to play with.
An important note, however, is that if you run Malwarebytes real-time protection (malware and ransomware), it will stop this game dead cold every 30 seconds or so for just under a second. It's irritating as hell, and I tried many things to resolve it including futzing with the display settings, throwing it onto an SSD instead of an HDD, etc, but nothing worked until I disabled both real-time protection options in MWB. After that, the game was silky smooth. Small risk if you don't do anything in the background while playing, but worth noting as it took pretty much my entire playtime to figre out. Be advised.
Steam User 1
I don't know why Steam said that I spend 23 hours on the game when I actually spend more than 100 hours.
I love Mary Skelter a lot. I played all games for 100+ hours, read the Prequel Novels, collected some merch like artbooks and did everything that the games has to offer. Out of all the games, I love this version of MSN the most. The story is great with a loveable cast. The world is wonderful to explore and aesthetically pleasing. The huge amount of references to fairytales in this game is beautiful and well done. I love the usual anime hijinks found in the game and how it works with the setting. Since the story takes place in a literal Wonderland. The Gameplay is quite balanced with a few spikes every now and then. Sure you can break the game in half like every IF/CH game if you know what to do. But the game is not unforgiving and gives you a lot of wiggle room for error. I do suggest to save often as I was told that the PC version will crash sometimes. THE MUSIC IS LEGIT GOD TIER! Great use of Rock and Violin. It fits the tone and mood of the world. I tend listen to the soundtrack almost every day. I recommend this game to anyone who is either an IF/CH fan or a dungeon Crawler fan. The game will provide some scares, excitement, solid gameplay and nice fanservice.
Steam User 3
Great game; do not buy this one, buy the sequel, which includes a remake of the first game.
Steam User 0
as the first dungeon crawler game ive played, i had a good time with it
i think the nightmare mechanic is a fun twist on the format and it has some neat stuff in it
id recommend it for the story too, its the type of thing i vibe with
only real complaint is it being a bit buggy sometimes, had a couple crashes when trying to use the rabbit hole ability that makes a save point