A bloody good blobber
The first-person dungeon crawler transformed for me once I was introduced to Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey on the Nintendo DS. Before SMT, my experience was with ruthlessly difficult titles such as Might and Magic and Wizardry, which were incredibly unfriendly starting points to the genre. Speaking of Wizardry, it is an extremely popular series in Japan, so much that the Japanese continued producing games long after the series was dead in the West.
Mary Skelter: Nightmares is thoroughly steeped in the elements of this genre which has been beaten like a dead horse and practically saturates the PS Vita, the platform it was originally ported from. And while it is derivative in just about every sense, and familiar to the bone, it does just enough different to set it apart as being somewhat unique.
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The game is fairly forgiving in its systems as well. Dungeons are connected to one another allowing for easy movement in between and out of them, and an early ability one of the girls has is to place a portal out of the dungeon for a very small amount of SP. You can freely exit the dungeon using this skill at just about any time, and save just about anywhere, but if you go back you will need to travel through the maze again to return to the point you left. That said, if this sounds repetitive or grindy and that bothers you, you’re better off playing something else. Mary Skelter: Nightmares fully embraces its dungeon-crawling roots, and is unapologetic about them, and I loved it.
Mary Skelter: Nightmares therefore treads fun but ultimately familiar water. There is something about it which strikes me as different from other titles in the genre, and the amount of tweaking you can do to build a unique party is welcome. It’s a fun, competent RPG with a unique presentation, but I would approach with caution if you absolutely can’t stomach another dungeon crawler.
It kept me engaged and having fun throughout, apart from when I was skipping dialogue trees as quickly as possible to preserve my own sanity. It’s a great blobber despite a dull story, and was fun enough to warrant hitting the “skip” button several thousand times in order to get back into the action.
Score: 7.5/10 - Good
