Mary Skelter: Nightmares

[Grauken]

You can actually unlock more areas in the City Streets (edit: found a new one in the graveyard as well, so it's probably everywhere where you can unlock new parts) by playing one of the roulettes and getting Dungeon Growth. Interesting idea, but I assume the unlocked parts are completely irrelevant to the overall design, so I'm not sure whether it's really a good idea or not

I have to say, the game tries a lot of things, and while not everything sticks, it is interesting.

Unlike aweigh, I do like the concept of the nightmares. When was the last time most players in a non-realtime blobber were forced on the get-go to remember the dungeon layout and beat a hasty retreat

 

[Suicidal]

I have a question for people who are some ways into the game:

Does the combat become more interesting/complicated at some point?

I was watching a stream of this where the guy was a few hours in and all of the combat encounters consisted of just him and the enemies trading damage abilities and then healing after battle. And most enemies did barely any damage to the party.

Does the game eventually make you start tryharding and actually using shit like buffs, debuffs and crowd control in order to win?

I'm still interested in the game, but at the moment the combat is probably the biggest detractor.

 

[Reinhardt]

Got it too. Playing on horror and in chapter 2 now. I'm trying to finish dungeons in one run without returning to the city so started graveyard on lvl 8 and now lvl 17 and need to kill second boss in a row, but my supplies are low and my characters are still basic classes. I like it. It's not HARD hard, but ok difficulty.

 

[Kruno]

I have a question for people who are some ways into the game:

Does the combat become more interesting/complicated at some point?

I was watching a stream of this where the guy was a few hours in and all of the combat encounters consisted of just him and the enemies trading damage abilities and then healing after battle. And most enemies did barely any damage to the party.

Does the game eventually make you start tryharding and actually using shit like buffs, debuffs and crowd control in order to win?

I'm still interested in the game, but at the moment the combat is probably the biggest detractor.

I am 20 hours in now, and YES. The combat does become more nuanced. I find myself finding certain classes lack damage types which would be effective against enemies. I rarely use auto-combat because it kills me quickly.

EDIT: Says 25hrs on GoG.

 

[Grauken]

who likes which gift from the travelling sales guy

red is bad obviously, light green is okay, dark green is excellent

 

[Kruno]

No offence but I found it fairly obvious who to gift what to. It is all thematic.

 

[Grauken]

I'm pretty much skipping most of the conversations, otherwise I would go insane, but even then I don't see how it makes for example sense that thumbelina likes an old basketball but dislikes an antibacterical scarf, and the same is true for everyone else

 

[Grauken]

I haven't looked at it in detail, but can I get all the individual job-related spells/skills by switching a char through all the jobs, or do they get more later when leveling up. I think some of massacre skills are job-related, but not sure about this

 

[Dorarnae]

I haven't looked at it in detail, but can I get all the individual job-related spells/skills by switching a char through all the jobs, or do they get more later when leveling up. I think some of massacre skills are job-related, but not sure about this

you can still spec in those skill even if you switched...

 

[Grauken]

The multi-stage fight against the nightmare in the temple area was great, really intense, I hope there's more like that in the game

 

[Dorarnae]

The multi-stage fight against the nightmare in the temple area was great, really intense, I hope there's more like that in the game

pretty much only the final boss. but if you play on normal or easy, he's a push over.

 

[Suicidal]

Decided to get this after all, since it's cheap and I just felt like it. It's pretty good. So far I'm enjoying the exploration aspect and some of the unique game mechanics like the nightmares. Combat feels dull and too easy atm but I'm still in the beginning (graveyard) so I hope it will improve later. I like that the encounter rate is kinda low so you don't get bombarded with random battles every 10 steps and autocombat + animation skip button makes short work of the trash.

Will post more detailed impressions later but so far it seems like a good waste of 12 eurobucks.

 

[Grauken]

enjoying it as well, despite its flaws, mostly because it has a certain addictive nature that makes me push forward and do just one more floor, explore one more map

- maps are okay, in the sense that it feels nice to fill out the maps and find chest and items all the time, that said
- the maps are too windy and often feel like someone wanted to really use the whole map space, every damn square, instead of putting some thought into it, thus the maze design (if you even want to call it that) feels a bit pedestrian and samey after some time and so far I haven't seen any memorable map
- this is offset by nice wall graphics, I'm really digging the different area visuals
- the growth mechanism sounds nice, until you realize you can save scum and it just becomes annoying
- lots of RT-traps that should be at odds with the TB-combat, but I find them kind of amusing, if somewhat pointless, once you figured out how to walk the tightrope or avoid any of the traps, its just busy work
- I'm not a fan of the sokoban-style arrow rerouting puzzles, because lets be honest, once you've done one, you've done them all, none of the really require much thinking, just moving the re-routers around the map
- combat is pretty much spamming the same kind of attacks ad infinitum, each new area is a bit more involved when you enter, but soon you out-level most enemies (though I play on normal, maybe I should do hard)
- most intense fights are boss fights so far, with my favorite the one in the temple where you have to engage the nightmare in different levels and slowly chip away at him
- the nightmares in general are a cool concept, even if their designs are too damn goofy
- I do like the whole blood corruption thing, and especially how fast the blood level goes up when fighting against low-level enemies, basically makes it a bit more unpredictable, although in most cases auto combat is a godsend
- in general the game feels like its trying out lots of different things, but doesn't really manage to really explore any system in-depth
- that said, its keep you busy with upgrading weapons, finding sufficient kind of loot, doing lots of stuff
- when I saw the purge mechanic, I imagined what the CRPG addicts reaction to something like that would be
- story is visual novel style, 10 sentences when one would have been enough, and admittedly I'm sorta speed-reading/skipping through most of it and still get the general gist
- most plot points are telegraphed far in advance, like you can be pretty sure the professor is somewhat evil and up to no good

 

[Reinhardt]

Yeah, temple fight was best so far. I hope they will utilize this concept more in second game.

 

[4249]

Freshly released -games are just the best. Got over a 1€ back from selling the Steam trading cards I got from playing this.

I'm only in the graveyard, but so far liking it. The VN parts aren't too annoying either, I just put it on auto and take a few minutes break.

 

[Shackleton]

The ending of Chap 2/ beginning of Chap 3 was pretty annoying. Events all over the place at the Dawn Base and ffs so many of them and they're such trash.

Also- am I completely dense or can you not swap Cinderella into the main party in Chap 3? I can partner her up with someone, but can't for the life of me find a way to swap her out with someone.

 

[Suicidal]

Freshly released -games are just the best. Got over a 1€ back from selling the Steam trading cards I got from playing this.

This game just made me install an Android emulator and set up their dumbass mobile authentication because I saw that some cards are going for over 1 eu on the market. Now Just gotta have to wait 7 days hoping it'll stay this way.

Also- am I completely dense or can you not swap Cinderella into the main party in Chap 3? I can partner her up with someone, but can't for the life of me find a way to swap her out with someone.

Menu -> Formation -> Party Formation -> click on character you want to replace-> scroll down -> characters that are not in the main party are always at the bottom

 

[Shackleton]

Freshly released -games are just the best. Got over a 1€ back from selling the Steam trading cards I got from playing this.

This game just made me install an Android emulator and set up their dumbass mobile authentication because I saw that some cards are going for over 1 eu on the market. Now Just gotta have to wait 7 days hoping it'll stay this way.

Also- am I completely dense or can you not swap Cinderella into the main party in Chap 3? I can partner her up with someone, but can't for the life of me find a way to swap her out with someone.

Menu -> Formation -> Party Formation -> click on character you want to replace-> scroll down -> characters that are not in the main party are always at the bottom

So basically I *am* dense. Odd, I was sure I played about in Party Formation and couldn't find it but I must have just missed it.

 

[Grauken]

The waterways/dorms after downtown is quite relaxing, easy enemies and almost none that really do any major damage

 

[newtmonkey]

I ended up getting this on GOG (not available in Japan on Steam of course). After putting a few hours into it (basically skipping all dialog scenes), it's just alright. It's better than I was expecting, but I much prefer Generation Xth or Stranger of Sword City (for modernish Japanese dungeon crawlers; it obviously pales in comparison to Wiz and Elminage games). The dungeon design is much more interesting that I expected it to be, but it still just seems like random corridors thrown together with little sense, and I can't help compare it with Wiz VI (which I am playing now), which is able to somehow convince you that you are in a castle, mines, pyramid, forest, even though the wall graphics never change.

The combat is also braindead even on the hardest setting available at the beginning, though I know I am still not very far into it at this point and everyone is suggesting that some of the bosses are difficult.

Worth playing imo, but only after you have finished the classics (or as a break from something requiring more attention).

 

[Grauken]

The overall map design shows some very slight traces of their theme, like the dorms are long corridors and school rooms, the waterways are single train tracks on water with some trolleys, but overall it's pretty mazey.

Agreed, combat is quite simple, but honestly it's perfect for me to relax to after coming home from work, just murdering lots and lots of mobs without requiring any mental gymnastics feels comforting

 

[Dorarnae]

I am playing the second game and the dungeon are better in that one. overall the second game is a much better game than the first one in my opinion, they improved a couple things, except some of the change you wonder if they know what they're doing, would be easy to improve it even more. though I just kinda discovered something and we'll see how it goes for future boss….it still isn't a great game, but it is better than the first.

 

[Suicidal]

Guys, are there any superbosses or unique loot hidden in the deeper area of each dungeon? Or are you pretty much done with the place once you've killed the core & nightmare and the only thing left are randomly generated floors accessed through jail growth bonus?

 

[Dorarnae]

Guys, are there any superbosses or unique loot hidden in the deeper area of each dungeon? Or are you pretty much done with the place once you've killed the core & nightmare and the only thing left are randomly generated floors accessed through jail growth bonus?

yeah there's pretty much nothing else after the core boss on each dungeon….all you need to do is to find all 3 gun part for the good ending

 

[Reinhardt]

It could be much better game if there were no Jack. I'm doing friendship events for all girls before starting tower climbing and i want to kill him. When girls interract with each other i can read it and even chuckle sometimes. When it's Jack with girls it's pure cancer.