I tried this out as part of my quest to fill the Etrian Odyssey shaped hole in my heart, and I found a really fun dungeon RPG that includes the entire first game in it as an unlockable bonus. Don't worry the devs want you to play 2 first then go back and play 1 it's weird but it'll (kind of) make sense. There's a lot of variety in how you can build your team, between choosing which characters to use, what classes to train up, etc. There's this whole blood splatter mechanic where each party member has a meter that, when full, puts them into a super mode. They all build up corruption as you explore a dungeon, though, and the higher the corruption the higher chance they'll ender what's called Blood Skelter instead. They become incredibly powerful, but they also go berserk. This can be really useful if you need to wipe out your enemies or are stuck on a particularly tough boss, but since there's no guarantee that they won't turn that power around on the rest of your party, there's a lot of risk involved. You can also have a party member lick the blood off of someone before the meter fills up (yeah it's kinda weird but I don't know what else you expect from an Idea Factory/Compile Heart game) to reset the meter to 0 and get a character-dependent effect like gradual healing. Each character also has a unique ability to use in the dungeon, that adds an almost Zelda or Metroid like feel to the exploration, where you'll go back to a massive chasm and use your new character's teleport to reach a secret treasure chest or something like that. The difficulty can be a little all over the place, but overall it felt fair.

A surprisingly good dungeon crawler considering it comes from Compile Heart and Zerodiv. There’s a real rhythm to the ebb and flow of the various systems at work in and out of battle which are fun to deal with while making it so that sloppy mistakes can be punished heavily.

It even includes the entire first game remade, with significant quality of life and design upgrades. If you’re considering the original then maybe wait for the sequel unless you like the idea of taking on 100x100 maps with a tiny inventory!

My only real problems are the usual I guess; the maps aren’t particularly memorable; the story kind of drops off after about halfway through (though it picks up again right at the end with a really weird ending) and I don’t think it needed some of the screen rubbing/fan service type of stuff (though it’s less egregious on a non portable machine I suppose). Recommended overall for genre fans.

After his brief stint with bleeding all over women, Jack Skelter realized what honour truly means. "What if... I'm just in the way... What if what this game needed from the start was cute lesbians (and also pain?)". Jack's incredible foresight and foreknowledge made him take a backseat to lesbian supremacy. This not only made him more likable, it also made his game better.

Now that our guy has brought incredible change to the game industry, he's offering you a deal. Two for the price of one. Buy one Mary Skelter (Mary Skelter 2) get two Mary Skelters (Mary Skelter 1 and 2, together in one game!). Now that's a macaroni made in the oven.

I consider this game the pinnacle of environmental storytelling.

The amount of lore and history you get just from observing your environment and interacting with it is indescribable to me.

You are walking through a living jail. As you play, you will definitely begin to realize this place is not just given a title of "living" but that it is, in fact, living as an organism.

Through the game, the jail will ask you to satisfy its hunger, it's libido, and it's sleep. If you ignore its desires, the jail becomes enraged with you, and the monsters become much stronger. If you are exploring and hear a door closing, but you notice you never passed through a door... it's a sign a nightmare is following you. Some areas will have eyes that follow you, while some areas do not. This significance becomes relevant only later in the game, but it's important to note that the characters constantly interact and ask questions that try to explain the Jail's mood and thoughts. If your surroundings get misty, a nightmare is close. If you are spotted by a nightmare, you have now entered the mist, and it becomes increasingly harder to see. The map is now gone, and you need to use your team to escape. Having no ability to simply teleport to safety or use an item to escape, you have to risk running in circles (or worse, a dead end) in order to escape. While you make a run for it, other monsters known as marchens will attack you, and if you happen to get caught in battle, the nightmare will catch up to you and join their battle. In a turn-based combat with strategy, but a real time element that allows the nightmare to outspeed you and skip everyone's turns if you take too long to make your choice.

An experience that keeps you at the edge of your seat as you adjust and learn how to use your units to conquer your surroundings. The story builds upon a lovely set of unfortunate events that took place in Mary Skelter 1. However, the events of Mary Skelter 1 should only be experienced after this game (it is how the true ending to Mary Skelter 1 is unlocked).

I can not say enough good things about this game. Few games have so much love and effort put into it to keep you immersed, and I felt myself closely attached to the game and its environment as if I was living in it. Observing, thinking, and trying to figure out what is going on with the characters themselves is an amazing experience. I really can't recommend it enough. I have always adored Pokemon games for how they used to immerse me in their world and make me feel like I was part of it. I never thought a game would be able to do it better, and in such a small amount of time compared to the catalogue of Pokemon games I have explored.

With a complex and beautiful plot, colorful characters, a banging soundtrack featuring violins whose melody will pull at your heartstrings, this game is an amazing experience worth having, even if you hate first-person dungeon crawlers (as someone who used to hate first person dungeon crawlers).