Mary Skelter: Nightmares Critic Reviews

There are many ways this game could’ve come off as just another Japanese DRPG. To its enormous credit, it avoids all those pitfalls, and makes an interesting game in the process.

Mary Skelter is sublime. By turns darkly sensual and horrific, it's also beautiful, ravishing, and backed by truly expert level design and a clean, clever combat system. This game is too different to effectively compare to other dungeon crawlers, but I must say, of all the many games in this genre that I've played, this one will sit with me for a very long time into the future.

Mary Skelter: Nightmares provides the dungeon crawling experience fans of the genre crave. The game offers a unique battle system that requires attention and skill to master, many different ways to customize characters, and large dungeons to explore with many hidden rooms and valuable loot.

Mary Skelter: Nightmares is one of the most delightful and impressive RPGs that I've played in a long time. Both old-school dungeon crawler fans and those curious about the genre definitely have a bloody enjoyable adventure ahead of them.

Mary Skelter: Nightmares is strong enough as a whole to offer the most unique experience Compile Heart has ever created.

Mary Skelter: Nightmares introduces some interesting mechanics to the dungeon RPG formula to separate it from the crowd. The story and characters aren't great but the exploration and party management is fun enough to still make this worth a look.

With a deep combat system, polished gameplay and nicely designed UI and characters, Mary Skelter: Nightmares makes an impression among the many dungeon crawlers on PS Vita. On the negative side, the plot is forgettable and it could be repetitive at some moments.

Mary Skelter: Nightmares varies nicely from your typical turn-based JRPG. With a darker atmosphere than most games, the art and music is really what defines it. If you can overlook some of the repetitive combat and dialogue, this game has a lot to offer and provides an overall great experience.

Borrows the most successful elements of the genre and combines them with new and imaginative mechanics, offering a tasty, modern cocktail.

Mary Skelter: Nightmares is a surprisingly effective little dungeon crawler. I enjoyed its creepy, Lovecraftian world way more than I ever expected to, even if the characters lack depth and the lore can get a little goofy in its race to be dark and edgy.

Mary Skelter: Nightmares has some really interesting features and an impressively dark atmosphere. While a lot of the mechanics within the dungeons will feel familiar to genre fans, the levels themselves are very well crafted. There’s also a unique battle system to master and the random element of Nightmares chasing you down dark corridors will definitely get the adrenaline pumping.

While it won’t blow anyone away, Mary Skelter: Nightmares is a well put together, enjoyable experience and a worthy addition to any dungeon crawler RPG fan’s collection.

Mary Skelter: Nightmares straddles the line of having fun mechanics and story hooks with a mediocre plot featuring a poor conclusion. If you’re into the whole dungeon crawler with cute anime girls approach, like Demon Gaze or Operation Abyss, you’ll appreciate what Mary Skelter has to offer, providing dozens of hours of interesting content. While I wouldn’t recommend picking it up right away, it’s at least worth a try whenever it goes on sale.

I can truthfully say that Mary Skelter: Nightmares is the very first game I have ever played in which giving a woman multiple meatless pancakes demonstrably raised her affection for my character. I can also truthfully say that it exceeds the level of quality seen in my previous experiences with Idea Factory and Compile Heart. That comes with the significant caveat of a point where the game refused to recognize I had the critical item for progression, until after about 150 tries it finally allowed me through. Cranking the quality up from completely wretched to only somewhat wretched isn’t all that much of an accomplishment though, and leaves me no wiser than before about how these companies remain in business.