Mary Skelter Finale Review
Release Date: September 30th, 2021 (NA), October 1st, 2021 (EU), November 5th, 2020 (JP)
Developer: Compile Heart
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PlayStation 4
Price: $49.99
Dungeon Crawlers have been made a staple in gaming for so long thanks to their various interpretations of what a dungeon can be and how it can function that dress themselves in a vareity of aesthetics, always leaving room for creativity and adventure from title to title for players to enjoy. Some are more free-form in both third-person and first-person where you have a full 360 plane to roam around in and explore, while others are more grid-based and tactical leaving for slower movement in favor of more strategic and methodical gameplay that can be represented in the form of turn-based RPGs, roguelites, and more. Tons of franchises from Shin Megami Tensei to Pokémon to Final Fantasy have gotten spinoffs in these formats, meanwhile new properties have also been born under the genre wanting to do something new to flip it on its head. Mary Skelter has been doing this rather successfully since its debut on Vita in 2017, and now is reaching its conclusion with its third installment packed in with a spinoff visual novel titled Locked in Love - True End - to give a more robust package and offering for Mary Skelter Finale.
Since Mary Skelter has been a serialized series, each one takes place virtually immediately after the other, with Mary Skelter Finale still consisting of the story of the Blood Maidens looking to escape The Jail, which they inevitably do by the end of the second game. While not much has changed from game to game other than standard UI and HUD changes to give the sort of feeling of refreshment, Mary Skelter Finale will feel familiar in a lot of ways to those that have played Mary Skelter: Nightmares and Mary Skelter 2 - both of which we've reviewed here at The Gamer's Lounge. Due to the serialized nature of the games, however, Mary Skelter Finale may not be accessible to everyone unless you're starting from the beginning, which is a whole lot of content, hours, and frustration to get through even for the avid RPG player. Thankfully Compile Heart has at least allowed for a way of entry for those that don't really care much for what's happened before and just want to jump straight into the final act with a mode called "Before Story" that will recap quite literally the entire game, where players can select each chapter from both the main story and sub stories to relive key moments, though these are restricted to the visual novel portions of the game with battles and the sort being omitted. While Mary Skelter has been consistent throughout, there's no denying that it has been fairly convoluted in a lot of areas with terminology and such that tend to blend into each other after a while and is easy to lose track of, and though we've given both of the prior installments good scores and recommend them, it's not without a fair bit of warning that you really need to be in the mood for it and willing to dedicate a lot of time to it, especially for quality of life reasons that have remained persistent throughout the series for some reason. If you're looking to really get in deep with Mary Skelter without wanting to invest in the prior two games, Before Story will help you a lot in this regard, though be prepared to still spend quite some time with it before you finally click New Game as you'll essentially be experiencing 120+ hours condensed into a few which will just make for dense content quite a lot to take in to the point that to some it may not make much of a difference whether they're going in having experienced the Before Story offering of Mary Skelter Finale or completely blind. Jack, who's been a main character throughout, will also touch upon some key moments at the opening segments of the game but, like previously stated, with how heavy Mary Skelter can get it may feel like there's a lot more questions than answers leftover—you just kind of have to learn to accept the ambiguity when it comes to the narrative nature of the game.
As always, however, Mary Skelter Finale continues the trend of having absolutely fantastic openings to really set the mood and tone for the game and showing off the art and flashiness Mary Skelter will bring alongside its protagonists, and antagonists, and combat throughout. Blood Maidens you'll control throughout the dungeons will still be affected by blood splatters they come into contact with before turning into more powerful versions of themselves in Massacre Mode that enhances their stats tenfold with unique skills that unleash heavy damage. All of this remains fairly consistent with how the games have functioned since its debut entry, and dungeons still remain immensely unique which, to me, will always be one of the biggest draws to Mary Skelter. The quality and production of Mary Skelter is no doubt still extremely well done throughout Mary Skelter Finale, though its biggest inconsistencies from installment to installment has been their performances and visual qualities from game to game which tends to go up and down in varying categories, not only on the same systems but on a rivaling platforms as well. Having experienced the Mary Skelter series on PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC courtesy of review opportunities and double-dipping to revisit them, the most jarring aspect is that despite the games not necessarily pushing any technical boundaries, regardless of technical specs of a platform, they've always felt and looked different for better or for worse and it makes very little sense to me. Mary Skelter: Nightmares, for example, felt and looked much better on PlayStation Vita with the Switch version being a bit of a blurred mess, though when it came to Mary Skelter 2 the Switch version actually outperformed its PlayStation 4 version with quicker load times and more stability, and in the case of Mary Skelter Finale, the Switch version is once again a blurred mess yet its lighting and environmental detail - despite being of a lower fidelity - have a much stronger atmosphere to them thanks to lighting and effects where as the PlayStation 4 version looks extremely flat and ugly despite a higher resolution and frame rate. Mary Skelter as a series has changed little from entry to entry outside of a few mechanics or visual differences (even character renderings remain identical), and while the dungeons themselves are creative and detailed, graphically and artistically they've remained the same, so its particularly jarring that each entry feels like a new sort of debug build for essentially the same thing. The inconsistencies of it all just really tend to make you wonder.
Another big difference is that while the general gameplay is still fairly linear for Mary Skelter Finale, the approach to which the story is told is slightly altered with players being able to pick which party of people they want to play as they're all sort of segmented thanks to a powerful foe named Guillotine above The Jail in this deadly post-apocalyptic world they find themselves in; a far cry from the paradise they initially thought would be at the end of the manifestation of nightmares. This new method, called Zapping, makes it so every once in a while you'll have to switch to a new group of characters and continue their story once you've reached the peak of a previous groups' arc. While this may not be a preferable way to go about telling the story to I'm sure a lot of players as it ruins the already poor pacing of the series with its large visual novel segments with no way to save in-between, it does at least make it a little more palatable as it can make things a bit easier to follow with more breathing room from arc to arc, but the biggest problem stems from essentially dealing with the same events over and over again but with a slightly different perspective, making the whole thing feel rather tedious and redundant. At the very least thanks to its production quality, dubs in both Japanese and English are extremely well done and at least make for a good presentation when facing these stories head-on before jumping back into the action, but it's worth noting that this is still a recurring issue that Compile Heart has that still hasn't been learned in most of the titles they develop: They make fantastic games that are belittled by poor pacing and a constantly lack of QoL design that will make the average player that isn't a die-hard Iffy follower more than likely retire from the game before they've even reached the halfway point. This is especially unfortunate when it's fairly obvious also that a lot of work and passion is put into Mary Skelter (and CH games in general), but its lack of direction and consistency can sometimes make the quality of a game feel like it's going back and forth between varying studios that had goals with little to no communication. Mind you, my complaints about lack of pacing and extremely long dialogue segments with a misbalance of dungeon-crawling comes from someone with a long and loving history of visual novels, so long dialogue will never be a problem for me when it's expected and/or warranted, but a lot of the time Mary Skelter tends to feel like word soup as sentences continue to be said when the topic of conversation ended what feels like ages ago. The real gold mind in all of this truthfully comes from the Locked In Love - True End - DLC that is rather entertaining and serves as a fun romantic side-game to enjoy and chill out to.
Mary Skelter Finale may feel unnecessary to some, but I think what remains as the biggest disappointment is unfortunately the lack of anything really exciting or different to give off that feeling of a proper finale. Fireworks won't be going off to say the least, and given the world and direction Compile Heart really had going with this, I think it's safe to say that for a finale one would expect more. Finale, however, much like its previous entries still holds pride in its unique dungeons and world-building alongside enemies that are creative, fascinating, and equal parts grotesque when traversing and attempting to escape The Jail once and for all, and fans will mostly enjoy what Finale has to offer by the end of it all especially with its packaged Locked Up Love - True End - DLC tacked on which was previously only available as a pre-order bonus in Japan. While Mary Skelter Finale almost feels like a drawn out story that could have easily been condensed into a premium package or DLC, at the very least the consistent and familiar nature of the game to those that have played prior entries still make Mary Skelter stand out within the dungeon crawling genre, and while I'm sad to see it end, I do hope that Compile Heart will make a spiritual successor of sorts that still have those fairy tale-inspired characters and wonderful dungeon designs but with proper quality of life enhancements that have been an absolutely necessity since the first. Once they can nail down the pacing and allow for saving at any given moment instead of restricting it to certain locations in a dungeon alongside stripping unnecessary systems to bloat its mechanics and systems for artificial depth, Mary Skelter could undoubtedly be a force to be reckoned with and increase its popularity tenfold placing it up among the greats within the genre - as it stands, however, Mary Skelter Finale is a competent send off for the series and one that I'm sure fans that have invested time into its Blood Maidens and world since its debut on Vita in 2017 will miss deeply.
PROS:
The mechanics and systems have more or less stayed in place and remained consistent, making for those that have played the prior installments easily pick up Mary Skelter Finale and experience the conclusion.
As usual, the art style of Mary Skelter is really great and the colors complement the environments and scenery, with unique dungeons and character designs that stand out amongst other dungeon crawlers
It's a thrilling conclusion to what's been a consistent and well-done series, and what I believe to be one of Compile Hearts' and Idea Factory's freshest and most enjoyable IP in quite some time.
CONS:
The pacing hasn't improved whatsoever, with dialogue taking up a huge portion of the game and keeping players stuck in cutscenes for well over an hour before they're finally able to save again or have any sort of interaction within a dungeon or hub. This makes it extremely inaccessible to those that may not have much time to fit games within their schedule, but even for those that do it can feel tedious to have to wait when you're a frequent saver.
Our utmost gratitude to Compile Heart and Idea Factory for providing us a copy of Mary Skelter Finale for the purpose this review