LISA is definitively one of the best indie JRPGs ever made, pushing the RPGmaker engine to an impossible edge. It doesn’t come as a surprise that other games took huge inspiration from this masterpiece. Gutter the Cursed is one of these games, set in a brutal post-apocalyptic town where brutality and comedy clash and merge. The combat system is also heavily inspired by Lisa, with combinations of attacks associated with more powerful skills. However, the similarities end here, since Gutter is a hidden jewel of open world and sandbox mechanics. While exploring the city, the player can attack everybody, from merchants to the bosses of the different factions. The game also features many secrets, endings, and two DLCs expanding the world with complex side stories: the Rejected, where the player is a failed clone, and the Perished, where the player is a ghost roaming the underworld.
A deep gameplay element of Gutter comes at the very beginning of the game: the backgrounds during the character creation. The player can decide between different origin stories, each coming with perks and bonuses. Some backgrounds will slightly change the game, making it easier or more difficult, providing unique weapons and skills. Now let’s check some of these examples.
Raised by Snake Charmers makes you fast and resistant to poison, while also providing a pet snake for your adventures: a weapon with 95% chance of poisoning the enemy. Feral Child increases the resistance against diseases and provides the perk Cannibalism, which unlocks special moves to bite the enemies, healing or inflicting bleed. Moreover, backgrounds slightly change when creating a male or female character. For example, a male character can become an Ugly Outcast, which makes you weaker while increasing the evasion rate. Instead, the female equivalent is a gorgeous creature, specifically the Beautiful Harlot, which is similar but also provides the perk Beauty. Other backgrounds only available for female characters are Tomboy and Circus Performer, which unlocks the special skill Throwing Knives.
Other backgrounds can instead drastically change the game, creating a completely different playthrough and affecting party characters. In such a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the main character can of course also be a sick psychopath. The Disturbed Mind background has a huge effect during the game since it affects your relationship with the other recruitable characters. Some characters will refuse to join your party, feeling the evilness emerging from your body. On the other end, another character will become recruitable only when the Disturbed Mind is available. When reaching the Theatre in the main town, the spectacle inside is terrifying. Mutilated bodies all around, but still alive, willingly allowing the dominatrix hiding in this place to hurt them: Malice. In a normal playthrough, this will start a complex battle against the insane woman. However, with Disturbed Mind, Malice will be mesmerised by your “evil aura,” joining the party. And of course, she is an extremely powerful character. It is very interesting that choosing a specific background, among more than 10 others, unlocks a new recruitable character.
While being evil or with a troubled but cool past is not new, the Special Person background is definitively unexpected. In this case, this origin doesn’t allow any positive perk but will drastically change almost every dialogue inside the game. The main character has huge social impairments, altering the choices into incomprehensible mumblings. As the Abomination background for Gutter the Rejected (below), Special Mind is one of those backgrounds that offers a completely different experience, thus reserved for specific runs after finishing the main game. Every dialogue and choice is in fact far more difficult to understand, and it is difficult to comprehend where “poking your nose” could lead in the conversation.
In Gutter the Rejected, the first free DLC, the backgrounds will go in an even crazier direction. This time, the main character is a cloned experiment that wakes up inside a lab. Foreigner DNA was combined with a human host, creating a specific abomination. For example, having Alligator or Squid DNA in your body unlocks special moves. The main character will gain useful skills to use during the battles, respectively 50% resistance to every damage and tentacles to trick the opponents into falling to the ground.
The Werewolf is another background available in the free DLC The Rejected. Among the many monsters to choose from, the Werewolf is one of the most interesting mechanic-wise. While the main character is still a normal human, at least in appearance, the transformation is intrinsic to the gameplay. During the battle, the character accumulates Rage to perform special moves that, when reaching the maximum, will allow the metamorphosis into a werewolf by using War Form. While the form lasts, the character will gain an insane strength, allowing deadly attacks and combos.
If playing a hybrid clone borne from an experiment that went wrong is already an interesting choice, the Abomination is definitively the most intriguing background of Gutter the Rejected. The Abomination is a grotesque creature borne from pure darkness. The main character will receive incredible powers, including strength, HPs, and special attacks. However, almost every character will be terrified of the Abomination. By playing this background, the player will lose access to many secondary quests, since the secondary characters will be terrified by the Abomination. Some of them will simply refuse to talk, while others will attack the player at the first dialogue. Moreover, the human party member refuses to join the Abomination. This background drastically changes the game, creating a really unique evil playthrough… maybe for a “kill them all” run.
The last DLC, Gutter the Perished, brings the post-apocalyptic RPG into the afterlife. In this DLC, the main character is already a ghost, who now roams the afterlife fighting ancient phantoms while discovering the reason behind their murder. While the underworld can be explored as the main game, roaming the land of the living plays as small puzzles, where you can use ghastly powers or possess people to unlock the next steps of the case. And of course, spirits from different parts of the world are available as background. The ghosts have different skills during the fight, and can solve the puzzles with their specific powers. For example, a Banshee can obsess people with creepy talks, sending them crazy, while a Jinn can enter inside the dreams of sleeping characters. Other ghosts can instead mess with the environment. A Revenant can hijack electric devices… including robots, which can become killing machines. The Yokai are the most interesting ghosts, able to appear in the human world with different forms, from a tiny messy rat to a fearful werewolf.
Gutter the Rejected was released a few days weeks ago. Meanwhile, I hope for another future DLC to see which other crazy backgrounds will be available.
Being stalked by a creepy serial killer is always one of the biggest scares in movies, but also in video games. Even more, if that killer is a grown man dressed as a baby. Several games tried to replicate the feeling of 70s-80s Slasher movies, but not many tried to be truly sandbox or open world. This is when the Lakeview series moved exactly in that direction. Lakeview Cabin and its sequel are incredibly addictive homages to slasher movies. Each level works as an independent horror movie, with different rules, characters, and of course killers. Lakeview Cabin 2 brought this to the next level, creating a violent rogue-like Mad Max-inspired level, and another focused on time travels… and a colossal killer chicken. The great idea behind this game is leaving the player to figure out everything on their own, without much guidance. This while offering the total freedom of interacting with every object to create impossible combinations and traps. Seriously, the player has a sandbox movie to experiment with dozens of strategies to stop the killers.
Lakeview Valley is a departure from the main series, providing a more connected story, deeper RPG elements, and an even more open-world structure. This time, morality is your only limit, as you can be the most nefarious murderer that this peaceful town has ever seen. Or not, maybe you can just attend your garden and help the townspeople. In fact, Lakeview Valley was described as a “murderous Stardew Valley,” where you can kill everybody but still improve your house and garden. But this catch is not the only identifying element of Lakeview Vally, because the game is full of lore, secrets, and gameplay elements. Seriously, between a hellish pocket dimension accessed by sleeping in a bed, weird characters judging your actions, and a day/night cycle bringing huge (and dangerous) changes during the night, the game has a lot to offer. Oh, and did I forget to mention time loops? Have a look at my analysis to have an idea: A peculiar and violent hell in Lakeview Valley: power-up while murdering and send the town to Hell [Evil Quests]
The town is alive and full of characters, each with a specific task and secret to discover. Sure, you can murder everybody, but can you do that without being incriminated by the sheriff? Because this is also an ending in Lakeview Valley. Plus, dark creatures will reward the player with special powers for each homicide. Seriously, there is a lot to talk about, but you can read better in the article Towns with a Dark Secrets, also featuring Lakeview Valley: Towns with a Dark Secret: the most hermetic, cryptic, and bizarre communities at the core of open-world games — Surreal and Creepy
Roope Tamminen is the developer behind the Lakeview series, including Lakeview Valley. Both Lakeview Cabin games are great horror games that are pure fun to play (that you should try!), but for me, Lakeview Valley has a special place, a niched and hidden gem. For this reason, in the following interview with Roope, we will focus more on Lakeview Valley. Of course without forgetting about his influences and future directions. Together with Roope, we will discover the secrets behind Lakeview Valley, a game with an important and unexpected message intrinsic to its development. If you are curious to know more, I suggest you read the following interview.
A battle for the soul of the city is ready to begin
Q1: Thanks, Roope, for the opportunity to discuss with you. Lakeview Valley was a huge surprise, a game really full of lore, secrets, and many things to discover. How did you decide to go toward a more open-world structure compared to Lakeview Cabin?
A1: How I choose my projects varies a lot, but I’ve noticed that a big part of my decision making comes from what I felt was “lacking” in my previous release, be it a gameplay element, or something in my own workflow. So for instance, Lakeview Cabin games don’t have written dialogue. So I had this creative urge to try my hand at writing conversations, so I already knew that my next game would be very text-heavy.
From a technical standpoint, I was basically just testing out some of the new 2D tileset tools for Unity, that weren’t available for the engine version used in Lakeview Cabin. And that initial prototype just grew and grew, until it was very clear that it was going to be an actual game.
So while I like to act that I’m just shooting from the hip when it comes to decision making, its actually a mix of careful planning and allowing my day-to-day feelings affect the “art” part of it all.
Q2: Maybe it was just me, but I had huge vibes from Harvester (which I found great) while playing the game. Which were your main influences for Lakeview Valley?
A2: Yes I’ve hear that before! But it’s actually been a bit embarrassing for me to admit that I had not heard of Harvester until someone made that same connection. I grew up in the 90’s as a video game loving kid, but somehow that had slipped under my radar, even through my teenage years of trying to find the darkest games possible after the introduction of The Internet.
But I generally try to get my influences from outside the world of video games. While the gameplay itself might be easily recognizable as some genre of game, I try to think of it as more of a pastiche to frame my own feelings, or just to channel some inspiration I’ve felt while consuming other media.
So back to the actual question, Twin Peaks played an obvious part. Groundhogs Day made an appearance in my mind a lot… I also read the entirety of Berzerk manga during the development, which influenced a lot of the decisions regarding the underworld.
But other than just films, books and music, I also wasn’t in the best possible place mental health wise during the development. I’ve been a depression subscriber since my earliest memories, and while it may sound kinda cliché, I do pour a lot of that into my work as a sort of therapy. But I still think Valley got the brunt of it, and in hindsight I’ve realised that the game as a whole is this sort of a metaphor for how depression feels, at least for me. An endless loop through life where nothing really matters, where evil seems to be rewarded and every good deed will be forgotten in a week or so.
Q3: From Babyface to Piggy, the disturbing serial killers, present especially in Lakeview Cabin, became pretty iconic. If you were given the option of directing a slasher movie about one of your killers, which one would you select and why?
A3: That’s an interesting concept to think about… If I had to pick just one of the enemies, it would have to be Babyface. A grown man in a nightgown and a babymask has some serious cinematic potential. But of course, if Lakeview Cabin ever made a jump to the silver screen, Red would have to be the main character, and his questionable morals could make for some interesting tension building. So there’s more room for him to grow as an anti-hero. But the most interesting thing about it would be trying to adapt something that already parodies the thing you are adapting it into. So the movie would need to be self-aware, and play with the slasher film tropes in some clever way, and while that sort of thing has been done many many times, especially in the slasher-genre (X, Tucker & Dale, Cabin in the Woods, Happy Death Da-this list could go on and on…), I still feel like there is an approach that would work in Lakeview Cabins favour, with the amount of fourth wall breaking I like to do…
But yeah, It’s not like I have thought about this that much, not waiting for a call from A24 at all…
Babyface in all his “innocence”
Q4: Changes during the night, hidden treasures, and a bed that literally drags you to hell: the town of Lakeview Valley is full of mysteries. Which was, according to you, the most secret and difficult-to-discover element that you hid in Lakeview Valley?
A4: You know… The whole development ended up becoming quite a challenge to finish, I remember frantically jumping from one thing to another to get everything connected, adding references to tiny little things that might explain a question someone might have… And in all of that crunch, some stuff might not have ended up working as I had intended.
Which brings me to one specific thing that a lot less people have mentioned than I initially expected, and that has to do with Morgos past, and how he came to be the way he is when you meet him. There’s a hidden storyline involving his affair with Mary, who’s death is mostly only hinted at.
So I did a cutscene of her dying in labor while giving birth to a giant fly, Morgo’s new form. I think I did it as tastefully as possible, but I still expected more players to mention it. Even if only for the fact that it adds some tragedy to Morgo’s character, since he only wanted to come back from the underworld to be with Mary again.
Morgo doing what Morgo does best
Q5: Lakeview Valley doesn’t go soft in allowing the player to do some very evil deeds. What was your most evil action when you were testing the game? Was there a character that you “preferentially” chose as the murder-testing victim?
A5: I think my most evil act might’ve been just making the game? Well maybe not, and actually there is a reason Little Bobby comes to your home more easily compared to other NPC’s. It helped me test things more easily, so he definitely got the worst of every possible weapon in the game.
He is also a completely despicable character by design, so he probably gets killed the most by every player. I tried to add an aspect into every NPC where it subtly makes you want to kill them, but in Little Bobby’s situation there is nothing subtle. He is there to nudge you into playing the game how it is meant to be played. But as a slap to the players face, he is the only villager who seems to thrive in the underworld, even though he is the one you want to suffer the most.
Not even Hell can stop Little Bobby
Q6: During the night, the town definitively shows its creepy side, with huge changes not only in the threats but also in the townspeople. How did you develop the night world and what were the rules behind its creation?
A6: Not so much rules, but I do remember thinking of it in terms of the themes of the story elements. There is this overlaying theme of becoming something else, wearing a mask to fit into the society. How we all have a hidden side, or maybe something we aspire to be, but can’t show to the world. And that’s presented in the game with actual metamorphosis happening, with people turning into an animal form after escaping from the underworld, or appearing as butterflies during the night.
But the moths themselves that appear… While thinking about animals and insects, I started to think about what insect has given me the biggest heebie jeebies during my life. And I remembered how I really hate that frantic fluttering of a moths wings… Gives me chills just thinking about them. What’s that about then?
This is a typical scarecrow during night-time
Q7: The Preacher, the Dweller, or the Scarecrow: the town of Lakeview Valley is full of disturbing and mysterious creatures. If you have to define the iconic “cryptid” for the town, which creature will you choose and why?
A7: While in a way the most plain of them all, I still like the Dweller. I like the simple aesthetic, and how he/her/it kinda emulates the frantic fluttering I mentioned earlier.
But the main thing is how the Dweller is my way of explaining why the game works like a game. In the end, every single game ever made is a groundhogs day situation. You can always try again. So the Dweller is my attempt to explain that very simple game “rule” that everyone knows, and give it some reason and connection for the player. There is a lot of fourth wall breaking in the Valley, with its endless time loops and talks of infinite possibilities. In the end, the player itself is indicated of being the main reason why all of this evil is happening. All because they want to play the game, and how it only exists while it is running.
The Dweller whispering under your bed
Q8: The Upper League is a group of especially evil creatures wandering the town. How was this evil league born? Were there other possible members during the development?
A8: It might’ve been this subconscious urge to create this sort of “villain team” after reading Berzerk, and being a huge fan of the Metal Gear series. I don’t think any of them were left on the drawing board, I tried to design each monster as something that might compliment the other ones, in areas that they might be lacking.
The whole human/animal-hybrid thing also played nicely into the themes of evil being rewarded in this universe, by having the worst of the people become even more powerful beasts. The animal inside of us being shown to the outside world.
Q9: Are you thinking of developing a sequel or a side story for Lakeview Valley?
A9: It does sometimes cross my mind, thinking of what a sequel might include and how I might be able to surprise the player. But in the end, I’m also happy to leave it as it is. In a way, it’s already a “spin-off” from the main series. So I’d much rather make something new in the universe instead of a straight up sequel to Valley.
Lakeview Cabin 2 already continues some of the story elements, some characters from Valley return, but for now the Lakeview-universe will stay as it is. Although I do tease where the series might be going, in Lakeview Cabin 2’s epilogue…
Q10: According to a recent tweet, your next game could be totally different, including not being related at all to Lakeview. Could you give us some hints about your future directions?
A10: Yes indeed! I talked earlier about how I’m choosing my projects, and how the previous project affects the next one. And right now, it is the Lakeview itself that I need to get away from. So my next game won’t have anything to do with the Lakeview-series, I guess in a way to prove to myself that I have more in me.
So I’ve been working on my take on an immersive sim. In a nutshell, your goal is to escape from a prison in 1700’s France. It’s a complete departure from my previous games, and it’s evolving into this fusion of old school point & click adventures and more modern type idle-clicker games. A point and clicker? All I know that I’m very excited about it, and I’m happiest I’ve been creatively in a long time!
Final Remarks:
I would like to thank Roope for the nice opportunity and really interesting answers. I didn’t expect that there was such a personal journey behind Lakeview Valley, and now that I can see it, I appreciate the game even more. And I cannot wait to see what the 1700’s France prison game will be. While waiting for Roope’s next game, you can find Lakeview Valley and the recently released Lakeview Cabin 2 respectively HERE and HERE.
Let me start by saying that, usually, you don’t see here many phone-only games. However, Phantom Blade Executioners (PBE) is one of the few exceptions since this game surprised me in every aspect. The art-style is simply gorgeous and effective, the lore and the setting are truly original, the enemies are disturbing beings, and even the plot of each episode is intriguing and captivating!
But let’s start from the beginning. PBE is an action RPG set in a dark fantasy version of ancient China, a world shaped by many sects and religious orders, each with personal doctrines and values. The world is shaped by the Sha-Chi energy, a force flowing into special people and great martial artists. By dominating this force, people can achieve incredible powers. But the world of PBE is not only shaped around the Sha-Chi, but it also features steampunk elements. Specifically, mech masters and automaton are also common in this world, disturbing humanoid beings and weapons created by ancient artisans. What happens when you combine the two elements? Ordinary people looking for powers tried to invest mechanical devices inside their bodies to generate artificial Sha-Chi energy: the Sha-Chi Mod. If it is true that these people achieved incredible powers in the blink of an eye, long exposition to the Sha-Chi Mod mutates the owner’s body into a grotesque and mindless abomination.
While the Sha-Chi Mod is typical of end-chapter bosses, the automatons part of the steampunk side of the game are pretty common enemies, with a killing aesthetic and disturbing design. The first enemies are gigantic automaton axe-man, deranged maniacs with porcelain-like skin. Other automatons are instead smaller figures, for example, the insane pyromaniacs throwing bombs, which according to the lore are very well-selected people turned into mechanical beings. There are also female automatons, in the shape of musicians playing the lute with six arms, able to play a deadly melody and levitate above the ground.
But if mechanical men and women are not that disturbing, wait to see how creepy are the automaton kids. And the iced mountain in episode 3 is full of creepy automaton kids. They have small bodies and far bigger heads, looking like parodical creatures, with gigantic grin smiles on their faces. Even if only slightly different, there are both boy and girl versions of these automatons. The kids can be recruited as Phantoms, entities summonable by the player. Their cards are completely missing details, which are instead only summarized in creepy laughs such as “Muahahah” or “Ehehehe,” highlighting the maniac side of these synthetic kids. But how were they created? According to their official biography, “Kids with worry-free faces have the most innocent smiles. No one bears to kill a child with an innocent smile.” So yes, these smiling kids were created so that people would lower their guard, and they would easily kill even the strongest master.
These kids attack like bandits, using small weapons and vomiting a toxic gas. They are not so strong enemies when alone, but their strength in numbers can create a lot of problems. And since the kids also have automaton mothers, the mountain is swarming with them. The Imp Mother is a creature with an incredible design. A sort of female mechanical witch standing on top of a gigantic cauldron, with several arms going out from it, and also helping it to move around like arachnid paws. In combat, the Imp Mother throws toxic swamps all around, but that is the least problem since the mother also generates the automaton kids. The reason behind her summoning is especially creepy. Long ago, the Imp Mother lost her children. Since then, she has been kidnapping human children every 10 days, to then turn them into automaton kids. But she is never satisfied with their mechanical love, hence, she continues to kidnap more children.
Why is the mountain full of mechanical mothers and progenies? Everything is related to the sect of female fighting monks living in the mountains. The sect was fighting in favor of justice but had very strict rules regarding the chastity of the members. One day, a powerful woman, and the favorite candidate to become the next master, fell in love with a man. In secret, she became pregnant, and then the man disappeared. Waiting for his return, while keeping secret the pregnancy, the woman suffered alone. Betrayed by a close rival, the woman was persecuted by the heads of the sect. And she was forced to lose the child. After disappearing, mad from the tragedy, she accepted the gift of Sha-Chi Mod, and used her new powers to create a colossal automaton infant. A surrogate child to pursue her revenge against the sect. The story is more twisted and complex, but I am trying to avoid too many spoilers.
During her boss battle, the woman will literally ride the gigantic child from inside its huge broken head, while the baby crawls around trying to kill the player. Every boss battle inside the game is epic and visually striking, but the gigantic baby of the third chapter is definitely the most unexpected and creepy boss battle. The crawling automaton infant is the largest automaton inside the game, and the most terrifying but also sad being. But there is another gigantic kid automaton missing from the list, even “younger” than this one and unable to crawl. However, to meet this creature we must leave the cold mountains toward an experimental hospital.
The last baby automaton is another colossal being, obese, and disturbing. The chubby creature is an experiment, always hiding its deadly power behind an innocent facade. The Chubby Doll has a very weird and disturbing story, hidden inside its Phantom description once unlocked as a summonable ally. The creature has a huge complex of inferiority, hating people for considering it dumb and goofy, but too slow to crush them while following the hate. Sad of being unable to rip apart fast people like ants, the Cubby Doll discovered that in some rare moments, it could become very fast. So fast to crush and rip people having fun of it. During the fight, the doll will alternate between two attacks. The first is maniacally crying on the ground, damaging all around. The second one is much faster, probably its “haste,” where the baby will jump in the air to then crush the player beneath. The obese creature is unable to move, and will simply stay there. However, due to its insane HP pool, defeating the Chubby Dolls is not trivial.
The world of PBE is an amazing and complex scenario, full of disturbing elements and pieces of lore to discover. The automaton kids are a small part of it, and I hope to see more of this intricate world in future updates.
Lobotomy Corporation is probably the closest example to a SCP game, without being exactly based on any SCP. The Korean game is a management simulation where the player is in charge of developing and maintaining an electric company. However, there is only a small caveat in this job: the company generates energy from imprisoned anomalies. From abnormal fairytales to grotesque abominations, the facility has more than 70 different creatures to work with. And the more incomprehensible and dangerous an anomaly is, the higher the energy produced. Lobotomy Corporation is a game imbued with lore, where every anomaly has tons of information to unlock by understanding and interacting more with them. However, the smallest error could lead to catastrophic reactions since the anomalies can breach their cell to bring havoc in the facility. […]
The Slit-mouthed Woman (or Kuchisake-onna) is probably one of the most famous Japanese urban legends. The creature is pretty old and part of the variegated supernatural Japan background as much as any other Yokai or Onryo. The most official source for the Slit-mouthed woman is a newspaper article in Gifu prefecture dated back in 1979. Then, more articles about the creature started to spread, almost causing panic across Japan. Other references connect the Slit-mouthed Woman with the victims of horrible crimes back in feudal Japan, making her a proper Yokai.
Regardless of her origin, the story and the appearance are pretty much the same. The Woman looks normal, the only peculiar element is a mask covering her mouth, often a surgical one. In Japan, face masks were always very common, long before the advent of COVID-19. However, there was probably a time back then when it was still not so common to see people around wearing it, thus creating this urban legend. After the mask is removed, the Slit-mouthed Woman will show her terrifying face, with a big and carved mouth, often depicted as full of pointed teeth. The creature always carries with her a blade, such as a knife or scissors, which she uses to kill or disfigure her victims. When encountering a victim, the Slit-mouthed Woman will ask if she is pretty. If the victim agrees with her, she will carve the victim’s mouth to create the same disfigured smile. Instead, if the victim answers negatively, the Slit-mouthed Woman will simply slice the victim’s throat. Possible ways to escape from this terrible fate include giving a more generic and neutral answer. The Slit-mouthed Woman can also be driven away by showing her a distraction, such as throwing candies or money on the ground.
The Slit-mouthed Woman appears as the first case in the horror-adventure World of Horror. The game has an interesting 1-bit art-style and features deadly mysteries to solve and disturbing creatures to defeat (you can have a glimpse of the bestiary here: The most disturbing eldritch creatures from the bestiary of World of Horror). World of Horror takes huge inspiration from Japanese folklore and horror mangaka such as Junji Ito or Kazuo Umezu. It then comes without surprise that creatures from Japanese urban legends are also widely present in this game. In fact, the Slit-mouthed Woman is the first boss encountered during the tutorial. The mystery is set inside a school where brutal murders are happening, caused by a woman wielding a pair of scissors. The Scissor Woman here is more of an eldritch curse, a being materializing from dense smoke to massacre people, to then disappear to curse another place. To stop the Slit-mouthed Woman, it is necessary to find the correct elements of a ritual and to draw the perfect glyphs on the blackboard. By doing this, the player can face a normal version of the Slit-mouthed Woman, a very simple battle in a usually complex game. The Scissor Woman will take shape from black smoke as a tall woman wearing a raincoat and wielding a pair of scissors. The creepy detail? Her head is composed of three different heads, lined up vertically and connected by a continuous twisted and grin smile. However, the interesting detail is that this is only one of the four different versions of this boss.
For example, if the player fails to perform the ritual, a more eldritch version of the Slit-mouthed Woman will manifest. And this will be a tougher battle. The Horror Slit-mouthed Woman is a far more difficult enemy, the true eldritch essence of this monster not weakened by the ritual, with more attack power and HPs. Her face is more twisted and evil, even far less human, with void eyes or even multiple eyeballs in her faces. Defeating this strengthened version will award a special weapon, her Cursed Scissors, the second most powerful weapon in the game but with the downside of having a small probability with every attack of fastening the coming of eldritch gods. Defeating the Horror Scissor Woman also unlocks the Ending B. Both versions of the Scissor Woman can also permanently disfigure the main character by carving her characteristic creepy smile on their face.
The third version of the Scissor Woman is very peculiar to face because it is completely related to another case. This mystery is a long investigation involving mermaids, creatures from the depths, and the mad school janitor. During the final face-off with the janitor, one of the options to survive without fighting the boss is to burn down the school. Yes, a very drastic option that will damage the main character but also opens a new possibility. In fact, if you then have available the Scissor Woman’s case and you play it after burning down the school, the game will remember this event. While exploring the ruins of the school, you will face the Burned Scissor Woman, a modified version of the Horror one with fewer HPs but even higher damage. Her design is similar to the Horror one, but in this case, her skin looks almost melted.
The last version of the Scissor Woman can only be challenged when selecting Timeline B upon creating a custom scenario. Timeline B is a more difficult playthrough, and it will often open to new boss battles in previous cases. Regarding the Scissor Woman, by playing Timeline B you can face the Ghost Scissor Woman. This is by far the most challenging and eldritch design. Losing any human appearance, the Scissor Woman is now only a towering pile of heads, twisted and grotesque, spiraling around in a mix of grin smiles and eyes opening inside the hairs. Every face will be maddening whispering “Am I beautiful?” with different tonalities. This time, the Scissor Woman is not a tangible being but a Spirit. In this case, a proper battle is impossible, and the player should find the correct combination of Bows and Claps to complete the ritual and exorcize the Ghost Scissor Woman. Failing the ritual unlocks Ending D, which implies that the ethereal form of the Scissor Woman can possess and control other people, marked by the creepy smile.
Shattered Heaven is a deck-building RPG set in a grimdark world where God was murdered, and now humanity is paying the price for this sin. Humans live only till 40 years old and cannot reproduce if not by winning a brutal trial. Every 10 years, each tribe sends a Vestal and two Guardians to join this brutal trial, under the suspicious eye of a reborn Divine Child. The lore and the world are truly amazing, well-thought-out, and original in every detail, including the disturbing enemies. In the following article, I will analyze the setting and the creatures inside Naraka, the first dungeon of the game.
Cintamanya is the jewel of Sentia, one of the four tribes, a city made of gems and paintings. Sentians are obsessed with preserving memories and history, for this reason, they build the colossal Chantry. This palace is a special place where each room is dedicated to preserving a memory or an event. However, Cintamanya has a problem: it is built around a gigantic hole called Naraka. The abyss is inhabited by malevolent undead creatures, which are luckily trapped in there. But something else is resting at the bottom of Naraka, something far more malevolent. The Divine Child sent all the Vestals and the Guardians to discover the secret of Naraka, but none of them returned. And it was because of Eris, the most powerful Vestals of Sentia.
Naraka is a deep abyss, with colorful alien flowers scattered around, created from the powerful illusions of Eris’ powers. A gigantic building, the False Cathedral, protected by illusions, is the only human-built structure inside Naraka. The undead creatures are here reborn and morphed into twisted beings mixing flora and fauna. Animal or insect anatomy here mixes with tree elements, such as branches or leaves. Porcelain faces are also another common element inside Naraka, but this could be in fact an alien element since porcelain is often associated with the extinct Gods. The inhabitants of Naraka all have Latin names characterizing them, and the place shows other classic connections, especially since Naraka is also the name of Hindu Hell.
Discover in the following analysis the peculiar creatures inhabiting Naraka, and the story of her creator, Eris the Betrayer.
Clamoris
Clamoris is a truly disturbing enemy. She looks like a human female, a sort of holy vestal dressed in an elaborate vest, an extra pair of arms… and with their face in her hands. In fact, under the hood covering the head lies nothing, a void hole full of shadows where the face should be. The real face in their hand has a void or sorrowful expression, an emblem of Naraka’s atmosphere, a place of death and fake blossom. Moreover, the face is imprisoned inside a bird cage, another symbol of the dramatic situation inside Naraka. This shade of her past self, Clamoris in Latin means noise. Coming from the name, her main form of attack is Deafening Scream. The head will disturbingly scream, with an insane and terrified expression, damaging the entire party.
Sanies
Insect traits are a common feature between some of the creatures inside Naraka, including the bosses. Sanies (meaning something like “pus” or “poison”) is a mantis-like creature that strikes using its blade arms, with a powerful single-target attack called Lacerate. Sanies exhibits a long tail, more similar to a lizard or a dragon than an insect, while the face is a hollow porcelain mask. As previously specified, in the world of Shattered Heaven, porcelain is a connection with the murdered Gods, something that works like a spreading disease, infecting and sending creatures crazy. However, the most peculiar detail of this creature is the three swords in its thorax, a crude reminder that the creatures inside Naraka were once humans killed in battle.
Young Silva
Regardless of the innocent name, Young Silva is a grotesque abomination. The creature’s base is clearly a deer, an animal symbol of forests, but where something got really wrong. While the lower half is “normal,” the creature separates where the neck should be into an unidentifiable and amorphous abomination. A set of fleshy tendons connect the main body to a grotesque mass of fused pawns, like an aberrant bouquet of fur and hooves. The creature has few HPs but with a very high shield, and it can inflict heavy damage on multiple characters with its Innocent Whisper. The creature is clearly a symbol of nightmarish wildlife, where the initial idea was to imitate a peaceful and beautiful deer, but the final result turned into pure horror.
Incubi
Rarer creatures strongly connected with the floral theme of Naraka, Incubi are translated as “Nightmares.” A mix of wood and mud, Incubi appear half-fused with the ground in a sort of brown puddle. The upper half of their bodies is more solid, creating a tree-like architecture. The most creepy detail is surely their faces constantly hidden behind shadows, with only the shape of three eyes visible. Incubi are strong and deadly foes, able to attack the entire party by moving their liquid arms underground. Their attacks will also fill the deck with cursed Hexes cards, making not only that battle, but the entire dungeon notably more difficult.
Oblitus
This creature is another merging point between flora and fauna. In fact, it exhibits a four-legged anatomy, with flowers and branches emerging from its face and back. Interestingly, porcelain is also visible as a mask on the creature, and the branches look like they are trying to destroy the limitations of this mask. The Oblitus is extremely skinned and the body looks almost ill, but it should not be underestimated. Oblitus can shield and power up with the Chant of Naraka, and have an extremely powerful single-target attack.
Aurum
The apex predator of Naraka, the Aurum is a powerful creature able to support all the others, and showing an incredible design. Aurum means “Golden” in Latin, and the name is reflected in the royal design. Aurum has a golden crown, a cape, and paraments, as if it was the royalty inside Naraka. The porcelain head, so common in Naraka’s inhabitants, this time exhibits multiple faces. Tree-like elements are incorporated into the main body of the creature, which consists of a twisted root spiraling around and forming what looks like the staircase of a palace. Aurum is a dangerous foe with a lot of HPs and shield points, able to power up and protect the other enemies. Its most powerful single-target attack is called Golden Blight. There is also a stronger variant called Vox Aurum, the “Golden Voice.”
Sigurd, The Lost Guardian
Sigurd is the first boss inside the depths of Naraka. Eris’ last knight still alive, he is a dramatic and romantic figure, on the edge of death but still focusing on saving his queen. This tragic knight is also the last element keeping Naraka’s illusion alive, and shielding the False Cathedral where Eris hides. When in battle, Sigurd appears as a knight wearing ancient-looking armor and a cape. A green liquid, looking like leaves, comes out from every joint of the armor, such as if was hollow inside. Instead of attacking with a sword, the knight uses a pair of dented claws. The battle against Sigurd is long and challenging, and the boss uses very powerful attacks. Inner Shadow generates a clone of himself, and while using Patient Predator he attacks with the claws. Doomed to Prevail is a special attack that will damage the party like an aura, while Chosen of the Lady, is the most powerful attack, which needs 3 turns to charge.
Eris, The Betrayer
Eris the Betrayer is the main boss of Naraka. She has a very complex story and is a main character in the twisted plot of Shattered Heaven. Even before becoming a Vestal, Eris developed strong powers, and her chant was otherworldly charming for people. When the rumors about a voice whispering to people inside Naraka became stronger, the Divine Child sent all the Guardians and Vestals to explore the mysterious pit. But nobody returned from that expedition. The Vestal, Eris, discovered something inside Naraka, a voice, but also an ancient sarcophagus. Whatever truly happened, Eris gained the power to shape illusions and control the undead creatures of Naraka. She shaped Naraka into this weird ecosystem, hidden behind illusions, and created a new heaven for her and her knights. She became a god and a queen in this illusionary world. The other Vestals were murdered, and all the Guardians became Eris’ protectors, keeping part of the illusion alive with their lives. And of course, the official creed up on the surface didn’t like this, and they are trying since then to murder Eris and her Knights. When in battle, Eris will mutate from an innocent-looking girl with deer horns to a disturbing arachnid abomination. Her lower body looks like an armored insect, with blades as limbs, showing intricated designs and a dress typical of a queen. An intricated crown made of horns decorates her head, erupting from her eyes and blindfolding her. Moreover, when using the special attack, Immolation, her upper body detaches into strings of fleshy tendons, creating a very disturbing scene. Other attacks, such as Chant of the Void, Innuendo of Sorrow, and Melody of Despair, are projectiles that look like made of Eris’ blood. As you probably noticed, all her attacks are based on songs and melodies, a probable memento of her chanting abilities and power from before being corrupted. Oh, and during the battle, Eris uses her illusions to create a huge plot twist.
The two main bosses are also available in video format, if you want to check their moves and cutscenes. Be aware of SPOILERS especially in Eris video (marked in the timeline):
Toymaker is a huge surprise and one of the most original and involving RPGmaker JRPGs. Set in a dark world scourged by a neverending winter, Toymaker uses a very peculiar inspiration for this world: Christmas. Not the Christmas typical of soft drinks commercials, but pagan Christmas rites and figures coming from North Europe. And for how bizarre this could sound, if you didn’t play the game, you have no idea of how good this combination is. For example, Gods are born from fear of the elements, frost is a disease infecting bodies and transforming them into spawns of a hive mind, and darkness empties people like void husks. And of course, there is the aforementioned Toymaker, the Santa Klaus of this world, a secluded God kidnapping children and placing their souls inside dolls.
Toymaker is an amazing journey in a world full of lore, following a story with many twists, and offering challenging battles and bosses. In the second article of “Grimdark Worlds,” we will discover the complexity of Toymaker’s world, with a special focus on the dark and mysterious Gods.
In the beginning it was Winter, Frost, and Nightmares
The world is shaped around very uncommon elements: Frost, Snow, Spirit, and Roots. Before these, all the elements were born from Light and Darkness, the Primal Elements. These primordial elements are so intense that can send people crazy. For example, darkness is an engulfing and nightmarish element that can create immortal undead enemies from corpses, or husks. In some places, the darkness is so dense and thick that can control minds, causing hallucinations and insane fear. The other derivative elements shaped this primordial and harsh world, creating their own ecosystem of creatures and altering the minds and bodies of other living creatures in contact with them. Every element is ruled by an ancient creature. In this case, Lussi is the ancient God controlling darkness, a fearful witch born from nightmares.
In Toymaker, Frost is not simply an effect of cold, but a sort of disease, infecting people and spreading. Frost creates zombies covered in ice, broken puppets of the Winter Gods. Frost covers everything and kills every life, and the only way to fight it back is through an insane control of fire. The Frostcrater is the God controlling Frost, an isolated entity spreading this disease. Some women become cold witches, bound to the Frostcrafter but not mutated. They have strong powers and are usually cast away from their community, always fighting for their mind to keep the Frostcrafter away. Gnomes are especially victims of the Frost, but also Root creatures follow the same destiny, easily becoming Frost Spawns. Frost Spawns are strong and colossal beings, often keeping the shape of the creature they devoured, with increased size or more worm-like bodies. They are also often characterized by a beard made of icicles.
Snow is the emblem of Winter and is different from Frost. It is more related to the wind and storms, debilitating people affected by it. Snow is also a synonym of Winter in Toymaker’s world, the embodiment of this harsh ecosystem. Of course, the God born from the fear of the winter is the Toymaker itself. Snow creatures are amorphous masses of melted snow, usually gigantic beings without a clear anatomy. They are more blobs of half-melted snow than discernable creatures.
Root is the everchanging element, moving underground, causing rot and decay in living beings. The roots live secluded and hidden in their underground world, a series of twisted tunnels connecting everything, engulfed in wood and darkness. A sheltered world that wants to remain hidden. The God associated with Roots is an old and forgotten being called the Hidden. Root creatures are thin beings and masses of roots, often taking a humanoid shape or, other times, just appearing as twisted and amorphous masses. However, some of the root beings are instead gigantic and creepy creatures, similar to a more twisted version of trolls.
Spirit is the sparkle of life, the energy composing souls, a warm and green vibrant fire. The element embraces lost souls, which travel around in the winter nights, often possessing inanimate objects or attacking living beings. Spirit is a complex element that can alter the minds of other people, making them savage and bloodthirsty. The Spirit creatures are twisted souls made of fire, yellow or green entities flying around the map very quickly with twisted faces painted on them. Other times, Spirit creatures can control dolls or other puppets, creating even creepier beings. It is not clear who is the God associated with Spirit, since Lussi is clearly darkness. It could be the mysterious Straw Goat, who is only hinted at in the Prologue.
The Faces Behind Fears: The Old Gods
In the beginning, there was only frost, winter, and nightmares. Then, people started to imagine faces in the snow, trying to give meaning to the people killed by the elements. How could a disembodied element like Frost exterminate a village? Surely something more powerful was behind it. They were not simply accidental deaths or natural disasters, “somebody” was responsible for them. After enough people believed in those faces behind the elements, the Toymaker, Frostcrafter, and Lussi were born. Each of them embodies those deadly forces. Gods are also based and shaped around Pagan figures related to Christmas rites in North Europe.
The Frostcrafter was alone in the mountains, isolated in its realm of ice and silence. One day, the Gnomes got too close to the mountain, awakening the slumbering God and spreading Frost as a disease. The Frostcrafter is a true servant of the Toymaker, using Frost to brainwash gnomes thus providing the workforce for the Toymaker’s Workshop. The Frostcrafter kills everything it touches, unable to understand life but still craving for it. For this reason, it uses Frost to create and twist living beings, but only to achieve mockery of life through ice and snow. For that, it now wants only to stay alone. The Frostcrater is a colossal giant made of ice, with a very disturbing and ghostly expression on its face. During the battle, the giant is a tough opponent with a lot of life, which uses strong frost-based attacks.
Lussi is a bad dream and a scary whisper that became real, feeding on fear. Lussi reigns over darkness, engulfing entire land in it, and swimming through shadows as if it was water. Born from nightmares, Lussi is a witch who rules over fear, a real boogeyman of everything unknown. In her realm, dead things are alive. She keeps dead things close to her, so she can care for them. Her servants are rotten Husks, rotten things reanimated by darkness, immortal beings serving their mother without being able to control their bodies. Lussi feeds on fear and can imprison people in worlds of deep trauma inside their minds. Lussi appears as a female humanoid, dressed in white, crowned with candles, and crying darkness from the eyes. During the battle, Lussi casts strong spells and can create duplicates of herself. Lussi is based on different characters from North European folklore, especially from the Norse witch with the same name hunting during the longest night of the year, but also Saint Lucia for the crown of candles.
The Straw Goat is very enigmatic, only mentioned in the main game and instead the central figure in the Prologue. The colossal humanoid creature, hidden beneath fur and a hood, was once a servant of the Toymaker, roaming the hills without bothering humans. At some point, something broke, and the Straw Goat got imprisoned by the Toymaker in a cage inside the Field of Candles. During the imprisonment, or maybe even before that, the Straw Goat became completely mad, to the point that now madness is a key element to describe this God. The Straw Goat seems to create a bond with human children, selecting a chosen one. In the past, it was worshipped by humans, especially Skalds and Hornhunters. The Straw Goat is a typical figure that marks the beginning of Christmas in North Europe, but the Yule Goat is also a far creepier figure usually wandering around towns and demanding gifts.
The Hidden, also called the Broodmother, is the God ruling and spreading Roots. As the name suggests, this God decided to hide from humanity, finding a secluded place to be forgotten inside a coffin. It is still possible to find old statues from when the God was worshipped in the depths of the tunnels, surrounded by roots and darkness. The Hidden has strong telepathic powers, can attract people, and create illusions. In Toymaker’s world, The Hidden act as the secret superboss. Fighting the Broodmother is an extremely challenging battle since the creature has multiple tentacles, each of them capable of using strong abilities and independently attacking.
The Toymaker is the supreme God of this land and Winter personification, followed by the other Gods and feared by every creature. In the past, people built machines and made sacrifices for him. Then, he cast everyone out and closed its gates. It now lives alone in the mountain, surrounded by dolls and souls. The Toymaker kidnaps especially children, and then it traps their spirits into dolls. According to the Toymaker, exchanging bodies with its dolls is a special gift and an honor. The Toymaker still lives in his Workshop on the top of a mountain, surrounded by disturbing dolls moved by children’s souls, existing till people fear and believe in him.
Surviving the Harsh World: Races and Tribes
Humans try to survive in this harsh world by living in primitive societies. The Herders are a tribe mainly living of goats, in peace with nature and trying to survive by avoiding dangers. They have tendencies to be nomadic, and they prefer to flee to better locations than facing dangers. The Hornhunters are instead a tribe focused on hunting and killing other animals. Bloodthirsty and tribal, they ferociously hunted especially the Reindeers, creating a bloody feud. It is said that they left Reindeers’ skeletons to mark their territories. And it is also said that those skeletons were screaming in pain even after death. The Hornhunters became mysteriously extinct after a bloody massacre. The Skalds are like outsiders, worshipping nature, and studying forbidden lore and knowledge. The Skalds are a mysterious tribe, often considered the guilty behind the changing of the Toymaker.
The Gnomes were the first servants of the Toymaker, helping it in its Workshop by building dolls and puppets. When they abandoned the Toymaker in its madness, the Frostcrafter forced them to work again there. In fact, Gnomes are in a constant fight against the Frostcrafter, and many of them were turned into Frost Spawns. From this fight, two main factions developed. One is the Candlelights, gnomes obsessed with fire, burning everything to fight frost. They live surrounded by bonfires and cast away the ones starting to turn… or burn them. The other faction is embracing Frost, learning spells from it, and thinking that serving the cold is the only way to learn how to survive. Even if the weak ones will turn into Frost Spawns.
The Reindeers are strong anthropomorphic creatures that once served the Toymaker, as well as the Gnomes. But while the Gnomes built dolls to welcome the children’s souls, the Reindeers assembled traps to lure and ensnare them. They live in an almost barbaric society, strong and brave fighters, where honor is everything for them. When they lose honor, they also lose the horns. The Reindeers were in a huge war with the Hornhunters, humans hunting them down. At that time, some Reindeers became Maneater, literally feeding on humans as revenge for this bloody hunt. Now they live isolated in a walled wood village. Even if the Hornhunters are no longer a menace, their lands are scourged by Lussi and her darkness. Some of them became husks while trying to fight the witch, while the others now live in the village tormented by nightmares.
An Ancient World: Iconic Places
The world is a primitive and harsh land, shaped by perpetual snow, tall mountains, and forgotten ruins. Glyphs and runes are everywhere, but people have forgotten about their true meaning. The Ruins of Hare Temple is an example of this, a place of pyramid and monolithic structure completely forgotten and covered in snow. Skald legends say that the Hare was a creature close to the Toymaker, and, regardless of whatever happened between them, the Toymaker still wants to keep the ruins intact. The Hidden Temple is the most secluded place where The Hidden is resting outside the world. To access the place, as revealed in the Prologue, five knockings are necessary to open the door. This is also reflected in the gameplay, where the player needs to press five times on the locked place on the map to unlock it.
The Field of Candles is a forbidden place to humans, an unexplorable land filled with souls and green fires. Legends say that the Straw Goat is caged in these lands. The territories engulfed by Lussi’s darkness are swamps empty of life, where only immortal husks roam. While venturing into these lands, the player will have their own heart portrayed on the map. Too many encounters with the ghastly beings, and something bad will happen. However, the Toymaker’s Workshop is surely the most emblematic place in this land. Built on top of the tallest mountain, the Workshop is a gigantic wooden house filled with Toymaker’s statues. The empty halls, deprived of life, are now hosting only the disturbing dolls created by the Toymaker.
Castlevania and Metroid created their own genre, which is getting a second youth with indie games: metroidvania. These games have in common a 2D aesthetic, a huge map to explore with interconnected elements, many secrets and hidden areas to discover using different abilities, backtracking, and in general a huge focus on exploration. Usually, metroidvania games have a wide bestiary, with many standard enemies, and gigantic bosses to defeat. RPG elements are also quite common, including statistics, levels, and dozens of different equipment.
Surely, both the founding fathers of the genre have their amount of horror elements. Metroid features grotesque aliens and an overall lonely and oppressive atmosphere. Castlevania is also not second in this, with one of the most inspiring dark fantasy/gothic settings, and with a bestiary full of the most disturbing creatures (and you can check them here: Most dark, scary and creepy bosses from Castlevania saga). However, with the new flow of indie metroidvania, the genre got even more refreshed with novel dark, horror, or mature atmospheres.
In the following article, I will describe some of the darkest or horror metroidvania games. I will include only proper metroidvania, with a 2D art-style, a huge interconnected world, and multiple abilities or RPG features needed to explore.
I will focus on metroidvania with dark, horror, or in general a mature atmosphere. It could be for the oppressive or depressing environment, for the brutal combat and the violent gameplay, or for the disturbing elements: whichever is the cause, these games are more mature-oriented than the average metroidvania. Moreover, for each of them, I will analyse the world-building, the bestiary and the bosses, and why the atmosphere is considered dark or horror. The article will be constantly updated, so new fitting games will be included once released.
Vigil: the Longest Night
Details: Vigil was a surprise last year, and one of the best examples of metroidvania directly infused with horror elements. Vigil is a great homage to the legendary Bloodborne, sharing with it the dark themes and the oppressive atmosphere. Vigil is a pure metroidvania with strong RPG elements, including a deep level system, skills, and different playstyles. From fast daggers to the complexity of the bow, the player has the power of shaping the gameplay. The exploration is a focal point, with a giant interconnected world full of secrets to discover, including alternative bosses, hidden eldritch realms, and dozens of different armors and equipment. This is where the game gets even more interesting, because every item not only is very original and interesting to use, but also well characterised in terms of lore.
World: From dense and deadly woods, to haunted mines and a ship graveyard inhabited by deep-sea eldritch terrors, the world of Vigil is a huge and twisted net touching common dark fantasy tropes. Secrets are everywhere, and backtracking is crucial to find the most hidden places and battles, and secondary characters have different quests to fulfill. Moreover, the same world will be visited under three different “conditions” (avoiding spoilers) and many areas will change according to this, with new enemies, items, and bosses. And to conclude, how to forget about the secret eldritch realms accessible only while playing special ocarina on an altar in the depths of a crypt?
Dark/Horror: The horror in Vigil is a very strong element. Secondary characters will face horrible consequences, death and disease are everywhere, and grotesque experiments on innocent people are only the tip of the iceberg. Moreover, secondary quests could end up really traumatically, and not every character should be trusted. Church and religion are also a twisted trope present in Vigil, painting an ever more dark but believable fantasy world.
Bestiary: The grotesque enemies are pure nightmare-inducing, and masterfully portrayed with a gorgeous art style. Every area has several new enemies, with very interesting designs and behaviors. For example, the ship graveyard is full of complex deep-sea creatures, including a sort of snail-woman and an aggressive mass of tentacles. The bosses have also a nightmarish and original design. I challenge you to meet the Broodmother and her spawn without being heavily disturbed (and you can know more about her in my article: Monster of the Week: The Brood Mother and her progeny (Vigil)).
Knifeboy
Details: An unexpected surprise for a crazy metroidvania based on indie comics, set in an insane sci-fi world full of charm and personality. The art-style is very detailed and interesting, especially the enemies’ design and some locations. It could be raw sometimes, but it is full of passion and able to paint a unique world full of colors and details. The combat side is not incredibly deep, with very standard combos and easy but really interesting boss fights. Platform sections are quite challenging, but never tiring, thanks to really well-planned checkpoints. Of course, as a one-man game, there are some bugs that can be a bit bothering. However, the experience is so original and interesting, that I kept playing regarding the bugs. The world, the dozens of characters, the crazy bosses, and the many secrets are too interesting to stop playing.
World: The game is based on a quite big open world, with a lot of secrets and places to explore. A day/night cycle allows different layers of exploration, with some places opening only at a specific time, and different monsters or collectibles only available at night, for example. Each new area is a completely novel and bizarre environment, from a DJ club, to a sort of pseudo-gothic asylum, and an arena managed by a group of pig-butchers on stilts. The game is a crazy tornado of surprises and pulp references, with secondary quests allowing to access a UFO or to see the true face of Santa Claus. Also, the game is a proper metroidvania, since new upgrades will allow the player to explore new areas.
Dark/Horror: Knifeboy cannot be defined as a horror game under any category, but it surely meets the requirement to be in this article for the high level of violence and the grotesque and twisted characters/enemies. Knifeboy is like an indie comic book targeted to a mature audience, a game that is not afraid to show enemies cut in half and some nudity here and there.
Bestiary: This game knows how to create original enemies and bosses. If common enemies like a sort of colorful humanoid bat that looks like a Mexican painting under LSD are already interesting, including sort of pig-like creatures walking on stilts, the bosses have an especially great design. They are difficult to describe using words, just imagine the most gigantic, colorful, complex, and bizarre abomination, and probably you will not be even close to what you will face in Knifeboy.
Blasphemous
Details: Blasphemous is probably one of the most well-known games in this article, a huge metroidvania with strong horror elements inspired by Catholicism. The game is challenging and full of surprises, with an amazing world to explore and many tough fights. Blasphemous has also incredible pixel art, able to convey the brutality of the fighting system in every red pixel. If you are looking for a challenging, brutal, and horror metroidvania, Blasphemous should be your first choice.
World: Custodia is a dark and cruel world shaped by the Miracle, a sort of unknown force that molds the bodies of true believers in horrible ways. The world is beautifully interconnected, using really original and haunted places. From the cold peaks in which is hiding a monastery of nuns that self-burn their bodies, to the rooftop of a gothic cathedral inhabited by twisted angelic beings: Blasphemous knows how to create a complex world using religious references. The secondary characters are an integrated part of this world, insane being touched by the Miracle, forced for example to be constantly whipped by an invisible force, or to be forever imprisoned half-fused in an olive tree.
Dark/Horror: Blasphemous is probably the most horror and brutal metroidvania that is out. Every detail is pure horror and nightmare-inducing, especially how religion is twisted in favor of horror. Moreover, the fighting is brutal, with gory executions when enemies are at low health.
Bestiary: Every single enemy is a grotesque combination of religion, Spanish folklore (the developers are from there), and pure horror. Seriously, every single enemy, from the most common soldier to the most gigantic boss, could be on the cover of a metal album. The religious elements combine with the creatures in very original ways, including a boss inspired by the “Pietà” of Michelangelo, or others with Church architectures inserted in their design (more info here: Catholic Art and Architecture in the twisted world of Blasphemous: how religious iconography can build nightmares). Plus, the bosses are simply great, especially the giant skeleton of a cardinal lifted by giant hands, and the disturbing Exposito, which can only be described as a sort of gigantic baby Jesus that will literally rip the main character in half (which also have an analysis here: Monster of the Week: Exposito, Scion of Abjuration (Blasphemous)).
DemoniacaEverlasting Night
Details: Heavily inspired by Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Demoniaca is a metroidvania combining horror elements, light adult contents (brief sex and nudity), and a combat system typical of fighting games based on combos. The RPG elements are many and well-integrated, including many different items and random drops. However, since here on Dark RPGs you can already find a complete review of Demoniaca, I will just leave here the link for more details: Demoniaca Everlasting Night Review: a dark and mature beat ’em up metroidvania.
World: As mainly inspired by Castlevania, Demoniaca is entirely set in a gigantic castle. There are of course different sections, for example the library or a hall full of mirrors. The exploration is rewarded not only for secrets but also for hidden merchants and moves. A great feature is the special mini-bosses marked on the map, but almost impossible to defeat without coming back much later at a higher level. Some characters are quite original and brilliant, such as Boxman, a mysterious man teaching powerful techniques hiding his face inside a box.
Dark/Horror: Demoniaca is a violent game, especially in the pixel art cutscenes and for some brutal elements in the background. The game has also mild adult content, including brief sexual scenes that appear like random illusions, or nudity, especially involving secondary bosses, or for example, a character seating on a throne while surrounded by half-naked slaves.
Bestiary: Part of the bestiary is not very original and inspired. For example, there are too many variants of skeletons, and some creatures are really too similar to iconic enemies from Doom. However, there are some interesting surprises, especially in the library section and in the second half of the game, with creepy murderous nurse dolls wielding massive syringes or hack-saws. Another brilliant example is a gruesome spiked-skeleton with inserted body-parts that is able to inflict the negative status “thorne,” transforming the main character into a sort of Hellraiser-ish version of herself.
Dark Light
Details: The strongest point of Dark Light is its sci-fi horror atmosphere, a sort of 2D Dead Space, which is something not very common for a metroidvania. Dark Light has also major influences from Dark Souls, especially the level up system, based on converting fragments collecting during exploration in credits. But of course, if death arrives before the conversion, the fragments will be forever lost. The gameplay is very classic, but involving several pieces of equipment, including a firearm, a melee weapon, grenades, and a drone. New items are randomly dropped while exploring, or directly as loot from defeated enemies. Every weapon has a different moveset, from heavy hammers to light plasma swords, and this is also true for firearms, each with different bullets and firing mode. Slashing through hordes of mutants with such weapons is a pleasure.
World: Earth is now a rotten wasteland, a harsh landscape roamed by deadly creatures. The atmosphere is always oppressive, and the exploration extremely cautious. The map is complex and variegated, including citadels made of flesh and sci-fi churches. There are several paths and secret areas to uncover, usually using keys collected in other zones, and hidden bosses to discover. Dark Light also include mutually exclusive factions to join, with their respective quests. The player can even decide to attack members of every faction, killing their leaders, and unlocking several endings including all these possibilities. The backgrounds are gorgeous and haunting, able to paint a horror sci-fi world, with a gigantic robotic hand emerging from the ground, or a titanic cybernetic skull, just to mention some examples.
Dark/Horror: The atmosphere is dense and oppressive, the combat is brutal, and dying is a common occurrence. Enemies will ambush from dark places, and, several times, a double-tap will be necessary to check if an enemy is truly dead. The silence is a constant threat to your psychological health while exploring the wasteland, the equivalent of exploring the silent ship in Dead Space.
Bestiary: In Dark Light, you can expect a series of quite classic but always interesting examples of horror sci-fi creatures. Invisible mutants, deadly parasites, grotesque zombies with huge chainsaws, or chaos warriors in full armor and with a Gatling gun: if you can name a creature-trope from horror-scifi, it is probably in the game. The game of course offers deadly boss battles, including many secret ones, from colossal buther robots and sentinel to more demonic dragons and sci-fi witches.
Salt and Sanctuary
Details: One of the first examples of recent dark metroidvania, Salt and Sanctuary tried to be the first 2D Souls-like. And the experiment succeeded with really good results. The combat is stamina-based, tough and challenging, while the RPG elements are deep and satisfying. The dark world of Salt and Sanctuary is open to any gameplay, with hundreds of weapons, items, and enchantments to collect. The game is also highly-replayable, including a NG+, multiple endings, and branch-based secondary quests with more than one outcome.
World: The world is entirely contained in a huge island collecting castaways from many shipwrecks. The island is a mysterious and ethereal place, a sort of limbo or border between life and death. Salt is the main element comprising the creatures living on the island, a sort of “soul,” but also the main currency to level up in the game. Moreover, the island is a very variegated environment, with cursed forests, colossal pyramids, hidden lakes, and amoral alchemic labs. The world is a twisted maze of areas very well connected, especially vertically. There are also many hidden elements, including bosses, locations, and even obscure guilds to join.
Dark/Horror: The game has a lonely, dark and oppressive atmosphere, a constant tale of silent areas and suffering. In this sort of limbo, there is no space for anything funny or light-hearted, but only for speechless sufferance and existential doubts. The backgrounds, especially of the bosses, retrieved through the bestiary or item descriptions in proper Souls-like formula, will also add drama and horror to the already heavy atmosphere.
Bestiary: From the half of the game, every monster will be incredibly original, dark, and disturbing. From murderous dolls to living cages waiting to imprison the player to be their new son, every new enemy is an unexpected and challenging surprise. The bosses are especially disturbing, imbued with madness or extreme loneliness. A terrifying example is the skinless, a giant alchemic abomination without skin, or a metal “tree” made of tortured bodies that need to be destroyed to defeat the boss. But my favourite example is probably the Queen of Smiles, a deranged and grinning maniac with a psychotic background, which loves blades and decorating her room with corpses.
Minoria
Details: Minoria is the spiritual sequel of Momodora, with a different art-style and the same developers behind it. As the famous Momodra before, Minoria is a proper metroidvania, just on a slightly smaller scale. The game features interesting RPG elements, including levels, and different pieces of equipment to create the best strategy for every situation. The art-style is gorgeous, and it is perfectly fitting for telling a fairytale. But be aware, behind the fable-like facade, Minoria hides a more dark core, touching important topics from religion to coexisting with nature. Minoria is also full of secrets, including a hidden boss after a set of deadly challenges, NG+, and multiple endings. But what I really liked is that, if the player is able to defeat a boss without receiving damage, a secret item will be unlocked, and this is different for every boss.
World: Minoria is almost completely set in dark and labyrinthine corridors, from the majestic beauty of a cathedral to the inner depths of a torture dungeon. A forest can also be accessed later on, creating a more complex world, but still embraced in a decadent and sad-inducing atmosphere. There are also hidden chambers with a lot of interesting details and furniture scattered around. Plus, the player can retrieve diary pages that will unveil even more the dark lore of Minoria.
Dark/Horror: Even if the fairytale art-style could make you think otherwise, psychologically speaking, Minoria is probably the darkest game on this list. Gray morality is at the core of the experience, including delicate topics such as being brainwashed by religion. Several elements will make you feel unexpectedly uneasy, including bosses begging for their life, or random prisoners asking to be killed to ease their sufferance. Gore is also present in the background, including corpses and walls drenched in blood. The atmosphere is so interesting that I also wrote a complete article about it, here is the link if you want to read more about: The gray machinery of the Inquisition behind the cute facade of Minoria [Review and Analysis].
Bestiary: The number of creatures is not as wide as other titles, and the regular enemies far too common, but bosses and sub-bosses have interesting designs, with complex and inspired battles. The main enemies are usually witches or ancient nature forces. The witches tend to have different shapes, for example a gigantic and sexy succubus. Force of nature can also become particularly interesting, such as a giant slug-plant woman.
Grime
Details: Grime is an unconventional metroidvania with a gorgeous graphic, tough and challenging combat with elements from Souls-like, and a quite unique setting and protagonist. The main character is in fact a silent humanoid black-hole, born from a complex cataclysmic phenomenon. The creature will finish purposeless on a mysterious rock world, where heavy creatures will satisfy its craving for “mass.” Grime has everything a RPG can desire: multiple weapons associated with different scaling skills, stats to upgrade with enough experience, and unique abilities to unlock by hunting and devouring specific prey.
World: The world is a joy for the eyes, a surreal land that looks like a desert alien world from a Dalí painting. Light elements, gigantic statues, and primitive art and paintings are all part of this living world inhabited by cryptic creatures and ruled by mysterious principles. The inhabitants of this surreal land are tribal rock creatures, often obsessed with the perfect proportions, since they have abnormally big heads, or with chosen ones able to “carve” the rock. Every encounter is cryptic and hermetic, part of a world that is as difficult to understand as fascinating to discover.
Dark/Horror: Grime is not a horror game by definition, nor it is violent or scary. However, the game is entirely enriched in an uneasy and unpleasant atmosphere related to the fact that the protagonist is basically an embodied law of destruction. Because being a humanoid black hole is not just aesthetic in Grime. Devouring every enemy is a base skill in the game to evolve and become stronger, by completely absorbing the mass of the enemies inside the black hole. The inhabitants will be fascinated and terrified by your presence, some will even worship and offer sacrifices, while the black hole will explore the planet and purposelessly devouring everything. Some scenes before the boss fights are also highlighting this uneasy feeling of “am I the bad guy?” as it was beautifully executed before in Nier. For example, the Whispering Mothers are two fleshy being made of a plant, sort of dancing flowers with a mouth in between. They are somehow teaching art to the stone creatures and, when the protagonist will approach, one of the rock people will run to the Mothers asking for help, in a twisted and reversed heart-breaking scene.
Bestiary: The world is full of dangerous and feral foes, almost all of them made of solid rock or tentacle-like plants. In this hostile world, any enemy should be underestimated. Some rock people use primitive weapons of stone and bones, while other beings are ferocious and aggressive masses of teeth and claws. Other creatures are like incomplete or broken statues, almost static beings that fly around attacking like drills, or will stealthily throw spears while hidden as normal art pieces. The bosses are gigantic and complex beings, where chaotic organic life meets the lifeless stone. An example of this is Amalgam, a grotesque creature with multiple arms and eyes, firstly hidden inside the gigantic head of a statue like a sort of alien hermit crab.
Angel’s Gear
Details: The game is a short metroidvania with an insanely twisted setting. Biomechanical grotesque beings are behind every corner, and the Giger-inspired art style helps to portray this nightmarish world. The main character has a gun with limited ammo to fight the enemies and a weak melee attack. It is also possible to stomp enemies to their bloody deaths, an essential move to recover ammo. The gun can also switch to different projectiles and power up, which can be found while exploring the map. Interestingly, later on, the main character can acquire an angelic and demonic form, together with new movesets. The main hub inside the world also welcomes secondary characters, including some really weird a creepy beings. Even in its short length (around 3h), Angel’s Gear provides good exploration and many boss battles.
World: The world is a twisted and complex reality. Before everything, two factions were in a bloody war for supremacy, while demonic and angelic entities known as Id and Superego were also part of this complex scenario. Then, somewhere else, a biomechanical entity known as The Gear consumed and twisted the entire universe into complex beings. The Gear dreamed of expanding into other universes, and planted its seed into the moon, which hatched into a scary nuclear dragon. This is when the war was over, and lifeforms got twisted into grotesque beings by The Gear. The player will explore this dark sci-fi world, fighting against grotesque beings while trying to stop The Gear, exploring from the depths of the world (full of grotesque sexual imageries) to the high angelic world.
Dark/Horror: A world at war where every living being got twisted into grotesque biomechanical monsters: What more you can ask for a horror start? Everything here is corrupted and disturbing, not only the enemies but also secondary characters, and even backgrounds. The general atmosphere of hopelessness imbues the setting, not a surprise for a world swallowed by an artificial machine. Gore and violence are everywhere, including enemy executions, and the brutal instant-deaths against bosses. Being devoured alive by colossal abominations will be a very common end.
Bestiary: The enemies are quite variegated and always grotesque and disturbing. You can see everything, from angelic larvae shooting rituals from afar to running zombies that can devour the player instantly. Bosses are gigantic and deformed abominations, from brood mothers screaming and trying to decapitate the player to motionless fetus-like creatures controlling chainsaws and flamethrowers. Secondary characters also fall into this disturbing imagery, including a sort of small girl with many robotic arms, a bare-breasted goddess of war constantly executing a weak creature, and a very disturbing and peculiar blacksmith.
Video Section
The official Dark RPGs YouTube channel, Surreal and Creepy Games, now also hosts a video including nine dark and horror metroidvania. Part of them is included in the article, but the video also shows other examples. Interestingly, for each metroidvania, the video depicts a representative boss battle. So have a look at it if you want to see some of these games in action:
If by looking at the images you are thinking that this is another random game made using RPGmaker and with a corny plot, well, I hope you will change idea because this is a really dark and original RPG with incredible writing. The best thing about the Pale City is definitively the world-building, which has an insane amount of lore. The gameplay is pretty standard but satisfying. Often you will fight alone against multiple opponents, and a good strategy and balance will be necessary to survive.
This is truly the essence of a grim world, where babies are born crawling out of tunnels to then finish in an indifferent city hoping that somebody will adopt them. Of course, the few ones that can crawl out alive. Gods are dumb or insensitive beings far from humans, living isolated or eternally digging tunnels. Then, you have a huge variety of weird cults, totally insane characters, and every possible mischievous act. This is not a game for the faints of heart, because some moments could go really dark.
The Platform and the Dark Sea
The world is a sad and grim place, a land lacking any kind of hope or wishes. Only the Platform exists, a tall structure surrounded by a deadly black sea. Dumb gods and hideous creatures dig and crawl inside the Platform, creating tunnels and chambers in the entrails of this gigantic structure. On top of the platform, a giant town is the only place inhabited by living things. A crawling hive of chaos and criminality, always expanding on top of the Platform. But there is even a stronger binding between the Platform and humanity. In fact, the Platform is composed of living matter, precisely, the bodies of all the humans dying that are absorbed inside the structure, improving its growth. Moreover, if dead bodies composed the Platform, some theories claim that humanity’s blood created the dark sea beneath. And this is not all, because humans are also born inside the Platform. Hidden in the secluded depth of the Platform, a room called The Womb is where all humans are born as babies. The poor infants must dig their way out of the tunnels, avoiding starvation and other beasts. Only the babies that come out alive from the tunnels can join the society up in the city. Of course, only if they find somebody kind enough to adopt them. And in this world of violence and selfishness, this is not a trivial task.
The Three Gods
This grimdark world has three main gods, and all of them couldn’t mind less about humanity. Melchior is the most human god, a sort of old wizard who lives in a huge tower. The god went silent long ago, refusing to speak again to humanity, except for a few chosen ones, and living hidden in his tower. Wretched people surround the tower in the hope that the god will speak again. But their wait became a trap for their mind, and all the worshippers went insane. Or well, another possibility is that the god itself radiates a sort of madness, and this is why he decided to isolate himself. Moragar the Ravenous is a god that hides inside the Platform, a gigantic and dumb creature constantly digging tunnels. It doesn’t mind any living beings and shows no other value. The god only knows how to dig inside the Platform, expanding the colossal maze inside of it, as a gigantic mouth devouring millennia of dead bodies. The last god is more cryptic and mysterious, a sort of living darkness, Balthier the Dark, spreading inside the tunnels. Balthier’s core is a sentient being existing through darkness, while the monsters crawling beneath the ground are its immune system, killing everything inside. Once it rested enough, the darkness of its body spread inside the tunnels, never going out. The Pit is a huge opening where, from the surface, people can have a glimpse of the darkness beneath. This works as a lure for madmen and wretched humans, who worship its presence and suicide by jumping inside the darkness.
The Inhabitants
The City is inhabited mainly by humans, but other beings also exist. Demons live hidden in dark places, including an entire society inside a well. Magic exists, and so are humans powerful enough to rip people apart with a gesture, or living in symbiosis with a skin parasite. A race of powerful Reptilians once walked the land, and who knows if they are still there. There are also other beings existing in parallel realities, such as the Gatewalkers summoned by mages.
Cults, Factions, and Peculiar Places
The city is full of weird places and mischievous or bizarre associations. While some of them are described only in a few lines, probably just hidden in a room of the gigantic main tavern, others are instead very well described, providing several quests and moral choices. In the first category fall the Silent Speakers, a group of people always in silence but constantly speaking with their minds. The Ones Which Stand In The Dark are instead a mysterious group of people hiding in a room constantly engulfed in darkness. They believe that darkness creates equality in people, afterall, we are all the same in complete darkness.
The Cult of Life is probably the biggest and most characterized faction… and also the most disturbing. Their people dress in red and live together in a huge building, like a proper sect. But the most peculiar element is their unnatural health and life span. Some of them claim to be immortal or with eternal youth. How did they achieve that? By eating the bodies of the infants that were unable to crawl out of the tunnels. As cannibal scavengers, their members patrol the tunnels to retrieve the dead babies before they are absorbed by the Platform. Only then, they prepare their famous stew, stealing life from life itself. They are not intrinsically evil, claiming to do a necessary task without hurting anybody… or at least this is what they believe. The main character will also face this horrible dilemma at the end of the game. Will you join this grotesque cult to drastically improve health?
The Infirmary is a peculiar place without much content related. There are no quests or big events associated with it, but it offers very peculiar vibes. The Infirmary exists to monitor people who survived a spirit possession. Usually, the survivors are left barely human, almost as empty husks, existing only for sleeping or staring at the void. Be aware, that the Infirmary is not there for healing people, but only for observing and monitoring, trying to learn the most from the patients. Because the patients are observed for 500 days… and then sentient to death.
The Chain House is a very peculiar building associated with a long quest. The structure is a prison for just one person: a giant and muscular man. But the guard of the prison is also only one, so what is happening here? Long ago, the two had a feud over something… that both parties don’t remember. To punish the giant… for something, the other used all his money to build a magical prison. The colossus is now forced to live in chains, in his dirt, and eating rats. Why all this hate? The main character can decide the side in this feud, even by freeing the giant from his magic prison. Of course, the first action of the giant after regaining his freedom is to brutally kill the other man. Apparently, only death could solve this futile rivalry.
Gris is a sorrowful city of mysteries and broken lives. In this city, four people struggle against their lives and past, paralyzed by fear and regret. Meanwhile, a magician studies their journey as a part of a cryptic theater play, while collecting tarots when they face the manifestations of their traumas. This is only the beginning of Frail Hearts, a hybrid JRPG, and adventure with a great setting.
In Frail Hearts Versicorae Domlion, the player independently plays each storyline, deciding which character will reach the end of their road. While playing the story of a specific character, they will not be available during the flights, but you will use instead all the other characters. The battles are challenging and turn-based, with puzzle-like elements. In fact, understanding the correct strategy is the key to win each battle. Moreover, the characters can level up by using the Lust collected from previous battles, useful to improve skills or characteristics. However, Frail Hearts is a linear experience inside each chapter, where every battle is a boss battle (for a total of 22 enemies).
The art-style is full of personality and details, and this is especially true for the monsters. The abominations are a festival of details, going from demons to ancient Egypt-inspired creatures, reaching being so complex that is challenging to understand what they are. The main characters will face huge and tough abominations, especially at the end of their journey, where the boss will take shape from their fears and sorrows. Every monster is also associated with a cryptic tarot deck, which provides information on their symbolism.
In the following article, you can check the four bosses at the end of each journey, including their analysis and symbolism. The description of the tarot card obtained after defeating each boss is reported in italics at the beginning of each description.
Memento Mori
Finally, the silent blade descends on the World in ruins. Nobody can be saved… goodbye. Nobody can save me… farewell. Nobody saved me…
Death pure and simple. Memento Mori is a terrifying being made of different bodies merged together, with a dragon-like appearance. The body is clearly separated in half, with a side completely skeletal and dead, a symbol of its connection with death like a proper god of the underworld. The boss also shows other peculiar features, for example, the centipede-like neck, a creature often associated with evil and death in Japanese folklore. However, the most disturbing detail is the living half of the face, which is in fact the one of a dog. The family dog of the protagonist.
The creature can attack both with the piercing tail and the main body, inflicting a huge amount of damage. But the highest threat of this boss is its Mephitic Breath, able to debilitate even the entire party with poisonous effects. The battle against Memento Mori is a huge skill check and a race against time. Will you kill it fast enough before the poison will do the same to the party?
Memento Mori is the final boss of Anne’s route. The girl is a skilled student from the local university, with a brilliant mind focused on science. However, Anne doesn’t have much outside of her studies, only her family and dog. But this is not enough for her, and quickly, her life becomes an oppressive trap. Too much care morphs into a prison, and Anne is trapped in there. Memento Mori in Latin is to “remember that you will die,” a constant paranoia of dying without achieving anything. And Anne’s paranoia takes the shape of her twisted dog and family, since the creature appears after her doppelganger family spoke to her. The boss is extremely disturbing, especially the way it asks Anne to bring it out for a walk, as if the monster still is her dog.
Lailah
Alone, from their first wailing, those babies do cry the loss of their mother. The hour of eternal sleep comes, forever extinguishing the light in the eyes of the innocent.
Lailah is probably the most challenging boss before the endgame. The flying demon has female features, with a pair of giant wings… and missing her lower half. Similar to the Philippine female demon also missing her lower half, the Manananngal, the boss is also keen to devour infants. Lailah is bold, and her face shows a sort of peaceful smile. The creature has a baby in her arms, an infant, held by the hands of this grotesque mother and connected to her body through a purple umbilical cord. However, in the middle of the battle, Lailah devours the baby, changing her appearance into a more feral form. Her peaceful smile will morph into a grin, while horns and an evil halo will appear on her head.
Lailah is a dangerous enemy, which can constantly fascinate the characters and send them to sleep, possibly doing some combos and unfair killings. She will wake up the sleepers with deadly Nightmares, inflicting heavy damage to the entire party. Especially after devouring the baby, Lailah can constantly fascinate the entire party, transforming every ally into a dangerous new threat.
Lailah is the final boss of Catherine’s route, a nun who will discover the horrible secrets hidden beneath her church. A grotesque secret made of carnivorous demons and children offered in sacrifice. Catherine’s journey will test her faith, and Lailah is the final trial between her faith and her new self-assuredness. Because Lailah represents a sort of reverted version of Holy Mary, a demon cuddling an infant. The connection is even more evident because, to access Lailah’s lair, the player must use a statue of Baby Jesus on Holy Mary to unlock the secret door.
Ben-Nut-Shu
Three are the personalities of one god, long lost in the eternal emptiness of an ephemeral existence. Which is their real face? Is it really that of a vengeful spirit?
The appearance of this boss is truly fascinating. Borne as a sort of forgotten Egyptian god, the figure is composed of three main targets. And at least two separate entities. The main body is a gigantic old man, a hooded god wearing pharaoh-like paraments and sigils, a terrifying monstrosity radiating power. The god has two giant arms, with incredibly narrow and long fingers, with the skin covered in ancient glyphs and chained at their wrists. The god is imprisoned in this dungeon lurking for freedom. The last entity is more simple but not less effective: a bird trying to fly toward freedom.
This boss is an easy battle, once you figure out how to defeat it. It is more a puzzle than a proper fight, but a very satisfying and well-implemented one. While the long arms will strike the party with attacks, the main body will only attack the bird, trying to sacrifice it. On the other hand, the bird will help the party by healing them. However, if you use multiple-targets attacks or directly target the bird, you will lose. So what is happening in this fight? Because the main body cannot be damaged, and destroying the arms is not enough to win. Only in this fight, each character has the Offering ability, which can slightly heal. Only by using Offering on the bird for long enough, the bird will run free. Subsequently, the main body will suicide.
This boss is the final enemy on Arthur’s route, an archaeologist who was adopted and mysteriously lost his father. While the Egyptian inspiration of the boss highlights the main profession of Arthur and his father, always wandering in tombs and ancient temples, the trinity of personalities of the god represents their family. The bird is an emblem of freedom, dreams, and hope, but also an unhealthy obsession for work or family, something that is necessary to let go to be free.
Gabriel
Farewell. Farewell to you, who I loved but didn’t know how to love. Farewell, heaven. Farewell, stars. Farewell, Fiore.
Gabriel is a tragic boss and a very tough opponent. The main body is a weak and harmless heart, which can be destroyed with a couple of attacks. However, the heart will soon shield behind a gigantic humanoid crow, a very aggressive and disturbing being. A human face, sleepy or sorrowful, is buried into the neck of the creature, swallowed by the black feathers. The creature resembles a distorted angel, not only because of the majestic wings but also for the huge halo on his head.
The battle is more challenging than could appear, and a lot depends on luck and raw attack power. The heart will immediately shield by creating multiple targets: the crow’s main body and its pair of wings. All the targets hit quite hard and can easily kill a party member in a single turn. Luckily, they have very few HPs, so it will be easy to expose the heart. The main problem? At every heart’s turn, the crow will generate again, bringing the exact same problems as the battle before. So, even if the heart is very weak, if you finish the crow with very few or no turns before the heart, the challenging battle will start again.
Gabriel is a tragic boss borne by an unspoken love story. He is the final boss of Michael’s route, a gangster with feelings for his best friend. However, both of them never spoke about their feelings… till it was too late. The heart shielding behind a ferocious beast is a clear symbolism of these hidden feelings, of burying the love under a mountain of appearance and toxic masculinity. So to truly reach the heart, it is necessary to defeat the monsters hiding and protecting that fragile and intimate feeling.
If you want to check the complete battles against these bosses, the following video in the Surreal and Creepy YouTube channel will satisfy your curiosity:
Dark RPGs 