Why do some bad bitches really gotta emphasize the "bad" part, like damn it hurts so much 😔
On the real--
Normally, very adverse to VNs. Just never really was my cup of tea. A lot strike me as too flat to ever fine appealing. However, I love good art and some neat stylization. Very huge fan of simple, yet unique character designs using a limited color scheme, primarily using white and black as a base; very old RPGmaker horror game fan here lol
As for the narrative of the game, what most will probably focus on the most, I will wholly admit I did not play the game. Just happen to be browsing Youtube for some content in the "small, indie, furry horror" genre, and watched the creator Neco the Sergal's run through the whole game. Again, despite being a VN, the art style and that look from Mercredi had me immediately hooked.
MASSIVE Spoiler warning below (I'm not used to writing feedback or comments, so bare with my lack of etiquette)
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TLDR; Great little game where just about everyone was doomed to fail from that start. Not every game needs a happy end. Life sure doesn't all the time, and that's just how it be :) Hope to see more games/art from you!
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I'll be frank and say that my normal cynicism, mixed in with the title, kinda gave it away to me from the jump. It was immediately cemented by the early shot we see of Mer and Cosette in the IR. While I would not have been blown out of my seat from a twist on the ending, I still would have been shocked if Mer wasn't the big bad of this story. Her demeanor, early on, can be seen as endearing and non-suspicious; just a gal with permanent RBF who knows what she does and doesn't like. Simple enough. Obviously, as the story unfolds, that same behavior becomes more of a tell of her psycho/sociopathy. At that point, it's a no brainer. I have nothing negative to say on that front, just merely my experience lol
I will say Mardi did throw me for a bit of a loop. Like, I figured something was wrong with her before her introduction, but no one is ever ready for a bombshell like that, I suppose. Wonderfully messed up character, with a more light depiction of her crimes, which I find respectful. You know what she did, no point it going into uncomfortable detail for the sake of shock factor. Especially since it was being recounted by the victim himself. She road her hedonism and psychopathy straight to her own her end, and I kinda love how she just explained her death like it was just another outcome she was ready to die just for the thrill of it. She didn't have a care in the world for anyone or anything other than her own perverted ways, and I'm SO glad it was that and not just a boring rehash of the "race relations" analogy but with predator and prey animals again. She was insane, went unchecked, caused a lot of harm, and died on her fucked-up hill, and I'm so down for that lol
John didn't deserve that, but that's how the story went.
Speaking of which, he is the last character point I wanna mention before the ending and . Damn John, truly a sweetheart to a fault. Really sad to see a character like that just take loss after loss like that. And I'm gonna be honest, in my head, he ended his own life after the ending. He lost the one thing I think that mattered slightly more than Mercredi, and that is the battle against Mardi.
The one grave, yet understandable error he made was focusing on Mer not ending up like the monster his abuser wanted moreso than helping Mer actually find herself -- her whole self. While he only addresses her as his daughter, no major emphasis on her half sheep, half wolf nature, he very must wanted her to be something she could never be -- 100% sheep. His traumatic experience with Mardi, in my opinion, hindered him from assisting her to be what she is, and ultimately, that kind of treatment can be seen as a building block in the shattered castle that is his daughter's ego. She doesn't know what to be(oustide of trans, which made me legit clap lmao), and she had no guidance on how to be herself. Ain't no way she was getting out of this story scot-free. That isn't to say the John is some terrible father like how he sees himself in the end. He's "human", and that very real human fragility and pain causes people to make mistakes. Her actions were on her and her alone. He cannot blame himself for her taking innocent lives. No blood is on his hands.
However, ironically enough, his determination to not let Mardi win ultimately gave her what she wanted -- A freak of nature who could, and did, cause harm, just to "shake things up".
Will try not to go super deep into this ending because this post is obnoxiously lengthy as is.
Did Mercredi get what she deserved in the end? Who's to say. Due to my cynical and more nihilistic nature, I can say I'm fine with her execution. (EDIT: The more I keep thinking about it, I really hate her Joker arc speak at the end. Kinda messes up her character in my opinion, and ties back into why I didn't want Mardi to go on a "political speech" about. What she did would have still been irredeemably bad, and that speech feels like trying to force in some weird message that didn't need to be stated explicitly. ) She was never "normal", never gonna get the chance to be "normal", and there was no doubt in my mind that if she didn't get the chair, she was serving life in prison, which is the same as dying in prison. I don't care to prolong living tragedy, however we curious creatures are still fascinated by it. It was either she die now or die later. Sure, they could have finally given her the help that she never got. That would have been a small victory for her to maybe come around and fully realize the gravity of her whole life situation as a hybrid, but again, that's a small victory. The end was going to be in that prison, period.
And while I'm not a religious person(no godly belief, but some kind of afterlife would be neat), her meeting her mom in the end was kinda weird. As Neco put it, Satan must have been so impressed that he was like "Shit lady, take what you want, just stay away from me" lol. That weird bubble of protection bit was odd, but I love that hauntingly playful music track that accompanied that whole scene.
In my mind, I think that whole scene is just the finally remnants of her worldly conscious trying it's hardest to put pieces together, but ultimately it was useless. Her pretty face was doomed to Hell.
As a tangent, I have this idea in my idea that I may or may not draw out one day of what I believe would have been a funny yet morbid end-end to the game where after that final frame of her mother consoling her in that bubble, it immediately snap-cuts to a silent "jumpscare" of Mercardi's writhing cadaver(seeing how she is burning in Hell after all) with that image being in her screaming mouth or maybe her blown-out eyesockets, truly tying back to my interpretation that she is being punished, and can just BARELY dissociate into this fantasy of is all being "okay".
Thank you again for the game :)