Mirai's ChocoLand: Horror RPG Marathon (1)

Hey Hey

The holidays are ending soon with only 1 week left to go. :( Anyways, I've set out to play some Horror RPG (Role Playing Games) games and they are really a good way to pass time and have fun as well as scare the shit out of you. Anyway, Holly recently posted something super duper emotional and sappy in a post talking about relationships. Haha! What a love doctor. Hmm... Was 'Imma Love Doctor' the title of the post? I think so...

Anyway, this can get quite long and boring and emotional and whatever I'm feeling right now. I'm sure at one point in your life, you've watched PewDiePie's videos... No? Well, shame on you. Pewds is awesome! Thinking about it, I might as well become a fellow bro. :D Anyways, Pewds plays many games and posts them on YouTube and I watch some of them, well RPGs mostly because I don't like games like Amnesia which are too life-like and too gory and whatever. So, I basically downloaded quite a number of games that can be downloaded (LOL) and tried to play them. And yes, as much as I'd like to say otherwise, Apple is a stubborn and spoilt bitch. It takes so much work to download external softwares to play Windows games and some don't even work. Geezers, I downloaded like, Crossover, Winebottler etc. and so far only Crossover works. Therefore, I decided, enough is enough! Mirai disapproves of games with no Mac versions! Oh pish posh, who am I kidding? The best games are only available on Windows.... including my otome games. :(

Anyways, shit I'm getting out of topic. Haizz... Excuse me... *Mentally pictures Holly staring back with a "You are excused" face. HAHA* I downloaded the games: Ib, Mad Father, Misao and The Witch's House.

I've played Ib before, last year to be exact. I went over to a friend's house and we spent hours creeping ourselves out trying to play Ib and get all the endings, lol. Ib has a marvellous plot, characters and although RGP maker is probably not the best software out there to make RPGs since they come up like totally pixelised crap, it still works. :D I'll tell you why I love it so much. Brace yourself, spoilers up ahead and totally long paragraph(s) coming up...

Ib starts off with an innocent and harmless plot. It's about a girl, Ib, of about age 10 (I'm not too sure about the age... and unfortunately was too lazy to find out. :P) and her parents going to an art museum for an outing. Heh. Who thinks museums are scary? Well, you'd be doomed if you're Ib. Anyway, Ib wanders around the museum, and accidentally finds a large mural of a dark world. Well, she tries (ermm... the player) tries to go back to the area of the museum where it was more crowded, only to find that all the people have vanished and there isn't even any music playing in the background. =.= Only your footsteps... So, you have no choice but to jump down this realistic street art (you know? The awesome ones you find in 9gag? :D) of water and you enter this world. You walk around to discover that while you walk away from the entrance, it vanishes when you try to find it... You have no way out. You have to go on.

Anyway, that's the starting. It hasn't ended, peeps. Ib finds a red rose that shall accompany her for the rest of her journey in the dark world. The rose becomes her life force. When all the petals fall out (her rose has 5 petals) she dies and it's game over. There are vases along the way that she can put the rose in to make the rose "recover". The game is mostly scary due to its graphics (things like dolls and moving paintings) and the heart-stopping jump scares, e.g. the vase falling off when you walk past it etc. Anyway, now to the emo part.

As we all know, Ib is just a young girl. Imagine yourself as Ib, young and defenseless and going through all this shit and paintings chasing you and whatever. Seriously, who wants that kind of adventure? It doesn't help that you can get trapped in the dark world forever? Hell to the no! But if there's a protective knight in shining armour accompanying me and there's a chance the both of us can escape, then maybe. Keyword: maybe. So that's what happens. You get Garry, a guy who is 18 and honestly too old for a young girl like Ib, so I'd say he cares for her like a brother instead of a potential lover. So you go through all this stuff and whatever you do affects your ending with Garry. You want to save him, don't you? But what happens if your beloved brother dies in the process, leaving you all alone? Garry has a rose too, a blue rose, and he'll die if his rose reaches zero. And then there's a girl called Mary. A sweet, childish blonde girl who also has a rose, this time yellow, and she meets you. She's just like a sister. So here's what happens. You find out that Mary isn't actually a human. Unlike Garry who is a human being sucked into the dark world, Mary is a girl come alive from a painting. In the dark world, paintings and even mannequins come alive, so it's no doubt that Mary was able to get out. In truth, she is a lonely girl who likes visitors, but wishes much to become a real girl and be loved. Garry was the one who tells you that Mary is a painting and from that point, you are at a crossroad. Will you choose Mary or Garry?

There are several endings. One is that you've chosen Mary, though indirectly. Mary manages to get hold of Ib's rose and Garry, being the knight in shining armour and big brother figure, decides to trade his rose for Ib's rose. Thus, Mary runs of with Garry's rose. Knowing that only 2 people can get out of the dark world, Mary decides to kill of Garry by plucking out the petals of his rose. Garry becomes weak in the process and almost collapses before assuring Ib that he will catch up with her after telling her to move on first. You manage to find the large mural again, and this time, the mural depicts the museum from the real world. You jump into the mural and is transported back to the real world. Mary tags along and when you wake up, you find out that Mary has become your sister. You had no memory of what happened in the dark world and it is questionable whether Mary remembers. After all, it was her plot to go to the real world... What happens to Garry? Well, he's trapped there in the dark world... forever.

Another one is that you have chosen neither. Garry dies, just like the previous ending, but Mary also dies. Just like I have said, Mary is a painting and she dies because you decided to burn down her painting. She disappears and you found the mural and was transported back to the real world. You had no memory of what happened. As you exit the museum after reuniting with your parents, you noticed a painting. It depicted a sleeping Garry (presumably dead) and the name of the painting is "Forgotten protrait". Hmm.. well yeah...

Well, if you choose Garry, then you can have the normal ending or the Happy ending. The normal ending is when Garry doesn't die because of Mary and you both burn down Mary's paining. Both of you jump into the mural and get back to the real world. One difference is that after burning the painting, if you're close enough to Garry, Ib will have the option to offer Garry a handkerchief since he was injured by the shattered glass. If Ib gave the handkerchief, then in the real world, Ib will find Garry looking at an exhibition and they will converse. He seems unable to remember anything that has happened in the dark world, but he finds Ib's handkerchief and has a flashback of their time together. They remember each other and there will be a "Promise of Reunion". If they are not close enough, Ib will not be able to offer the handkerchief and although they get back into the real world, it seems neither remembers each other and neither meets each other again.

There will be an ending that you get stuck in the dark world forever too, this time, definitely alone. You might have burned Mary's painting and Garry's alive, but Garry jumps into the painting first and Ib sees illusions of her mother and Garry (not inside mural). If Ib doesn't jump into the mural and choose to go with the mother or "Garry", she will be trapped in the dark world.

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This game has left me utterly speechless, really. I can't believe such a game has such an effect on me. It feels like a psychological thing, to have to make a decision whether to choose Mary or Garry. Initially, I didn't really like Mary because I thought of her as a selfish bitch. But really, she was just lonely. Imagine having a soul and being trapped there for so long... Besides, you can't have both of them too. It's either Garry or Mary. I personally think that the relationship between Garry and Ib is the cutest thing ever. It's almost like having someone to share your fear during the game. Although Garry is not real, he kinda provides you this comfort that you are not alone. I don't know how to put things in words, but it's just that this game makes you feel so bad. Of course, you'll curse yourself if you get the ending where Ib's all alone in the dark world, but saving one means abandoning the other. You save Mary and Garry dies. You save Garry and Mary has to go. You save nobody but yourself and you end up feeling devastated upon seeing the "Forgotten Portrait". Life's not fair, but at least this RPG had a good plot and characterisation. They also offered a Happy ending between Ib and Garry. Logically, that's how it should be, because Garry belongs in this world, not Mary. I really loved the game. It's dark, but beautiful, and the soundtracks are beautiful too. Playing the game and reaching the credits really feels like eating bittersweet chocolate. It's so beautiful but you can't help hope for a better ending though the sadness and melancholy is the source of its unique beauty. You wish to relieve all your good times while playing the game, although there are times when the jump scares scares the shit out of you. It's also like finishing a good romance book. If you don't know how that feels like, get your ass to the library and do some soul-searching, the book style. :)

That's all for part 1 of this Marathon post. Will post some pictures below: (click to enlarge)

This is a rather carefree picture of our trio. The blondie's Mary, the dude's Garry and Ib's the brown-haired heroine. Do you see the mannequin heads, bodies and paintings? They were the things that came alive and started chasing you around during the game. Amazing fanart, BTW