The new main heroine. Binds her chest to pretend to be a prince for her princess. Even with that she is still bigger though.
So after the boring times I had with the first, I have no idea why I decided to actually play the second. But I did go through with it, partially because the final entry had been announced and partly just to actually use my Switch for something. It is, at least, an improvement as a game over the first one.
Skelter 2 is more of a side story or paradox kind of idea. It starts at the same point in time as Skelter 1, but with you controlling a Blood Maiden by the name of Otsuu, who is the crane from a fairy tale about repaying favors. She is with Red Riding Hood and Little Mermaid(who is dead in the first game at this point), about to go rescue Jack and Alice. Everything goes wrong. Jack becomes a nightmare, Alice goes missing, you recruit Hameln first instead of last, and that hub from the first game? Destroyed. Most of the NPCs from the first game are dead. It’s a very abrupt opening.
So unlike the first game, this one doesn’t linger on who’s the traitor the entire game. Instead, there’s two other main mysteries the game leaks out as it shows how different the relationships the girls have based on Little Mermaid and Ostuu existing. First, what is the Nightmare that killed everyone? Two, who or what is Otsuu? Just like the first game you get bread crumbs until the end of the story, with each character rejoining adding a little to the mystery until everything is suddenly out in the open at the end. While not very exciting, I felt a lot more interested in this then the whole traitor thing from the original. Mostly because it actually meant something throughout the game.
As for the game itself, its better in a number of ways. First, the girls have more passive skills so there’s reason to get more then two or three attacks and nothing else. Second, all target hits now have a charge time, so there’s actually a reason to use single target. AOE skills have been added, though many are very expensive. Otsuu’s unique skill and class set having the only AOE that I really ever used. Third, the gift system got an overhaul. Girls only except gifts they like but that’s meaningless. Instead, just give them all the furniture and there relationship bar will max. Unlike 1, the girls keep any furniture you give them so you can decorate their rooms as you please. Which does create kind of a weird thing where you can’t give them furniture they already have, every girl starts with the standard set and the standard set is the only one you buy from the normal merchant until end game. You literally can only sell the standard stuff, so I don’t get why enemies drop it or you can buy it. A nice touch is that instead of hearts, the girls have stars for their relationship gauges, except for Little Mermaid. This is because Otsuu and Little Mermaid are a couple from the start instead of the harem thing with Jack in the first game. It makes sense that none of the other girls would try and get with Otsuu, she’s taken and none of the rest swing that way.
Another thing is you no longer have Jack wasting time in normal battles. In Skelter 1, Jack’s turn in most fights was just a waste of time since you only needed to do blood purging every 10+ fights to avoid Skelter. Here, Otsuu is technically two characters, so she gets two actions. She has item(unlike everyone else), and can be switched to Jack to use a few unique skills. Really you use Jack to control purge, since if you use Jack a lot he gets his own Blood Skelter mode and he hits like a truck and will hit your people. If he enters that three times in a fight it’s game over, so generally I only used Jack to manage corruption. He’s to dangerous to use for anything else.
Anyway, dungeons have more puzzles and set pieces that use the girls travel skills. While not great, they still feel a lot more like dungeons instead of mazes like the original had them. You can also impose challenges on yourself that give you buffs(like no saving for more xp from fights) and set some items to force the dungeon reward things to be what you want instead of just a random list. You can also plant blood in certain parts of the dungeons to get usually better gear then is available. While I still don’t like the loot system and chests still feel pointless outside of keys, I like growing gear more then just waiting for the traveling merchant to show up in each dungeon.
So yeah, plenty of shine was applied and some of it works. It also helps that dungeons never get that long or big, sticking to about 5 floors each with a bonus floor that just rewards money. There’s still too many dungeons for me, but each individual one never felt that long, except the final one but that was more two dungeons stapled to each other. Quests also got improved with a good number of them having short intros and outros to them, to give content and some nice character moments to the non combat people. What you do doesn’t change but this helped a lot in making the quests more then just a checklist of monsters to kill.
The game’s also just harder. Normal in this is equal to hard in 1 or so. I went normal for 75% but had to go to the lowest difficulty to avoid grinding. Things just take more damage and dish out more then before.
As for the ecchi content, there is more then before, but not much. The blood purges from the first game are back with the same image, thought the swimsuit colors are white instead of black/navy. Cinderella, Otsuu and Little Mermaid are the only new ones there. Instead of each girl getting a unique story cg that was kinda risque at best, girls are split into sets with them being naked in some weird poses. Like Hameln and Kaguya trip over themselves into sixty nine with a towel covering just enough to avoid an adult rating. They are definitely more erotic then the first games though there’s also just less of them. Instead there’s a lot more story cgs and with a lot of the girls being in blood skelter in story. Really there’s just more skin exposure all around.
I think that’s all the main points. I actually enjoyed the story of Skelter 2. I liked how they changed some of the blood libidos around to make more sense, though only Otsuu’s really matters to the main story. Gretel’s becoming eating sweets instead of her curiosity was a nice touch , as the blood libidos really should have altered actions or addictions, not be the basis of their personalities. Alice going from having things making sense to having tea parties just made her libido actually apparent instead of just told to me. The characters themselves just paired better and the scenes between them were more funny and nice then in 1, probably because there’s no awkward they need to fall in love stuff going on in the writing. It’s still a really slow game. It also comes with Skelter 1, with a changed ending to fit in what happens in 2 which is a cool touch. Apparently the third game is also doing this with 1 and 2 and a fandsick, meaning Mary Skelter Finale will be 4 games in one. Which is just really different nowadays but is cool. Nicely avoids the whole you need to buy 4 separate games to enjoy this issue that comes with series like this.
Overall, while the game is improved, it still tired me out. Way better then Skelter 1, but still not something I want to play again.
As for Skelter 1 that is included, they made the dungeons smaller, while adding in an actual purpose to the postgame stuff. They also added a skip to the end that adds most of the skipped stuff to the gallery and your inventory. The only things missing are some notes for the unlockable book, Hameln, the location based affection events, and for some reason skipping doesn’t unlock the girls the character viewer. The cgs you skipped? Unlocked. The character events you skipped? Unlocked. The girl viewer for their costumes? Locked. It’s a strange skip. The dungeon redesigns are enough of a reason to play this over the original, which is what the devs want anyway. They want people to play 2-1, for some reason.
Save for Switch version
Includes: All bonus content from 2 AND 1, so cgs, movies, novel, and can reread character scenes. Also saves to the endings of both game, with 1 set up to get any girls ending+ the bonus ending from the post game dungeon which is different from the actual first games ending.
I am missing the party in the character viewer of 1. It would require playing through more then half of Skelter 1 to fix, and I in no way want to do that. I’ll probably do that for Finale, but not now for 1+2. You can see all the content the viewer gives in game anyway.
Gameplay: 5/10 Eroticness: 5/10 Story: 7/10
Completion: What it took-
Beat the game with all heroine events and classes unlocked for 2. For one, the same except at the end reload and repeat the final boss for each girl to get their boring ending cgs. RPG’s tend to have simple unlocks, this one doesn’t require anything special beyond class changing and some reloading at the end.
Edit 1/14-
Stapling on a note about the PC version so I have my opinion here. I’m not bothering with it. Censorship is annoying, plus the censor’s here make no real sense. The purges Steam would have issue with are already on Steam in the original game. The two new characters they might have issue with are no less issue worthy then Thumbelina and Rapunzel. In fact, Rapunzel is probably the most issue girl in the game. The cgs in story are more risque anyway.
Along with the censorship, I just don’t like Mary Skelter enough to replay it. After Finale I’m likely never looking at this series again. Switch saves are easy enough to use on Yuzu, so it’s not like the Vita where the saves are kind of pointless.