Brutal in both story and presentation, the sheer amount of horror the main characters have gone through in the past and present is certain proof that those involved with the Witch's Heart will be unhappy.
SPOILERS ARE UNMARKED, READ WITH CAUTION!
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Main Game
Prologue
- Stepping into a strange house and experiencing a gloomy atmosphere is pretty common amongst horror RPG Maker games, but this game just needs to take it up to eleven by throwing the player into a bloody red demonic dimension, having a demon ambush Claire from behind (presumably splitting her head in the process), and presenting them with a close-up of a fleshy, multi-eyed monster which is the page’s image. All in a few minutes into the game after a very normal introduction scene, no less.
Ashe's Route
- Noel gives us quite a paranoia-inducing horror story in Night 3 about the "Hangman Tree", combined with surreal CGs, terrifyingly tranquil music and creepy sound effects.
- On Day 4, Sirius isn't present in the dinning hall. Out of concern, Claire goes to get him, but despite how much she knocks on the door, there is no response. She then kicks the door down to check on him after recognizing the faint smell of blood. What awaits her inside is not pretty: the lord of the mansion lays dead on the backroom floor with multiple stab wounds in his chest, his eyes still open eerily. The darkened room and horror-like music make it worse.
- Everyone's first thought is that one of the demons or the witch's curse from the night before (as he was the only one to leave his seat without placing a doll on it) killed him, though it seems unlikely as his room had a magic ward on it, preventing any low-level demons from entering. And since the marks on his body imply that he was killed using a sharp weapon no demon could wield, the murderer is likely amongst the four remaining humans. Three days together, and for whatever reason someone amongst them is still capable of slaying Sirius in cold blood. What guarantees they wouldn't do it to the rest?
- The morning of Day 5, after a short conversation between Ashe and Wilardo in front of Noel's room, just as Ashe remembers the questions he has for Noel, the door is broken down by a giant red monster. The way it oozes out of the window is disgusting enough to make Wilardo lose his cool face, but the thing that actually terrifies both of them is Noel's remains inside his room, devoid of limbs and head. And whatever those weird yellow jingly-looking things in their places are...
- For the first time in the game (if you choose this scenario first), we get to see how a Witch's Heart is retrieved from someone: by tearing up their chest and pulling the heart out. It is as bloody as you expect; thankfully Claire is already dead by that point.
Wilardo's Route
- A small detail, but Sirius' corpse is stuffed inside a locker, which Noel - his closest acquaintance by that point and Childhood Friend - finds out not so soon after.
Sirius' Route
- When Claire finds Sirius after she returns from the tea party, he's already dead on the floor, clinging onto the diary as blood from his gunshot wound drips on it. This time, due to being ambushed by Wilardo - the person he trusted most (Noel lost that title not long before), Sirius Dies Wide Open, making the image of his corpse surprisingly haunting.
Noel's Route
To say that this is the goriest route may be an understatement.- As Noel drinks with Ashe, Ashe lets slip that he accidentally damaged the portrait of the Witch Dorothy in the hall and is scared the witch's curse is going to get his head. Noel tries to reassure him saying that there exists no such curse (as he knows the nature of the mansion)...but the conversation does not have a good ending. A day later, Noel finds Ashe's headless corpse right in his room, with the "witch Dorothy"'s message written in blood next to him.
- In our first time playing as ???, we see a glimpse of Sirius' bloodied head. ??? then starts what we can assume to be chopping up his lifeless body and Laughing Mad.
- The second time Noel returns to his room, he is greeted by Sirius and Ashe's chopped-up body parts scattered all over the floor.
- Claire's death is particularly gruesome, partly because in the three previous Routes, she died quickly thanks to a headshot. This time, we get to see her struggle violently as she is stabbed multiple times in the chest, and despite her best efforts, she eventually gives out. The CG the game provides shows her chest being torn apart and her eyes still open wide in horror upon the pain and realization of who the murderer is.
- The reveal that it is Ashe, the supposed first victim, who orchestrated all of the murders so he's able to sneak around the mansion under everyone's nose will give you chills about how disturbingly genius this guy is.
- And that Sirius was the only one who died all along. Not only did he not survive (again), his corpse doesn't even get to remain in one piece.
- The face Ashe makes during this.
Common Bad End
The Downer Ending is as much of a downer as it should be.- Imagine waking up and stepping outside only to see the hallway covered in real blood. Wilardo mentioning that no one but Claire responded to his knocking is also quite effective Paranoia Fuel.
- We can even see part of Ashe's brain due to the way his head is split open, and his eyes open so wide it's unsettling.
- Sirius' breakdown is utterly terrifying, especially when you get it on your first try without even being aware of it. He brutally hits Claire using an axe multiple times even when it's clear she's dead, then proceeds to freak out over her corpse and begs for forgiveness from Dorothy desperately while the screen slowly turns black, implying his descent into madness. This makes you feel lucky that he doesn't go after the Witch’s Heart, since he might be as bad as Ashe.
Bonus Stage
- The witch hunt, full stop. The idea of a whole town going along with killing people is already disturbing on its own, until Sirius starts to go into detail about what they did to the "witches". Instead of just a quick death, they full on tortured the innocent victims by burning them alive, implied sexual assault, gouging their eyes out, splitting their stomachs open and letting everyone pluck their intestines out, and many, many other horrors that are better left untold.
- The two artworks depicting Sirius' parents' execution are terrifyingly realistic, as if they're pictures taken from a real witch hunt instead of just a fictional story. The stomach-cutting sound effects, the screams, the pained groans, combined with a solemn BGM don't make things any better. To think that Sirius had to witness this at a very young age...
- The reason Dorothy's hands were bloodied when she first met Sirius is because she was retrieving her daughter's Witch's Heart to keep it from Nicholas' sick hands, likely by mingling with the crowd who was plucking her intestines out like they did to Sirius' father. For a mother to helplessly witness her daughter being wrongly executed in such horrific ways, then having to desecrate her corpse, it's a wonder that Dorothy even managed to keep her composure.
- All Nicholas really needed to eliminate his sleeping lackeys was a gunshot to the head, but he just had to go the extra mile by dragging them into Dorothy's room, dissecting them, and taking his time to "decorate" the room with blood, eyes and intestines. The man surely had bad taste.
- If Dorothy's tranquilizer was light enough to only keep the lackeys asleep for a while, then when Nicholas started tearing them apart they likely woke up and started screaming. Who else could have heard those agonizing sounds? Sirius, still hiding in the backroom. note
- And Sirius has to stay in that room which contains half of his childhood traumas for god knows how long during the time loop. It's a wonder that he managed to sleep.
- Nicholas' treatment towards Noel following his mother's suicide involved making him dress in woman's clothes; calling him by her name, Patricia, even when Noel desperately insisted that he "is not mom"; and locking him inside the house so that he wouldn't know about Nicholas' atrocities and be Driven to Suicide like his mom. Yup, Wife Husbandry, and the man had absolutely no excuse as he was Noel's birth father and Noel never gave him any consent nor did he play along with his delusions.
- When two servants accidentally found out about "Patricia"'s existence, they swore to never tell anyone. Nicholas later killed them himself anyway, and explained the deed to his horrified son pretty nonchalantly. The guilt involving those two servants' death manifests into shapeless demons who constantly blame and traumatize Noel, and boy do they know how to.
- While less bloody than others, Wilardo's backstory reveals the terrible nature of the Dark Lily: it drives people to deceive and betray each other under the guise of irresistible beauty, and subjects those who can't bring themselves to do so to the pain of immortality.
- Ashe’s backstory is sheer brutality given from. He used to have everything: a happy family, a good reputation thanks to his talents, and two Best Friends; until his entire family was killed in an arson as he was Forced to Watch. The arsonist turned out to be one of the aforementioned best friends, and it appears that the final deranged smile that guy gave Ashe has inspired Ashe's own series of Nightmare Faces.
Sirius' Conclusion
- The Nightmare Face Sirius applies to multiple people (Nicholas, Ashe, Wilardo, and himself included) takes things up a notch in terms of being unsettling. They're covered in a blood red shade and gain a pair of realistic eyes that look straight into one's soul.
