Trivia / Mary Skelter

• Actor Allusion: Sisters Thumbelina, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty are portrayed by the three members of voice actor/idol group Earphones.
• Author's Saving Throw:
  • The developer stated during Mary Skelter 2's announcement that both that game and the remake of the first would receive several changes based on player feedback, including better balance and debugging, "adjusted" dungeon sizes, improving the (by their own admission) plain Quest system, and changing up the Jail roulette. The changes are arguably most apparent in the bonus Underground area from the first game; it was originally a gigantic monstrosity that quickly goes from being interesting to being needlessly tedious, but has been changed to be drastically simpler in the remake.
  • After the PC port of Mary Skelter 2 received backlash from fans for removing the purification minigame, Ghostlight released a standalone patch to restore the feature on their own website one week after the game's release, as well as extend the discount launch by another week as an apology.
• Bad Export for You: A bit of an inversion with the Steam release. Japanese gamers can technically buy it, but Ghostlight was only able to license the English script so they won't be able to play in their native language.
• Executive Meddling: Sony allegedly forced the removal of the touching minigame in the Chinese version of Mary Skelter 2, resulting in a post-release patch that also introduced Game Breaking Bugs. It was one of the earliest signs of what was later confirmed to be a worldwide crackdown on Fanservice in PlayStation 4 games by Sony.
• No Dub for You: Like most of the Neptunia series and many other Idea Factory International localizations, this is averted with the absolute minimum budget required. Outside of combat and menus, only very major story scenes and the Fanservice cutscenes are voiced in English, whereas all of the character scenes and a much higher percentage of story scenes are voiced in Japanese.
• No Export for You:
  • The fact that an English version of the original Playstation 4 version of Mary Skelter 2 wasn't announced alongside the Switch version all but confirms that it won't see release outside of Asia, almost certainly due to the aforementioned Executive Meddling.
  • While the Prologue novels for both games saw an English release in some form or another, Hikari no Arika (Where the Light Resides), which covers Mamoru and Hikari's side of the story to Mary Skelter, received no English translation past the prologue as that was included in game.
  • Averted for Love Prison Tower and True End, despite both of them being pre-order exclusives for the Japanese versions, the Western versions have them free of charge for Finale’s release, now renamed Locked Up in Love and Locked Up in Love True End.
• Orphaned Reference: Overlapping with Dummied Out. In Mary Skelter 2 it is possible in some areas for Clara to sell Electrified Rod and Mod Electrified Rod, items that would deal Lightning damage in the original version of the first game and claim as much here. Due to the Lightning element and attacks related to it being removed, the items just waste the turn of anyone attempting to use them. The remake has the items properly and entirely replaced with Rod and Modified Rod, dealing non-elemental damage instead and properly function.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In Japanese: Due to Ayaka Imamura's retirement, Hameln's actress was replaced by Hiyoru Kono for Finale.
  • In English: Anairis Quiñones took over Christine Marie Cabanos as Snow White for Finale due to the latter briefly going on maternity leave.
• Reality Subtext: Mary Skelter Finale was announced in the final print issue of Dengeki PlayStation magazine, whose staff had a hand in creating the Mary Skelter series and published the individual prequel chapters that were combined to create the prequel novels. Compile Heart president Norihisa Kochiwa confirmed that the end of the magazine influenced the company's decision to end Mary Skelter with Finale.
• Star-Making Role: Jack was this to Khoi Dao, who was relatively unknown at the time. Now, he's just as popular as his fellow VAs, with Albedo being one of his most famous roles.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Originally, but eventually worked around. Twice.
  • The Japanese releases for Mary Skelter 2 include the prologue novel that came with the first game's limited editions in the game itself. Idea Factory International themselves confirmed that licensing issues prevented its inclusion in the English release, though they were resolved shortly after release and the novel was instead uploaded to Mary Skelter 2's English website.
  • A couple months after the game's release the prologue novel to Mary Skelter 2, originally part of the Japanese version's limited edition, was also translated and put up on the website, finally giving key parts of the backstory to English speaking players.
• Trolling Creator: Compile Heart's president teased that their popular "numbered series" is about to end, and that the final entry will be revealed in Dengeki PlayStation... all while standing in front of a blurred-out collage of Neptunia box-arts. Cue Neptunia fans absolutely losing it over the possibility of Compile Heart retiring their flagship series, until it was revealed that the game is actually Mary Skelter Finale.
• What Could Have Been: The art books and developer commentary show some early character designs that are drastically different, and point toward abandoned plot ideas.
  • Alice is depicted with longer, possibly blonde, hair and a special bit of horned headgear to keep the Blood Maidens in control of Massacre mode. The headgear idea is eventually revisited in Mary Skelter Finale with the Massacre Pink's Gore Suits, including horned headgear.
  • Red Riding Hood at some points would have used massive gauntlets or a giant axe.
  • Thumbelina would have been a more physically oriented character, and what became the Necromancer would have been more of a puppet master.
  • Snow White and Sleeping Beauty were at one point much younger looking, putting them closer to Thumbelina in apparent age.
  • Cinderella had orange hair at one point, as well as a design that looked like a composite of her final design as well as Little Mermaid.
  • Kaguya had designs for walking around, and would have had a massive bladed fan for a weapon. A standing version of her design is finally used a couple of times in Mary Skelter Finale and Love Prison Tower Mary Skelter: True End.
  • Gretel's design changed little, but she's also presented in the Item Meister job showing a few variants to its development.
  • Hansel would have been a more humanoid giant, slouched over with a candy house on his back. What became his final design, minus the candy armor, would have been the City Streets Nightmare.
  • Rapunzel was at one point designed to be noticeably older than her final design, and sporting a single massive ponytail. The ponytail would later make it into her Mary Skelter 2 design, while an older Rapunzel is finally seen in Love Prison Tower Mary Skelter: True End.
  • The final City Streets Nightmare saw multiple changes, slowly becoming less and less birdlike.
  • Nightmare Jack was at one point a more humanoid creature wielding an axe.
  • Mary Skelter 2 itself was originally going to be on the surface, rather than an alternate timeline, which eventually came to pass in Mary Skelter Finale.
  • Similarly, Mary was originally planned to appear in Mary Skelter 2 before finally appearing in Mary Skelter Finale.
  • There were originally going to be seven members of the Massacre Pink group. What the missing three would have been is not stated, though the brazen bulls, chemical filled needles, and frozen bodies of the first three Jails would suggest those as a theme due to the iron maiden, gallows, and guillotine themed Jails seen after.
  • On the one of something not talked about in artbooks and interviews, digging around in the original game's files would show otherwise unseen dialogue pictures of what appears to be Hikari in Massacre mode. Due to the aformentioned lack of discussion, it isn't known whether she would've always been a Blood Maiden or would've been transformed into one in place of becoming the Angelic Girl.
  • Mary Skelter's Visual Collection and Story Guidebook reveals that the term "Genocide Pink" has been around since the early planning stages of the very first game. Additionally a single blue clothed and horned girl resembling a mix between the final Alice design and Shira is seen among a group of otherwise pink color themed characters, as well as large muscular man wielding a massive axe, presumably an early Jack due to his similarities to some rejected Nightmare Jack designs seen in later artbooks.
• Word of God: The author, Otono Yomoji, has regularly released information about the characters on his Twitter account since the release of Finale depending on the character's birthday. While in many cases the information is simply regarding those birthdays, with the rest being recaps of details already known in game, there are some new details brought to light such as Mary and Charlotte's names being taken from Alice Liddel's sisters, the name Guillotine would've been given under normal circumstances being Rin, the elder Gatou brother being named Kento, or that the final battle of the first game took place on August 16th.