"Sleep some more, Molly. As soon as you open your eyes we will be there..."
You're a widower who recently lose your wife, and driving down a rain-soaked, lonely road, your daughter seated behind you, when suddenly a ghostly presence in the middle of the street forces you into crashing. You then regain consciousness in an empty town, near an abandoned mansion, and although the rain had stopped, you look to the back seat and realize... your daughter is no longer there.
Before a spooky manor, you must find your missing daughter. And along the way, uncover a deep, dark secret from the mansion's mysterious past...
That... sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?
Paper Dolls: Original is a 2019 Survival Horror game developed by Beijing Litchi Culture Media Co., Ltd. Developed using the Unity Engine, the game's inspirations is deeply rooted within traditional Chinese myths while recycling a premise from the original Silent Hill.
In the prologue, you're with your daughter when you barely survive a car crash near the Yin Mansion, once the home of the prestigious Yin Family from several Dynasties ago, but now empty and a dusty shell of it's once-glamorous past. Although, the Mansion is hardly abandoned, because as you attempt to explore it's dank, dark halls and corridors to locate your daughter you inevitably awaken it's spooky residents.
The first game notably ends on a cliffhanger which was continued a year later in its sequel, Paper Dolls 2. After entering the netherworld, you somehow uncovered a functioning flintlock pistol that can harm spirits and supernatural forces - said sequel throws in some First-Person Shooter elements and boss battles along the way.
Both games were made available for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows and Nintendo Switch.
It all started with a curse in the Qing Dynasty.
- Always Night: Both games takes place after dark with nary a silver of sunlight in sight.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The second game has sentient paper people as enemies, based on the Chinese zhizha culture where effigies made of paper are burnt in funerals to appease the dead. Something like this
◊, but chasing after you. - Blackout Basement: For most of the game, visibility is limited to a single circle of light from a torch you found early on. This even becomes a crucial plot point in the second game, where one of the bosses is an animated shadow you can only harm by flushing it out with your light!
- Blood Magic: Blood is used for Supernatural Sealing rituals in the second game to eliminate spirits. You don't always use your own, though.
- Chinese Vampire: A few of them shows up in the second game, unsurprisingly, complete with Manchurian robes.
- Death Seeker: You're implied to be one in the opening prologue. Your daughter is oblivious that your wife is dead, and when she asks you "where's mommy?" you reply that you'll be meeting her soon, that you'll be together again. But before you carry out the suicide, a supernatural force abducts your child.
- Dub Name Change: In the original Mandarin-language release your character's daughter is named Meng-Meng. The English language-dub gave her a westernized name, Molly.
- Foreign Remake: Of the Silent Hill franchise, notably the first game. There are also unkillable ghost enemies similar to Silent Hill 4.
- Gainax Ending:
- The original game, where the premise is that you're a man looking for your missing daughter... ends with you completing a ghostly ritual that turns the entire environment blue as supernatural forces converge into you. And then you get sucked into a portal and the game just finish right there. The sequel then reveals you're still alive, but now in the spirit world.
- The sequel also ends like this: having ended the curse that befell the Yin Mansion, you realize your daughter might not even exist, and that you actually hallucinated having a child the entire time. Roll credits!
- Genre Shift: Downplayed; the first installment is firmly a Survival Horror game where you spend most of the game looking for clues and fleeing from ghosts. The sequel grants you a blessed flintlock pistol and introduces FPS elements, but most of the supernatural encounters can only be defeated by sealing them off - meaning you won't be shooting everything you come across, and still feels like a survival horror game. You do get to use said pistol in a few boss battles though.
- Hereditary Curse: The source of all those supernatural going-ons that plagues both games turns out to be one of these, passed down the once-prestigious Yin Family after the patriarch, General Yin of the Manchurian Court, orders a village massacred. The family starts getting hit by all kinds of misfortunes, from Madam Yin suffering a miscarriage to a string of mysterious deaths...
- Jump Scare: Both games have a number of these peppered throughout. Exploring a dank, dark closet? Prepare to be swarmed by cockroaches. See that spooky doorway down the hall? A deformed spirit from some ancient Dynasty is waiting to jump at you. And so forth.
- Living Shadow: Ying Ling, a boss from the sequel, is a monster made of shadows whose sole facial features are glowing yellow eyes on a featureless face. And to complicate the battle, you fight it in total darkness, and you'll need to flush it out using your flashlight.
- Made of Explodium: The paper dolls enemies can somehow explode after being set alight, despite being made of paper. It could be a result of supernatural posession.
- Missing Child: Your daughter, Molly, was taken by the Yin Mansion's spirits in the prologue, and you spend both games trying to retrieve her. But then again... the Tomato Surprise subverts this.
- Multi-Part Episode: Paper Dolls was released in two parts, the second installment being an Immediate Sequel.
- Run or Die: In the first game (and some parts of the sequel before receiving the blessed revolver) your only hope when confronted with the Mansion's spirits is to flee. You die instantly if they get you.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: The Yin Mansion's Master Bedroom (first area of the sequel) has a lavish feast spread out before the bed, including a whole roast suckling pig, plates of assorted snacks, and several kinds of pastries, but entirely untouched. The food is meant for appeasing the spirits (based on Far Eastern Asian culture) after all.
- Together in Death: Although you didn't die onscreen, the second game ends with you remaining in the spirit world, having never left there. You then meet your deceased wife in the netherworld, but when you try enquiring about your daughter your wife then denies her existence.
- Tomato Surprise: Your daughter, Molly, was merely part of your imagination. You don't find out about this until beating the game and reaching the final cutscene.
- Voodoo Doll: You can find a few of these throughout the games, depicted as wooden babydolls with nails all over them.
- Wham Line: One when you reunite with your wife."Who is Molly?"
- Whispering Ghosts: You'll frequently come across these throughout the game, which fills in the backstory regarding the Yin Family's curse.Ghost of Madam Yin: [heard from behind a closed door] Why did you take my child? Why? Why???
[opens door to... an empty corridor]
