YMMV / Mogeko Castle

• Breather Level: Burned out after the nightmare-inducing mindfuck of a game you just played? Here, have a bonus room to relax in, complete with a goofy radio show interview with the main character herself. The whole thing is basically a giant chamber full of Nightmare Retardant to soak in for a good long while.
• Crossover Ship: Ivlis/Yonaka, which is pretty weird but has a devoted following since, hey, it's better for them than putting them with anyone either of them suffers in their games and the Expanded Universe. (Or because, given that they're both badly broken and take their anger out on anyone who might oppose them, even if Yonaka's a protagonist, the two of them would have a lot to talk about.)
• Narm:
  • Moge-ko's insane ramblings would probably be genuinely frightening if it weren't for the over-the-top audacious soundtrack and lack of voice acting, but they end up being more than a little silly.
  • The growling and roaring of Mad Mogekos is so hammy, that it comes off more as silly than scary, especially since the roar sounds like somebody was vomiting very violently. That is until you press the red button.
  • The juxtaposition of Yonaka making "scared shitless" face while maintaining the same default pose is more than a little jarring.
• Squick: Numerous things in this game can reach uncomfortable levels — from how open the Mogekos are about their sexuality, to the gruesomely detailed ways Yonaka can die (or worse), and nearly everything about Moge-ko.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The Heroic Sacrifice of Defect Mogeko, who dies horribly after a Last Stand to help ensure Yonaka escapes.
  • Yonaka reuniting with her brother, only to discover he killed their parents while waiting for her to get back, and that he'll happily murder her too if he gets his hands on her.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
  • As more of Mogeko society is revealed and it becomes clear just how screwed up everything is, one might feel sorry for the little cat-creatures... if they haven't already crossed the Moral Event Horizon in the player's eyes by being a bunch of little perverted bastards out to assault a teenaged girl because she's a teenage girl.
  • Yonaka goes through so much trying to get back home, even as her Flashbacks hint that there's something wrong with the brother she admires. By the time it's revealed that Shinya killed their parents while waiting for her to get back and the Morton's Fork kicks in, one wonders if the world will ever stop kicking her around. Cue the Happy Ending, which is anything but.
    • Even more so because the only way for Yonaka to gain a canonical happy end is to become an even bigger asshole than either her brother or the Mogekos. And not only will she be the sequel's antagonist, but she's still going to suffer even more!
• The Woobie:
  • Yonaka. She was just on her way home to see her brother, after not seeing him for a long time, only to be transported to the supernatural world of Mogeko Castle, where she is in the same building as an army of Mogekos who will rape her (in groups) if given the chance, Mogeko Larva who will incubate with her to produce more Mogekos if she takes the wrong door, and mad/zombified Mogekos who want to eat her alive, as well as a psychotic woman who wants to make Yonaka her toy, and King mogeko, who wants her all to himself sexually. The were only a handful of people who are helpful to her, and her only friend there was Defect Mogeko (read about him below). In the end, Defect Mogeko is brutally murdered as he died trying to mask her escape, made even worse in that his blood was splattered onto her before his Heroic Sacrifice. She returns home, but remembers that her brother is a murdering psychopath as well, and goes home to realize this as he had just murdered her parents while waiting for her, and even goes to kill her. The only good endings she will have is if she becomes Lord Proscuttio, or abandons her journey altogether to live with Defect Mogeko for the rest of her life. In the true ending (considered canon), she kills her brother, and is mentally broken in the end, and is being haunted by King mogeko, who still wants her sexually. She needs a hug. Desperately.
  • Defect Mogeko as well. He is revealed to be Nega-Mogeko, the complete opposite of King mogeko. If that thought isn't bad enough, he is labeled a heretic and was to be executed because he dared to have morals and ethics. He made attempts to escape, only resulting in torture, and eventually lost his will to live. It isn't until Yonaka freed him that he found a new purpose in life. Even then, he loses one good friend to him in the process of helping her, and possibly lost another, and what makes it even worse is that if Yonaka chooses, she can murder any of his friends, including the ones he had just reconciled with. Once they got closer to the goal, he gets shot in the chest, goes into a heartfelt speech with her, before going out with a smile by killing as many Mogekos as possible, and even engaging in an impossible fight with King mogeko (which he actually almost wins through superior skill, managing to disarm King mogeko, swipe his sword, and drive both swords into the king's chest, only for King mogeko to unleash his mysterious dark powers to paralyze Nega-Mogeko and wipe the floor with him), ending in him being burned on a crucifix. His only good ending is when Yonaka chooses to run off with him instead of finishing the quest.
• Woobie Species: Despite how terrifying their first impression is, the Mogekos become this the more you find out about them. They live under the iron fist of two Psychopathic Manchildren, and are forced to maintain a Hive Mind; any Mogeko who does not conform is labeled a "defect" and imprisoned away from the others. The Mogekos on floor IV in particular spend all day crying about how pointless their lives are, and the ones on floor V are slowly dying of gruesome diseases.