YMMV / The Doll Shop

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • In the bonus content, is it an epilogue to Ending C where the childhood friend gets killed, or to some unseen scenario where the childhood friend lives but agrees with the doll maker? Specifically, is the friend really alive and talking to her grandmother, or is it all in the doll maker's imagination/is the doll maker imitating her voice? Several fans have commented that the things the grandmother says "Is that you? Why are you in the dark? I was so worried" do not actually require her granddaughter to be making real responses, but her mouth is shown to be moving unlike the other examples where it's clearly the doll maker's imagination.
  • Is the doll maker's neighbor, Mrs. Fujimoto, a kind and well-meaning old woman whom the doll maker simply resents for her attempts to play matchmaker, or did she take advantage of the doll maker in the past? One of the doll maker's flashbacks depicts her shadow saying "no, don't say anything" and "let [himself] go" among other things, and trapping him when he tries to leave. The flashback morphs into him being with the childhood friend telling him that the girl's baths are empty, which of course never happened in-game. This is added to by the fact that her statement "I'm not that old myself, see?" is what makes him upset enough to storm out of her house. On the other hand, since the doll maker's perception is so skewed, it's possible that he's only reading too much into her intentions.
• Awesome Art: While the story is liked, short as it is, players praise the game most heavily for its beautiful and unique art, hand-painted with watercolors by French art students.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The doll maker is a little creepy throughout the game, but the scene where he introduces his "favorite doll" to his love interest, and it's revealed that it's the corpse of the girl on all the missing posters, pushes it right into the "horror" part of "half romance, half horror." Even worse is if you choose to have the doll maker kill his love interest when she begins freaking out. After you switch off the lights, the next shot is of her on the floor, with a broken up face like Mrs. Sato's broken doll.
  • The bonus content when you get 100% completion, which ends on the note of the grandmother being added to the doll maker's "family".