Given how much influence the game takes from the horror genre, from mainstream to esoteric, there being a load of references is a given.
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Costumes and Apartment
- One of the shirts that Mizuki can wear while in the apartment has "mega mirk" on it, a reference to the infamous Mega Milk shirt and Titty Monster meme from the Tiny Boobs Giant Tits History hentai manga.
- Moriko's "Hail to the King" outfit while in Timeline B is based on Ash's usual attire, while the 0.9.84 update also added an achievement of the same name for her killing an enemy with a chainsaw.
- Miku's "Tokyo" outfit is a reference to the same-named character from Money Heist.
- One of Yashiro's outfits is called the Chupacabra Sweater. It even has Michael's sprite from the game on it.
- One of Haru's costumes (labeled 'Mafia') is a bright suit with a dark shirt underneath. Even in monochrome the design looks very much like Kazuma Kiryu's trademark apparel.
- Both Kirie and Ayaka's "Teen Witch" outfits are named after Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
- The poster on the costume closet screen for everyone except Miku is based on Sailor Suit and Machine Gun.
- The ship model next to the mirror is based on a ship from the game Devil Engine.
Junji Ito
- You can encounter a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Junji Ito himself as your neighbor, even snagging a profile photo. But this will get you stalked and attacked by something in response. Alternatively, you can tell him an account of your saga (in the form of 15 XP) and he'll buy it to make into a new horror comic. The mangaka's appearance was changed with the 1.0 release in Timeline A, but Timeline B still has the Ito lookalike.
- Some of the high school kids you can talk to mention about reading a manga that talks about spirals.
- The Bloodsucker encounter is also from Uzumaki.
- Ath-Yolazsth is obviously inspired by Remina.
- One of the news reports on the television concerns strange man-made holes unearthed by a recent earthquake somewhere in Shiokawa.
- The Perverted Innkeeper encounter is based on "The Licking Woman" short story from Black Paradox.
- The Alarming Account of Abnormal Arms mystery is likely based on a combination of Ito's The Groaning Drain short story, the character Eugene Victor Tooms from The X-Files, and a pair of fish-catching yokai called Tengama-Jin and Ashinaga-jin.
- The Headless Mannequin monster is based off the Headless Sculptures short story.
- The Stone Statues event is from the Occult Transfer Student short story.
- The Something Truly Evil event is based on Miss Fuchi from the Rumors and Fashion Model stories.
- The Hole-Ridden Thing and Holes curse are based on the short story Shivers.
- The Ribcage Woman enemy is based on the Ribs Woman one-shot story.
- The Gruesome Alter event is based on the Dissolving Classroom two-shot story.
- The Lovesick Corner event is based on the Lovesickness story.
- The White Sands event is based on the Blood Sickness of the White Sands Village short story.
- The Cadaver Theater event is based on the House of Puppets story.
- The Timeline B version of the Scissor Woman fight is inspired by the Tomie series.
- Some of the depicted sushi in the Itadakimasu event is based on the undead walking fish from Gyo.
Miscellaneous
- One Forest event will involve stumbling across the trashed office of one Professor Takeuchi.
- Putting "Kiryu" in as your custom game playthrough seed will have the words "baka mitai..." appear on-screen. It's also how you enable the possibility to encounter Mayima if you're playing with the Hunted by the Cult backstory.
- The (old) loading screen when you start the game shows a white AE86. It also replicated the box art of Arkham Horror, depicting a speeding car filled with investigators shooting at a mass of tentacles in hot pursuit.
- One Downtown event has your character investigating a strangely-dressed character who is actually part of a tabletop RPG session. The event in question was formerly called "World of Darkness".
- One of the in-game achievements, which requires you to defeat an enemy while using a baseball bat, is called "Paranoia Agent".
- Another achievement, which requires you to find the Dog Ending is named after Mira, the Shiba Inu from Silent Hill 2's Dog Ending.
- One of the many Curses your character can be afflicted with gives them gills on their neck. Said Curse is called 'Insmasu Look' and might remind some people of a strange fishing village in northern Massachusetts. note
- The suitcase used to generate the seed for a new playthrough is also labelled as having been delivered from Arkham, MA.
- A "weird fiction" writer named Hawado can appear during Vicious Verses of a Violent Vigil.note His wife very clearly has the Innsmouth Look, as well.
- The best ending to Freaky Feature of Found Footage has you disposing of an immense, formerly human abomination buried under an abandoned house by dumping several gallons of acid on it. The ending is even called "Shunned House".
- "Perilous Parable of the Peculiar Painting" culminates in the discovery that an eccentric painter was actually painting portraits of real monsters.
- "Freaky Feature of Found Footage" is about three students disappearing while making a documentary, and the short name is "Witch Story". The name of the mystery might also be a nod to FreakyLinks, made by the same people.
- The Shiba Inu manning the shop is, in fact, a reference to a (now retired) Shiba who opens the window of their owner's shop and greets customers
in a way that looks similar to how the one in the game is. - One of the Village events is titled "Welcome to the Rice Fields".
- Iwa, one of the allies, looks like a young Dwayne Johnson, and his name is the Japanese word for "rock." His profile also says he's a chef. Can you smell what he's cooking?
- At the School, you may run into the Bloated Teacher, a decomposing corpse who attacks anyone that enters the pool where he drowned. The event is titled "Dead Man's Float," after the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode of the same name and similar premise.
- One of the melee weapons is a claw hammer, titled the Carpenter's Hammer. The Inspect description? "Do you like hurting other people?" It may also be a shout-out to Jacket's appearance in PAYDAY 2, where he uses a similar hammer as his melee weapon.
- Failing to convince someone to join you at the School may result in them saying "You were always such a kidder!"
- The intro upon choosing custom game has a computer with a demon summoning circle on screen, just like Digital Devil Story.
- One school event is titled "There Was A Hole Here".
- In the art for this event, the incantation written on the chalkboard is 'Kuratu-Suburada-Nikko'.
- "Perilous Parable of the Peculiar Painting" is about exploring the mansion of a painter named Ichiro Mamiya.
- One of the Curses you can be stricken with is a supernatural branding mark that burns painfully as monsters draw near.
- The Cursed Cartridge item appears to be for the game Jack and Casie, using its title in Japanese and depicting the titular characters on its coverart. Its effect of increasing thrown item damage also nods to Jack and Casie's Inventory Management Puzzle gameplay.
- "Macabre Memoir of Morbid Mermaids" draws inspiration from the Guinea Pig film Mermaid in a Manhole, to the point the title is used if you get Ending B.
- The achievement "Rain of Spiders" is named after an attack used by the final boss of FAITH: The Unholy Trinity, and it involves playing as Yashiro, who, like John Ward, is a young would-be priest whose faith is tested by the occult horrors around him in the Eighties.
- The Inspect description for the Straight Razor weapon remarks that it reminds you of "a certain American heist thriller film".
- "Bloody Brief of a Beckoning Bulletin" features several references to the 2001 horror movie Suicide Club, which also involved a bizarre outbreak of suicides linked to a Internet-based cult.
