"My name is Luzia...and this story isn't about me, it’s about my sister. Do you still wish to hear it?"
My Big Sister is an RPG-like horror adventure game about two sisters: Luzia, a sarcastic twelve year old, and Sombria, her older sister. It was released on November 9th, 2018.
A prequel to this game, Ashina: The Red Witch was released in 2022, and a remaster of My Big Sister that fixed some continuity issues between the games was released later in the same year.
Tropes:
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: In the secret ending, you play as Sombria at the hospital where Luzia is in a coma.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The remaster has a chapter select option that's unlocked after getting one of the endings, so you don't have to replay the entire game to get the other endings. You can also revisit earlier chapters to get any achievements you missed.
- Body Horror:
- Sombria ends up with long limbs when she becomes a yokai. She's also able to either twist her head around or move her face to the back, which she's understandably freaked out by when she realises what she's doing.
- Ashina also has long legs, while the Lady On The Wall and Luzia's mother have long arms and are missing their legs.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: During the segment where Sombria gets hungry and Luzia has to get mushrooms for her, Sombria will start talking directly to the player, getting more annoyed if you take too much time. In the original game, she even refers to you as being "behind the screen".
- Brick Joke: Over the course of the game, there's multiple sinks to inspect. All of them are useless except for the one in Chapter 10, where it has a loose pipe in it.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Sombria has a smoking break at one of her hospital visits to Luzia.
- Chekhov's Gun: Uncle Bob's screwdriver, which is mentioned to be in a drawer in the second chapter, is used in the eleventh chapter to screw off the hinges of the basement drawer.
- Deadpan Snarker: Luzia is a young girl full of sarcastic one-liners.Luzia: Huh, it's a sink. That's pretty neat. If anyone is listening to me right now, I'm using sarcasm!
- Driven to Suicide: If you immediately use the bobby pin to unlock Sombria's door in chapter 11, you'll discover that this is Sombria's fate.
- Foreshadowing:
- Luzia in the beginning keeps having a dream where Sombria is a ghost. Later Sombria becomes an undead yokai.
- On the train ride, there's a scene of Luzia in a coma flat lining while Sombria takes a cigarette break. This scene is relevant for two of the endings.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Sombria starts talking to you when she becomes hungry enough to eat a deer and Luzia has to find some mushrooms for her. An image of her will appear in the corner to watch you, and she'll get annoyed at you the more time you take. Eventually, if you don't help her in time, it's implied that she eats you.
- Grand Theft Me: Ashina plans to switch bodies with Sombria so she can be free from her curse. She initially presents it as an offer and says that Sombria can have whatever she likes in return, but it soon becomes apparent that Ashina won't take no for an answer and she tries to do it forcefully. It gets stopped before it can be completed, resulting in Sombria turning into a yokai.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: A possible explanation of the curse is that Sombria created a loop due to her depression over her sister's death.
- Multiple Endings: There are several endings based on your actions in the final chapter.
- If you interact with the bed enough times, Luzia will decide to go to sleep. It's unknown what happens after this, since the game goes straight to the title screen without any credits.
- If you unlock Sombria's room without doing anything else, it will turn out that she killed herself.
- If you kill the Noodle Lady and cut out the heart of Luzia and Sombria's mother before going to Sombria's room, Luzia will eat the heart, and after the credits, lock Sombria in the basement with their mother, who isn't completely dead and looks at Sombria menacingly...
- If you kill the Noodle Lady and put "ASHINA" (or "ANIHSA" in the remaster) into the bathroom mirror before going to Sombria's room, two more endings become available based on where you smoke while playing as Sombria:
- If you smoke where you're not supposed to, when you go back into the hospital everyone will be dead except Luzia and possibly the old woman.
- If you smoke on the other side, Luzia will recover from her coma.
- Opposites Theme Naming: Sombria is a Spanish word with multiple meanings, including "Somber", "Shadowy", and "Dark". Luzia is a reference to a play of the same name by Cirque du Soleil, with said name being a made-up portmanteau of the Spanish words Luz ("Light") and Lluvia ("Rain").
- Schmuck Bait: When returning to the Bathhouse after the Lady on the Wall breaks free, a creepy face will appear in the entrance to her hidden room. Go inside and she'll rush in and kill you. Averted in the remaster, where you have to go into the room to get a key; the Lady can now appear randomly in most rooms, and will kill you if you get too close to her.
- Shout-Out: Some elements of the game take inspiration from Studio Ghibli, most notably the scene at the bus stop being based on the one from My Neighbor Totoro, which is even referenced in one of the achievement names.
- Timed Mission: There's one part of the game where Sombria goes into a state of painful hunger, and you have to collect all the mushrooms you can find and give them to her. There is no onscreen timer for this, but if you take too long, she'll eat you. Not Luzia, you, the player.
