Purgatory comes from the Late Latin verb meaning "to cleanse." It is a hellish realm where people's souls temporarily reside, to admit their sins and receive punishment. In Roman Catholic doctrine, souls atoned for past sins in purgatory before they were allowed to enter Heaven.
Purgatory is an RPG Maker horror game series by Nama. In the first game, you play as Enri M. Louvre, a shy, lonely schoolgirl who was dared by her "friend" Emma S. White to come along with Oliver G. Lobelia and Lukas F. Purple to a "purgatory" building that is said to be inhabited by The Butcher, a giant beast of a man who kills anyone who wanders inside. She winds up falling into the basement, separated from her friends, and into a building filled with blood and corpses, and now must escape before she becomes the Butcher's next victim.
Can be downloaded here
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Also has a sequel, Purgatory 2, taking place one year later, which can be downloaded here. It stars an ordinary schoolboy, Ebel Alfie, who is able to attend the elite Ten Judges Academy thanks to his exceptional skills. The story follows Ebel as he meets and teams up with Emma and the escaped Enri to fight against a legion of Giant Spiders, known as hellbeasts, who are invading the Royal Capital, and discover the source of the infestation. Exploring the network of tunnels underneath the Royal Capital, the trio encounter and explore a strange facility that holds the answers they seek- and in the process find themselves in the middle of something much bigger than they could ever anticipate. Demonic Mode, a Boss Rush mode too difficult for the main game, can be downloaded here.
There are two more games in production, Purgatory 3 and Purgatory X. Purgatory X is a Prequel hinted to release sometime in 2021, whereas Purgatory 3 is slated for release on January 1, 2025.
See also the Three Forbidden Books trilogy by the same creator.
This game series contains examples of:
- All There in the Manual: A lot of background info and world-building in the sequel is done through a document included in the game download.
- Antepiece: To access the room containing the first elevator, you must push three levers, and once you push a lever, the button on the other end will activate, and you must push the button. This sets the player up for the fight against the Butcher, where they must push all the levers and buttons to win.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: The sequel introduces the children of the local nobility who go to an elite school- while not quite evil, they are shown to be bullies and Upper Class Twits. This includes Emma, Enri’s Bitch in Sheep's Clothing “friend”.
- Ascended Extra: Emma in the first game was just a side-character with no much story except that she was a bully to Enri. In the second game, she's one of the main characters.
- The same can be said for Oliver, who turns out to be the Big Bad of the second game.
- Asshole Victim: The two noble boys who tricked Emma into going into an alleyway were intending to sexually assault her, but were interrupted by a hellbeast and eaten.
- Big Bad:
- In the first game, The Butcher is the owner of the titular Purgatory building who wants to add the heroine Enri to his lengthy collection of corpses.
- In the second game, Oliver G. Lobelia is the one behind the hellbeast invasion of the Royal Capital, on behalf of the Lobelia organization which he is an executive of.
- Big Damn Heroes: Enri saves Ebel from D-033 at the right moment.
- Bittersweet Ending: Both games have this.
- In the Good End of the original, Enri escapes and kills The Butcher, but her friends are either dead or missing, and now she is alone again.
- All endings of the sequel (except the Bad End) have the heroes stop the hellbeast invasion and save the city, but they have discovered that the whole thing is a Government Conspiracy headed by the nobility that executed The Coup against the royal family six years ago, and they are still standing despite the setback. Ebel notes that it is only a matter of time before they retaliate, and freeing the kingdom from their influence will be an uphill battle. Plus, Amalie is revealed as one of them and is plotting against the heroes.
- Boss Rush: Demonic Mode, a separate download that puts you against all the chasers while beefing up their difficulty. All of them have increased speed, and S-001 also spawns clones of themself.
- Brainwashing for the Greater Good: In many of the second game's endings, Ebel or Neun will bring this up as a possible solution to solve the rampant corruption as part of their preparation to fight Lobelia. The others only needed a bit of convincing before they agreed with it, likely due to the direness of the overall situation.
- Covers Always Lie: Figuratively, that is. The second game's title screen features Enri in her demonic form, looking at the player; one would be forgiven for assuming she's the protagonist again, like in the first game. This time around, however, she's just a Deuteragonist; Ebel's the true star of the show, and that becomes completely clear as soon as the game actually starts.
- Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: To indicate his phlegmatic and apathic personality Ebel has them 99% of the time. The remaining 1% is when he has Blank White Eyes and is Blue with Shock at the sight of some monstrosity.
- Expy: Due to both his looks and apathic snarky nature Ebel has a lot in common with Koyomi Araragi.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The second game reveals that, instead of taking place in present day in our world, it's actually an Urban Fantasy kingdom that still has knights and magic, but also contains a Government Conspiracy, malevolent corporations, and even Cyborgs.
- Genre Shift: The original game seemed to take place in a normal world just like ours, but with a spooky purgatory building that serves as the main setting. The sequel reveals it is actually a “fantasy world of swords and magic” with a royal family and nobility, though mainly in the Urban Fantasy and Science Fiction genre, and it later goes into Conspiracy Thriller territory as well with the nobility running the evil Lobelia Corporation and having usurped/killed the royal family.
- Good All Along: D-029 is, according to Oliver, the being that will raise from the grounds and will destroy the world. But once Ebel gets to see her true form, it's shown that she's quite a nice demon and is not really keen in destroying the world. In fact, she joins the heroes.
- Gorn: The first game opens with a room painted thoroughly with blood and corpses littering the floor, and gets worse from there.
- Gratuitous German: Neun says "du mein gute!", German for "oh my gosh!", when seeing the explosion that D-005 caused through its laser eye beam.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Being a cyborg from head to toe except for his brain, Oliver is basically invincible. Unfortunately (for him), it also means he can't feel anything. And that's how the heroes are able to defeat him. Ebel plant Neun's flesh on him while he's stomping on him and so Neun can infect Oliver from the inside, leaving him harmless. Enri then plants the same cleaver Oliver gave her in the first game in his eye.
- Multiple Endings:
- The first game has two, one Bad End and one Good End.
- Bad End: If Enri goes to the exit without having done the spider's challenge, the Butcher will appear and kill her.
- Good End: If Enri gets the Demonic Axe and completes the spider's challenge, the Butcher will appear and try to kill her, only for Enri to turn demonic and kill him instead.
- The second game has eight endings, depending on several factors.
- END 1: Preparing for War: Ask Enri out and collect less than 10 Mysterious Stones. Enri will take Ebel to her house, the residence of House Lourve, where they discuss the events of the game. Neun shows up later and agrees that they all need to begin preparing to fight against House Lobelia and their allies; they decide to do so by making Emma's apothecary shop popular among the nobles, so they can brainwash them.
- END 2: Ban Neun from Eating Out: Tell Neun you are fond of her and keep the Ribbon. Ebel goes with Neun and Enri to a restaurant and discusses their battle plans against Lobelia, but Neun eats so much food that she gets banned from the restaurant.
- END 3: The Beginning of the Revolution: Agree to go on a date with Emma and ask Enri out. Ebel goes to visit Emma in the hospital, and Enri accompanies her. Emma reveals that her family is in league with House Lobelia, and expresses her desire to become the head of House White so she can combat Lobelia from the inside. Ebel and Enri go on a date afterwards.
- END 4: Promise and Commitment: Agree to go on a date with Emma. Same as END 3, but Ebel goes alone and decides to keep his promise to go on a date with Emma.
- END 5: The Days We Come Back To: Get to the ending without getting in anyone's route and with less than 10 Mysterious Stones. Ebel decides to go home, but it starts raining, so he goes into the now-empty school. He finds Amalie, his friend, in the school who is staying behind, and they both visit the library. There, Ebel starts realizing his feelings for her.
- END 6: Are We Dating?: Ask Enri out and collect all 10 Mysterious Stones. Same as END 1, but it continues to show Ebel on a date with Enri and a bit in denial about being on a date.
- BAD END: Another Executive: Get the ending without getting on anyone's route and collect all 10 Mysterious Stones. Same as END 5, but it continues to show Amalie shooting Ebel and revealing that she is a Lobelia executive who has been spying on him and the others. She then takes him hostage.
- TRUE END: Neverending Malice: Tell Neun you are fond of her, collect all 10 Mysterious Stones, and give the Ribbon to D-005. Ebel and the others decide to visit the purgatory facility one last time, but a door stands in the way bewteen them and a room with a lot of info. D-005 shows up and returns the favor by blasting open the door. We get some exposition about Lobelia and their desire to create a perfect demon. Neun notices that the passwords have been changed and some info is missing, so they decide to leave and be on their way. It is revealed that Amalie is responsible and has her own plans in mind for Ebel.
- The first game has two, one Bad End and one Good End.
- One-Word Title
- Repeating So the Audience Can Hear: Ebel in the sequel, due to his ability to read emotions, is the only one who can tell what Enri is thinking, and so tends to repeat it.
- R-Rated Opening: The very first room where Enri wakes up is a room with the floor and walls painted with blood and with corpses all over. This sets the tone for the Gorn that the rest of the game will be accompanied by.
- Scare Dare: Emma dares Enri to venture to the purgatory building where people are said to have died, mainly to humiliate her and get Lukas for herself.
- Schmuck Bait: Upon opening the first shutter doors, Enri will hear a noise coming from a hallway she exited earlier. Going to find the source of that noise even when there is no benefit to doing so will result in Enri getting Swallowed Whole by a worm.
- Sequel Hook: All endings of the sequel have the main characters preparing to go to war against the Lobelia Corporation and free the kingdom from their rule, while Amalie is revealed to be an executive of said group and is plotting against the heroes. The Author’s Note in the true ending confirms that a sequel is “in the works”.
- That Came Out Wrong: Lampshaded by Ebel immediately after he asks Enri if he can touch her restored arm.
- Ebel: Is it okay ... if I touch it?Ebel:note Ack, sorry! That came out weird.
- Tomato Surprise: Retroactive one due to the sequel. The first game appears to take place in a normal modern-day world with our main characters being ordinary school teenagers. The first parts of the sequel reveal that the characters are actually the children of aristocrats, and the setting is an Urban Fantasy kingdom.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Emma from and Alpha Bitch becomes a Lovable Alpha Bitch in the second game.
