Awesome / Mary Skelter

Yes, you heard that right. This is a Darker and Edgier franchise made by Compile Heart usually known for their Neptunia games, yet they still manage to make these fairy tale characters as badass as they can get.

• The very fact that Compile Heart manages to collect so many inspirations from so many fairy tales(even more unknown ones) speak volumes of the care and attention in writing the story of these Fractured Fairy Tale characters. You gotta give Otono Yomoji massive props for this.

• The OST. Holy shit, the OST. Words alone cannot describe the tunes this franchise has to offer, which uses the violin to full extent. Head on over to that page for those.

• Hell, any moment that plays the song Skelter is guaranteed to be awesome, because you know the Blood Team is about to kick some serious ass. WARNING: Unmarked spoilers ahead!

Mary Skelter: Nightmares

• When Alice gives the player their first look at Blood Skelter, Jack doesn't give up on her. Not even after Red Riding Hood tells him that there's no way for her to come back. Not even when Alice herself cuts him open and laughs at it. He simply walks over to her, and gives her the biggest, bloodiest Cooldown Hug imaginable. You have to admit it, the kid's got some serious kahones, especially since he didn't know that his blood could cancel Blood Skelter at this time. And that was when fate started to turn for the Blood Team as a whole.
• When it's time to figure out who the traitor is, Jack proceeds to break down, bit by bit, every single piece of evidence pointing towards the professor actually being Snark. We clearly see him struggling more and more to come up with excuses for the various inconsistencies and such before Haru personally ends the charade. Props to Jack for having some serious detective skills.
• The secret boss battle against Hameln is probably the Crowning Moment of Awesome for her. No, your eyes aren't playing a joke on you: a single, normal Blood Maiden is facing off against the entire Blood Team and, if you haven't grinded for her, kicking their collective asses. Just too bad she doesn't show off this kind of power when she's on your side.

Mary Skelter 2/Remake

• Every single fight against one of the girls in Blood Skelter is quite deserving of a spot on this page. Especially Red Riding Hood's, as she had fought against a Nightmare by herself and survived until the eventual Mêlée à Trois. Yes, Blood Skelter is a very effective power-up, but that doesn't excuse her from breaking all of a Nightmare's parts solo. Also counts as Nightmare Fuel since it shows how utterly terrifying Blood Skelter’s power can be.

Mary Skelter Finale

• Right at the start of the game, Guillotine proceeds to collectively curbstomp some of the Blood Team's heaviest hitters, including the aformentioned Hameln. Now sure, unlike Hammy, she's nowhere near a normal Blood Maiden, what with being in a permanent Genocide state along with having whatever other buffs the Gore Suit grants her, but the fact of the matter is, she just beat multiple really strong Blood Maidens, including the first game's Superboss, like they were nothing!
  • Following their defeat, Hikari showcases her determination to save everyone. Despite being badly wounded from a sudden attack from behind, she still manages to muster up enough strength to teleport everyone to safety. Though they are separated, they are all alive. She goes even further when she creates a new Mary gun for Clara and sends her towards Gretel despite being in critical condition. Though she ends up in a coma afterwards, were it not for her, everyone would have died at Guillotine's hands. Newly born she maybe, a goddess is still a goddess.
• So Pyre's Blood Libido is an extreme urge to burn people, right? Well, one may have noticed throughout the series that most every Blood Maiden is controlled by their Blood Libido to some extent. Even Gretel, by far the most logically driven member of the Blood Team, who almost immediately compares Blood Libidos to masturbation, can't resist munching down on any sweets in her general line of sight. On the other hand, Pyre actively resists her Blood Libido's effects on her mind every moment of her life, and it works. Seriously, this girl has incredible levels of Heroic Willpower!
• Jack's plan to corner the master of the Massacre Pink, Yuuto Gatou. Clara's team are not holding up against the Devouring Armada Tower Nightmare very well, and it looks like Pyre is on the verge of dying, and for a moment she apparently does. After it leaves, satisfied with killing her, the remaining groups meet back up and Jack effortlessly picks apart Gatou's story's inconsistencies, such as fearing Marchen and going into hiding yet also knowing they'd never attack him because of his Witchcraft Core fragment, with far greater ease than he had with Snark. Once cornered by these lies Gatou insists that none of it proves a connection between him and the Massacre Pink, only that he's been keeping secrets before revealing his pocket watch and for Pyre to come in, revealed to be alive thanks to Mary's match being used to simply show the Nightmare a vision of it killing her, and call him "papa", finally blowing his cover and causing him to lose his composure and rant about Mary and the timeloops before bailing out to continue with his plans.
• Hell, the Final Battle with Yuuto Gatou is one of the highlights. After finally revealing his Gore Suit to the whole party and declaring his intent to end all life, the Blood Team make one final attempt to stop him. But don't expect it to be easy, because he will make you work for that happy ending, especially since he has a variety of attacks including his own version of Rage Rush, poisoning your party, inflicting Skill Seal, an AoE attack, and a chant that is capable of killing the entire party in one shot if you don't stop it. Catharsis Factor at its finest.
  • Also worth mentioning is his boss theme, Herculean. It starts slow, but once it gets going, its REALLY gets going. This theme is perfect for this boss, not only does this theme reflect Gatou's insanity and hatred blinding him from the truth but also the brokenness he has to endure, but also that he's a threat that the Blood Team must win against at any cost. Yet, there's always hope for them to prevail for a better tomorrow.
  • Most awesome of all goes to Jack. The first was his declaration of This Is Unforgivable! towards Gatou after killing his sister Guillotine in cold blood, and he's become the one person Jack will never forgive. But the next part is even better. After Gatou decides to jump off to his death knowing that the moon will fall on them and the world, Toh sacrifices himself to buy some time for the Blood Team and finally reunites with Cheshire as his Heroic Sacrifice, Jack then uses the Witchcraft Core Gatou left behind to wish for "nothing", restoring the world to its former state, while also de-powering the entire cast, so that no one has to fight anymore. After all those times of nothing but suffering for the Dawn, this is a much-deserved Earn Your Happy Ending indeed and shows just how far our once useless Jack has come.
  • In a way, this ending is also awesome as it invalidates EVERYTHING Gatou said as well, proving that there was still light in him (or rather, his younger self). Towards the end of the game, he kept calling himself human, and that he will never be like the "maggots" that ruined his life in the first place. Yet, despite his claims, he did all of those horrid things to the world just because of his desire for revenge, and his death may seem anticlimactic at first, but once Jack makes the wish, he does not appear again. This is a perfect end as well as the ultimate “Fuck You” for him, as while Jack did give Gatou what he would have wanted if he wasn’t so blinded by insanity, hatred and trauma, once he killed himself, he pretty much sealed his fate and condemned himself to Hell while Jack and the others became fully human and got to live in the restored world in peace. It's not the blood that makes you human, rather, it's the compassion and heart that makes them better than Gatou could ever be.