OZMAFIA!! Hamelin Review

I wasn’t sure what to expect in his route. I had a little glimpse of him from Caramia’s route, but since it’s easy to start his route and it seemed rather short compared to the others, I decided to do his next. (To trigger his route, you reject the confession from Caramia, Axel, or Kyrie)

This is going to have spoilers for several key moments in his route. For spoiler-free thoughts, control-f “Final Thoughts”.

I found out a couple of new things.

One, time passes differently between the mafia higher-ups than the normal townspeople. Caramia mentions being alive longer than Fuka could imagine. Kyrie explains it further when Fuka goes to him for an explanation.

Essentially, there is a ruling class, which are the named characters you interact with, and the townspeople, the NPCs that you don’t. They age and die, they live under the protection of the rulers, and pay taxes to the rulers in return for that protection.

Err… that kinda seems like a wash from a townsperson’s perspective, but whatever, we, the player, are part of the ruling class, obviously.

The fact that they don’t age compared to the townspeople bothers Fuka, but Axel tells her that that’s how their universe works, so to speak, and Fuka realizes that she just has to accept it for what it is. Later, when she tries going back to the alleyway to rekindle her lost memories, she sees Hamelin and with the help of Soh, takes him to the church to help him return to health.

This route, despite being extremely short, made me feel a lot of things. I was a little wary to play him at first, to be honest, because he appeared in Caramia’s route and was… well… psychotic, to be blunt.

He calls Fuka an angel and constantly talks about how she’s too good for him. We don’t exactly know why. In his first ending, what he did is only alluded to. What we do know, is as part of the ruling class, he was put in exile for his crimes because he couldn’t be executed for what he did. The first ending is rather… sweet, considering the circumstances. What you do feel is that no matter what Hamelin did, meeting Fuka helped put him back on the path to being a good person again. If the rulers are truly alive for an eternity, perhaps sometime in his eternity he will be able to quell the demons inside him and earn forgiveness from those he caused suffering.

Though, by the second ending, the things he says… it’s certain he has some sort of mental disorder. He flat out tells you he has a voice in his head that orders him to kill. And that makes me even more sad for him, knowing there isn’t a way for him to get treatment in this world. But finding out what he did, and how he did it… well, he’ll need that eternity to earn forgiveness, if forgiveness is even possible. I know myself I would have an extremely hard time forgiving him for what he did, and I don’t know if I ever could.

What did Hamelin do? (scroll down if you don’t want to know) The voice in his head made him snap. He has the power to control animals. That means Caramia and Pashet end up under his control, being a lion and cat, respectively. They, among others, are forced to kill friend and foe alike. It was a giant bloodbath. And during this bloodbath, he does something that Robin Hood cannot forgive him for. Something Robin Hood is willing to torture him about. I’m talking Silence of the Lamb’s Hannibal Lector-style torturing. Saw/Hostel/whatever torture horror movie style torturing. It’s not mentioned in this ending, but I assume I’ll find out what that is in Robin Hood’s route.

 

Final Thoughts

I played his second, and I don’t think you should play his second. Probably wait until at least after playing Robin Hood, because I feel like the second ending spoils a lot of Robin Hood’s character and surprises. I haven’t screenshotted anything from the latter half of his second ending to prevent those spoilers.

The fade to black method of storytelling worked well with Hamelin, mostly because she could only see him during the day and the scenes reflected their limited time together. The last several scenes in the first ending worked because it was the first time in the entire game I felt like they were given proper breathing room.

That said, for the second route in a row, I feel like the author either hates writing action  or doesn’t know how. I say this because every time it’s time for something to go down action-wise, it fades to black and comes back after the action has occurred. This is particularly annoying because the scene transition screen takes about 5 seconds to go through. I am pretty sick of hearing that stupid little jingle that plays too. It almost makes me want to shut background music off completely.

But because the A ending is good in a tragic way, and the B ending is err… well, it’s unique, to say the least, I enjoyed his short story.

The romance of his story isn’t there but his character is rather interesting. How interesting? Caramia’s route was nearly quintuple the length of Hamelin, and I managed to screenshot 16 images, same as Caramia’s entire route. But I suppose when the character is psychotic you’ll have more to screenshot…

If you’re sensitive to violence and mental disorders, I wouldn’t play his second ending. Parts of it are rather intense, even with the fading to black at pivotal moments. But because it’s short and riveting, I’m going to rate his three hearts.

 

Notable Moments

I have a special place in my heart for snarky characters, I admit.

He drops plenty of hints that he’s not to be trusted, but Fuka does anyway. That’s a good thing for Hamelin in ending A, not so much ending B.

Fuka is the one who makes the first move, confession-esque wise.

Let your heart ache, this is the only time we see this face.

I feel like if this was a proper length and a proper route, not an add-on, I would have been crying at this part.

And… he snapped.

 

 

 

 

OZMAFIA!! is available at MangaGamer directly or through Steam.

Other OZMAFIA!! Reviews:

Caramia
Kyrie
Axel
Pashet
Scarlet
Hamelin
Manboy, Dorian Gray, Alfani
Robin Hood
Caesar
Soh
Final Game Review