I think the first chapter was a good setup for which stories were about to come and what kind of mood should you expect from the game. Mell's 180º turn that made him suddenly have the courage to speak about his feelings while also treating his sister like shit made me dislike him because I thought he was genuinely a good person; this game is good at writing conflicted characters. Nellie's yandere stuff is eh, good for shock value but I don't like that type of character.
But it was great to get to know the mansion itself as a character, and the freaky stuff it could do like changing the color of the rose. Also having a baseline for its original state was important to see how things changed over the years.
The second chapter was my favorite so far, seeing something completely inhuman (at the time I thought it was a real monster because it seemed possible lol) take ownership of the place and use it as its killing grounds. Was surprised to see the white-haired girl here again and here's when I noticed that 1. she's in the main menu so she has to be important, and 2. by virtue of appearing in multiple eras she might be me, the Master, since her and the Maid are the only 2 supernatural beings throughout time. But I also wonder if she's just a descendant of the first white-haired girl and the game is trying to deceive me.
I never expected the beast to be the Merchant, I assumed he was one of the many people killed by the beast itself. When the second beast entered the mansion and was murdered, because Yukimasa said he was taller than it, I thought it was Javi trying to get his revenge. But then everything connected and it was his betrothed and that fucked me uppppppppppp, and then the game got unexpectedly political, with the beasts being what they are because of how different they look compared to the natives... and it was so tragic.
And you learn that even if the Merchant would cast aside his monstrousness, he himself was a monster as a human having enjoyed torturing others and acting innocently in front of Pauline. It was a very pitiful chapter and put me in The Mood.
I saw a memory of not-Alucard after leaving the second door, reinforcing my theory that this is not a singular white-haired person appearing throughout time, but a cursed bloodline that somehow retains past memories.
Someone who knows more about history than me may know the war that was being referred to in the last 2 chapters, but for some reason I thought the mansion was located in Europe, which made the third chapter made no sense since it was based in North America.
This chapter was damn brilliant by showing how despicable Jacopo could be and how badly could he treat his wife, making the player hate him, and then flipping the table and showing who was the *real* dipshit in that scenario. That illustration of Maria sitting on the throne was amazing. I told a friend that I thought Jacopo sucked a lot, and he responded by saying he wasn't the worst and I thought "how could that be possible?!", and then she started monologuing about her master plan. Too bad she kept gloating about it instead of killing him on the spot; weak as Jacopo may be, he was still a mafioso and would obv. try to kill her.
I also couldn't not notice how some concepts keep appearing in different contexts: the tale of the girl that would write letters in her locked room, the roses, the paintings, the stained-glass window. Makes me think this is a cursed loop where events are fated to happen similarly.
And now I'm in the fourth room. There was a bit of overheard dialogue at the very beginning, those written in italics and unnamed, that I wanted to re-read so I looked at the backlog and I saw a block of red text over there waiting for me. Seconds after I also saw how some phrases in the backlog had words ommitted from them even though they were visible in the actual game. I don't know what the hell is going on and I'm scared, help!
It also looked like the mansion was built by Mell's grandpa in the ~1500s so I don't know what to expect in the ~1000s, will the mansion be there?