This game isn't good. By most definitions of the word good. It's not scary, most of the myriad deaths seem purposefully slapstick and stupid (my personal favorite being one in which you walk past a phone and it starts to ring which scares you SO BADLY that you hit the wall so hard you die), the handling of issues such as bullying and CSA, while done with empathy for the victims, is poor at best and exploitative at worst, it tries to make you sympathize with a pedophilic rapist serial murdering teacher.

So why do I like it?

I think Misao is an excellent B movie horror video game. If you go in not taking it seriously and expecting it to be at least slightly problematic and tactless, you will have a good time. Especially if you play as the female character, who for some reason is an unrepentant murderous maniac. Hunting for the deaths is fun, as they get supremely ridiculous and are everywhere. The puzzles, while simple, are fun enough to solve. And watching the trainwreck of a plotline crash into your psyche forever is both entertaining and cringeworthy.

I'm willing to admit some of this may be nostalgia of my tween and early teen years (which despite the gore and some plotpoints is almost definitely the best age range to fully enjoy this game) when I was obsessed with anything mildly dark. But I do think anyone who loves campy Japanese horror and has a good sense of humor or high tolerance for bullshit will be able to have some fun with it.

The review will contain full spoilers for the true ending of the game as well as mentions of child abuse/death and gore.

I was not expecting Lily's Well to be as amazing as it is. A free little MS-DOS horror game I can kill some time with? Sure, why the hell not?

The style is amateurish in a charming way, wearing its indie roots on its sleeve with art reminiscent of adolescent Deviantart pages and anime art scribbles in margins by bored teenagers. It adds to the experience a lot, giving the game a youthful energy. Which fits, since the player character is only 9, and childhood plays an important part in the story's themes.

The atmosphere is tense while not being overbearing, calling to mind oddly brutal games from the PC-98 and classic RPG maker horror. It really reminds me of what it actually felt like to wander around alone as a child, doing things you've been told not to and touching things you know you shouldn't. When the music stopped, my heart wanted to jump out of my chest. The gore, while generally sparse, is used to great effect, really hammering in how dire things are and the consequences for getting things wrong. They also serve to further your sympathy for Lily. Watching her body fall to pieces at the bottom of the well or cry for help with broke bones knowing it was by your hand makes me feel this strange sense of horror and sadness not many games really pull out of me.

There are a few flaws holding it back. Namely that while hunting for the endings can feel rewarding, it's extremely tedious to collect the rope over and over. A manual saving system would avoid this entirely, and you could still keep the overall attempts and endings in tact as well. It also had quite a few technical issues, between lag and a few crashes, it made it more difficult to play and stay immersed. This I'm willing to blame on my old potato of a laptop, but it's worth noting games like Faith and Dead Plate ran very smoothly.

With all of that out of the way, I'd like to touch on the games biggest strength, that being its story.

Lily's Well, more than anything, is about surviving abuse. Lily's father is willing to let her die over and over and over (in my playthough, 27 times) in sometimes extremely brutal ways or even by his own hands. And all to stop her from growing into a person he doesn't want her to be or from doing things he doesn't agree with. Learning things he doesn't want her to know, having the knowledge to escape him.

Yet, Lily persists. No matter how many times she dies, or how much it hurts, or how much it scares her. She wants to save the girl in the well, herself. And in the end, the way she does it is not by hurting or killing herself, but by calling for help. Reaching out to someone who knows how to keep her safe. The original Lily. The girl her father didn't want her to be, the one who survived. They embrace each other in front of the burning remains of their childhood home, and the home of every single one before them.

Lily heals her inner child, physically and emotionally, and breaks this endless cycle of torture. The young Lily sobs, she still loves her father, she even begged him with a gun to her head to love her back. But deep down she knows that the pain of mourning her abuser is better for her than forcing herself to continue to let him torment her.

Lily's Well is a chilling horror masterpiece about self love in its truest form, and I think everyone who needs a story like this deserves to play it.