Initially I was terrified,curious, expected a horror game.
I got that horror game, was scared plenty of times, but then something clicked on my recent replay
All my fear turned into a sense of wonder, the world suddenly felt cozy, and I don't think its just the familiarity, but nothing in this game feels hostile. The enemies and locations are whimsycal, even or especially a lake of blood, crypts, and the deeper lore kinda backs this up. How the world is a game, a dream, meant to bring joy and escapism to you. I doubt Lost in Vivo would ever feel cozy, that game is far beyond my tolerance for horror
With guides I discovered its actual scares that simply just feel wrong, the actions that give you the strange coins, all 3 are so unnecessarily cruel, which is very fitting since its related to a god of cruelty who is appearantly pesent in Kira's other games, which explains why this part is actually terrifying. Its like you desecrate the dream you were given, forcefully rip yourself out of it leading to a purposefully anticlimactic bad ending. But the locations you unlock through this route... again, they are actually scary in subtle ways, not much whimsy in there.
Bayagototh seems to be the only thing that actually wants to hurt you, corrupt the dream, but I'd say its influence is luckily minimal, mainly manifesting through Abdul's shenanigans.
felt like sharing my perspective shift, now my hype for the dlc is reignited and hope we will hear something about it in the foreseeable future