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Blood Lily Loop - TV Tropes

  • ️Sat Sep 21 2024

Blood Lily Loop (Visual Novel)

Blood Lily Loop is a 2024 RPG Maker Visual Novel developed by Sounding Stone and MaouCat Studio as part of the Physical Exorcism Series.

Despite the events of Case 03: True Cannibal Boy, Lily is still alive and Sally's friend circle has already graduated college. On January 6th, Sally, Lily, and Wiseman celebrate Lily's birthday and all seems well. Unfortunately, Lily kills herself and starts a time loop, with Sally partially remember the events of previous loops. Despite Sally's best efforts to change Lily's fate, it turns out Lily got involved with the leader of Nya's cult, who gave her a strange CD to give her the power to perform the time loop. Worse yet, this power comes with a terrible price that could doom the entire world. Can the Occult Club trio find a way to overcome Nya's machinations and escape the loop?

Has a Steam page here.

This visual novel contains examples of:

  • Ambiguous Situation: The true ending reveals that this game is actually in a previous timeline to the rest of the series, making it ambiguous what exactly changed between the timelines. The fourth photo frame confirms that Shadow will find a fourth victim, but it's unknown if that victim is Marty. Additionally, due to Sally's surprise at supernatural situations, it's ambiguous if she ever met Gla'aki.
  • Bittersweet Ending: In the Normal ending, Sally goes back to the present, but loses her memory of Lily. However, her mother sees the folly of joining Nya's cult and seeks to repair her relationship with Sally. When Sally eats a cookie, she's tearfully reminded of Lily, but the chances of them meeting again are low. This may seem like the sadder ending in the short term, but it won't lead to Marty killing Lily in the long term, making it better for everyone in the long term. Naturally, this ending isn't canon.
  • Call-Forward: In the true ending, Sally goes back to her college years to befriend Lily. They briefly discuss how they have the same blood type, which foreshadows that Marty will kill Lily and use her body to revive Sally on the basis of their blood compatibility.
  • Corrupted Character Copy: Seer Nye looks just like Enrico Pucci from Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Stone Ocean, is introduced handing a disc to Lily, is charismatic to manipulate others, talks about fated encounters, and wants to reboot their universe. However, while Pucci is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who genuinely believes resetting the universe will help humanity, Nye is a Bad Samaritan who wants to use Lily as a sacrificial pawn to bring Nya's son into the world, along with Nya themselves. In case it isn't already obvious, Nye is actually Nya's avatar, and only wants to reset the universe for their own amusement.
  • Curb-Stomp Cushion: The first battle with Nya's son results in a Total Party Kill. The son immediately sucks Lily's blood to kill her, and then he kills Wiseman before she can point out the similarities between him and the Dunwich legend, leaving Sally/Shadow with no means to exorcise him. Shadow manages to hold her own for a while due to her knife skills, but is eventually killed when the son stops time in order to outmaneuver her. Fortunately, she has barely enough life in her to recite the spell to strike a deal with Nye/Nya, allowing her to rewind time.
  • Death Activated Super Power: The time loop is activated when Lily chants Nya's spell with her dying breath, thanks to Nya's son in her womb. Unfortunately, there's a limit to how much she can do this, and when she uses the last of her power for the final loop, the spell doesn't let her keep her memories of past loops.
  • Didn't Think This Through: Shadow slits her wrists to cover Nya's son in blood, exposing him through his invisibility. Unfortunately, this leaves her too weakened to fight properly. In the next loop, she uses flour to mark him instead.
  • Downer Ending: If Sally chooses not to forgive Lily, the latter will break the time loop. Unfortunately, Nya's son is still in her womb, who breaks free and destroys the world anyways.
  • Evil Versus Evil: At times, Sally lapses into Shadow's personality and becomes a ruthless killer. Fortunately, Shadow fights for her and Sally's survival, which means she'll use her knife skills against Nya's son.
  • Fake Memories: Sally and Wiseman are given false memories of Lily joining their club and befriending them, and there are holes in this false memory that causes them to realize something is wrong.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Sally canonically breaks the time loop and chooses to go back to her college years to properly befriend Lily, since these events will lead to Case 03: True Cannibal Boy. This also makes Nya's "reward" to Sally and Wiseman come off as a Hope Spot, since Sally will become an undead and Marty will kill Lily.
  • Graceful Loser: Despite Sally and Wiseman killing Nya's first son, Nya is nonchalant about this outcome and removes the seed in Sally's womb too while offering the duo two different points in time they can return to. This is less out of honor and more because Nya finds the outcome entertaining. Additionally, their actual power over the world isn't threatened at all, so this comes off more as a way to toy with the humans and give them a Hope Spot, especially when Lily ends up dying sooner in the new timeline.
  • "Groundhog Day" Loop: Like in Extra Case: My Girlfriend's Secrets, the plot of the game involves a time loop. Unlike that game, the time loop happens in what is essentially a pocket dimension that looks like the real Hillpolly, but is separate from it. This space initially prevents any means of communicating with the real world, but on the final loop, the protagonists are able to make outgoing calls. Additionally, time still flows normally outside, so in the normal and bad endings where the party leaves the time loop, everyone outside thinks they disappeared for several days. The reason this time loop is less sophisticated than the one in Extra Case is because Lily is channeling the power of Nya's son, who only has a portion of Nya's power over time and space.
  • Jerkass Realization: In the normal ending, Sally returns to the real world and talks with her mother. Due to Sally disappearing for thirteen days, her mother realized how wrong she was to neglect her daughter in favor of Nya's cult and decides to become more attentive.
  • Kill the God: Defied. In the dream world, Nye/Nya warns Sally that it's useless to fight them, and that this isn't a shonen manga where a human can defeat a god.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Nye announces that he, as Nya, will put the universe's reboot on hold, Wiseman states that a thoughtless reboot would probably disappoint fans.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: If Sally forgives Lily for starting the time loop, she notes that after her father died, her mother neglected her and her relatives rejected her, leaving her very lonely just like Lily.
  • Prequel: Although the game seems to take place after Case 03: True Cannibal Boy due to being after Sally's college years, it turns out this is actually a previous timeline where Sally and Lily never became friends. In the true ending, Sally goes back in time and becomes friends with Lily, leading to the events of the main timeline.
  • Red Herring: The title screen shows Lily covered in blood while smiling and in the opening cutscene, she kills herself while chanting an ominous spell. This, combined with her declaration of becoming an evil spirit in Case 02 True Cannibal Boy, makes it sound like she'll be the game's main antagonist. In reality, this game takes place in an older timeline where Lily was never killed by Marty. Her spell is actually the result of her gaining a "seed" from Nya that allows her to rewind time by chanting the spell as she dies, but now she's unknowingly a host to Nya's monstrous son.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: Wiseman notes that going back to the past could risk repeating the events of the game and allow Nya to enter the real world again by planting their son in Lily. While she is right that this is a bad idea, she's wrong about Nya's plans, since the latter wants to change the past in order to make the future worse in different ways, such as using Gla'aki to wreak havoc and driving Marty insane.
  • The Stinger: The post-credits cutscene makes it clear that Sally's choice to return to the past to befriend Lily will lead to the events of Case 03: True Cannibal Boy. This is emphasized by Sally and Lily bringing up their shared blood type, which is why Marty will eventually kill Lily to stick Sally's head on her. After that scene, the game plays a trailer for Case 03 and advertises it as a sequel.