I suppose I can at least throw everyone a minor bone.
When I first started translating this, I kind of thought that most of the NPC interactions would have semi-cheesy stories about their deaths. "Mr. Fartypants wanted my money, so he poisoned me!" or something along those lines. But NOOooo no, some of the content is really, properly, dark. Not in a explicitly gruesome way, but more hinting at the horrors these souls trapped in Hell's buffer zone have endured. I was going over this one passage today - a menu description about a lever. (I will note that you won't use the item for the purpose described; it will be a trigger for a conversation with someone afflicted by it in the past...) Paraphrasing:
A lever. It seems like it fits into something to release some kind of blockage.
[further down]
This area is darker than elsewhere; I can't make out details very well.
This appears to be a lever used for opening stuck torture tools.
It has a certain presence about it.
It faintly... exudes the malice of those who were tortured and executed here...
Unfortunately, the space is extremely limited (as always), and I had to shorten it quite a bit. But it gets the job done.
The tone of the game is not really depressing, by any means, though. You're not necessarily trying to
redeem yourself, per se, but rather involve yourself in this place and with its inhabitants in order to change your otherwise certain fate which you will receive upon your final judgment. The whole thing borrows heavily from various Buddhist ideas about fate, karma, and the like. So this is not Hell according to the rough Western concept. But the inhabitants of this place did not end up here because they were good.
It's a fascinating game, and I'm excited about finally being able to play it through in English.
