A girl named Ib one day goes to the art museum with her parents, showcasing the works of the prolific artist Guertena. Suddenly, Ib finds herself alone. In poking around some more, she finds herself sucked into an alternate world where the works of Guertena live, where her life is tied to a rose. She soon meets Gary, a visitor that had also been taken in, and a girl named Mary, and together they resolve to leave the haunted museum world.

Kouri’s Ib, to me, is the face of RPG horror, the genre of simpler horror games made on RPG Maker or adjacent engines with a stronger focus on adventure game elements (RPG mechanics debatable). Yume Nikki? I consider it as more of an early walking simulator that’s only sometimes scary, as iconic as it is. Ao Oni? Kinda mid, to be honest. But Ib? That’s quisistential RPG horror.

In 2022, Ib got a commercial remaster for its 10th anniversary, and that’s what I played. I tried to ignore the feeling of my bones crumbling into dust, remembering that I played the original all the way in early high school. So hey, playing the remaster’s a nice trip down memory lane.

Let me start off by saying that this post is more about my general musings on Ib than a standard review. Thing is, what good is a standard review for a game that’s more than a decade old? A game whose average playthrough is around three hours long? I will say that it’s good and at the very least you should check out its original freeware release. Here’s a Safe-for-Work Sasuke stream of images, because it’s full spoiler talk ahead.

Ib is a silent protagonist, and is quite obviously a child, and the game is very aware of and takes pains to remind players of that. Reading some text has words replaced with question marks – not because they’re some unknowable text, but because she legitimately doesn’t know what the words are; she needs Garry in the party to explain the words, and he won’t explain the book that’s obviously porn because he’s a responsible adult. With regards to Garry, he acts as a babysitter toward her, looking out for her on things she can’t do herself. With regards to Mary, I think Ib being a child is what draws Mary to her; Mary is a painting of a child come to life, and she desperately wants to become real and have someone her age as a friend.

And two of the bad endings remind you of the weakness of a child. One ending has a fake vision of Ib’s mother tempt her away from salvation, trapping her in the museum. And in two others, it all becomes too much and she gives up in an emotional breakdown, for as brave as she is, Ib is still a child. I think Ib being a child adds a layer of drama and horror to the game. If the protagonist was someone older, the threats of the game would feel tamer because that sense of helplessness would be missing.

So speaking of someone older, we have Garry. Garry feels like the protagonist of a different game plopped into this one with his pretty bizarre appearance compared to all the adult NPCs. He’s the Stand user in the crowd of normal guys, I can tell you that. There are points where Garry’s controllable, but he’s not true horror game protagonist material in that he’s pretty fearful. Granted, he was on the verge of dying when Ib met him, but he’s still too much of a wet dog to be a true hero. That said, Garry is a dependable adult for Ib, giving her a pillar to rely on in the world of the unknown – and the catalyst for her emotional breakdown when he loses it.

Also gotta say, when Ib was big on tumblr, Garry made me feel things. Ib came out around the time I was still grappling with sexuality. Some anime guys made me feel things and I read some fanfics and was just like “haha neat.” But Garry lust was unavoidable in the circles I followed, a more standardized crush compared to Zacharie from OFF in terms of tumblr sexymen in RPG Maker. I kinda see him as a symbol of this time for me. And well, around this time I ended up getting a boyfriend who I met through these RPG Maker circles. We’re still good friends, and in fact, he’s also the one that gifted me the Steam version of Ib, thank you Val.

So now, a decade on, having figured out my pansexuality and weird boygirl gender feelings, I will say: I would try to get Garry pregnant.

While I’m at it, I should comment on the fact that some people kinda read a romantic vibe between Ib and Garry. I don’t see it at all, but goddamn, I remember the shipping freaks back then. The full body illustration of Garry in the remake posted above is honestly a lot fruitier than the original illustration, and I can’t help but feel that it’s to dissuade the idea of them being romantic, loudly saying that this is a gay man that just happens to be really nice. Well, there’s a section of Americans that’d somehow think a gay Garry is more predatory than an actual straight pedophile, but what can you do about those fucking losers?

But enough about that. How did Ib and Garry get into their positions? Why did the museum choose to spirit them away? Ib maybe could have been a victim of circumstance since she isolated herself, but that makes one wonder how often this happens. Maybe they were chosen by Mary, but she doesn’t control the museum, and can be argued to be as much of a victim of the museum as they are. Have there ever been other victims of Guertena’s work?

And that’s the most interesting part of Ib and its scariest aspect: we don’t know a goddamn thing. Why is this museum haunted? How did this even happen? Why are Ib and Garry the only known victims? Just who is Guertena? From all the in-game information you can find, he’s just a normal-ass artist that just puts a lot of love into his work. So much love that it made his artwork come to life – maybe.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it feels refreshing in the online climate where the horror of the unknown is downplayed. If someone else made Ib today the museum would probably be treated like some Backrooms shit where all the paintings are categorized threats that are readily apparent. Here’s the room where all the headless women are immediately kill on site, medium threat level. Here’s the fucking, uh, Saturn Devouring His Son room, maximum threat level, prepare to die idiot. Here’s a bunch of Five Nights at Freddy’s style lore for some of the stuff, Guretena’s alive and is just a wizard, prepare for more Ib installments about him and his past purple man crimes.

But in Ib, what you see is what you get. There are a lot of paintings that really are just paintings – sometimes ominous, but just paintings. There are some living artworks, but most of the time they’re just parts of puzzles and some of them are actually friendly. And so, it’s far far more striking when a piece of art actually is a threat. What you see is what you get, and sometimes you don’t see the threat until it’s lunging at you.

And that leads me to talk about the biggest threat, Mary. Mary is a tragic figure that wants a life outside of the museum, and being the only painting of a child by Guertena, she doesn’t have any proper friends until she meets Ib. Sure, other denizens of the museum look out for her, but the museum itself is a jail, as it cruelly demonstrates by killing Mary in the ending where she escapes on her own. So as far as we know, Mary truly had nobody until Ib.

Furthering Mary’s tragic nature is that almost all the endings are not happy for her. The only ending where she’s happy is the one where she murders Garry and takes his place in the real world, reality bending itself to make Mary Ib’s sister. Good ending for her, but is it worth sacrificing the life of a guy that didn’t do anything wrong – especially since he sacrificed himself to save Ib’s life from his killer?

But well, there’s one other ending: Welcome to the World of Guertena, the ending where Garry loses his mind and Ib’s too emotionally broken down. Mary could try that ending where she gets iced by the museum for escaping on her own… or she could instead choose to stick with Ib and Garry forever. Sure, the humans have lost it, but… this is the only ending where all three of them are alive. I dunno, part of me feels that this is a dark happy ending. Maybe they could all find solidarity in their new situation together, especially since Mary’s rallied all the hostile paintings around her. She’s even happy to be friends with Garry in this ending. To be honest, this might be because of my depressive mood over the past two months, but hey, I see this as the start of something new.

Going back to how Ib feels fresh to me, I have to talk about its nature as a remake. Some people will be disappointed that there’s no big new thing added beyond flavor text. But honestly? Good. I’m looking at the Silent Hill 2 remake that’s apparently going to have a playable origin story for Pyramid Head and honestly, get the fuck outta here with that. Pyramid Head has a symbolic purpose in the original game, he doesn’t need an origin! If the same minds were behind the Ib remake, we’d probably get some bullshit about Guertena that’d destroy the mysterious vibes, or a backstory for Mary that we don’t need because Mary not having a defined past is a motivating reason for her to become real. So hey, good on kouri for sticking to their guns.

What the remaster does do though is completely update the graphics. The original Ib was already a pretty game, but with the bigger tile sizes of the remake, sprites are now more clearer and more detailed. In fact, there’s a little zoom in function that doesn’t seem to have any purpose beyond letting you admire the art more. The remake plays around with darkness more for the sake of atmosphere, with handy light around things that are actually interactable so practicality isn’t sacrificed for style. Overall, I do think the remake of Ib looks better. Sure you’d be missing out on the scrunched up sprites of the original art style that I still find charming, but I really do like this.

Overall, I really enjoyed revisiting Ib, and in digging around, it was neat to see that it’s still getting appreciation. It’s getting merch from Goodsmile, it got Playstation ports earlier this year, and there was even an Ib-themed mystery solving event was held at a Japanese museum last month. As far as I know, Ib is the only thing kouri’s known for, but this is a strong first impression from them even a decade on. I don’t know if they’re working on something else, but I’d be excited if they are.