Oops, your video made me realize there was a map script error for the black screen before the credits roll. That's embarrassing to see after these years of nothing being said or pointed out to me. I decided to fix that asap, alongside some other issues I noticed when looking back at the game and re-playing it myself. I admit when I made the major edit in 2022, I scooped out the original game to re-organize everything, where the map organization and titles were all changed from this and I had to make sure the events had the proper map set to them. That seemed to be a leftover mapping issue I didn't spot. Not sure how I didn't catch that. Probably quite a bit of things leading up to just plain not being aware of it myself, primarily stress.
Apart from that: this game was made with the idea that nothing good could come from being in a place like that to begin with, from a character that believes nothing good could come from anything, especially himself. In his eyes, the best option is to not exist; to essentially return to nothing. The Heaven/Hell segment is to show two different great negatives within him, which he has to smother and essentially pretend isn't there, even if he's noticeably miserable or wishes to lash out to "stop it". One of these options does trigger the character to find "the truth" and have an urge within him from it. This allows him to have the option to unmask the others to make them disappear, though it ultimately does nothing in the grand scheme of things. For the character, it's basically just a distraction that still leaves him feeling unsatisfied, much like the Seiko events if he tries to follow her to the other realms. There are other instances of "game over" where the character wants things to end, and by the player's hand, he is able to consume the poisonous flowers to die instead of continuing the journey. Not having all the flowers collected means he can't painlessly erase himself at the end of the game. An ongoing theme makes his view appear to be "come from nothing, be nothing, return to nothing". He doesn't view his existence as having any significance, though he greatly impacted the realm himself and isn't stuck in a loop like the "lesser" ones in those realms. If he follows Seiko and doesn't unmask her in their last encounter, she too gets stuck in this loop.
If you do want to dip into the game again, first I suggest the new download, but also, there are a few easter eggs within it. There's also a constantly-available option in which you can make the character eat the poisonous flowers, which causes a game over. Since the flowers affect his existence in the end by erasing him with the help of the bleeding symbols, it can prematurely spark the end of his existence, though more painful. It would also be the only death he can experience, as he just awakes again like nothing happened if he happens to get badly injured (like if he was stabbed). I did make a text file that goes over where to find the easter eggs and what areas are of most interest if you want to trigger the flower event (just be aware it will cause a game over every time it's activated). My apologies if this doesn't make much sense or if my wording seems scrambled, I made sure to work on the game to fix the issue and test some things as well and now it's 3 AM.
