Night after night, the same dream of a guillotine. A headhunting serial killer. And the "knights" in black who follow soon after. Irrationality that defies the realm of common sense begins to assault and devour the city. Those abnormalities are abominations that seek to destroy everything Ren has built up with a level of violence far surpassing that fight from two months before. Unless Ren decides to change, he will die. And if he does, he won’t be able to return to his old life. In a world swiftly going mad, Ren Fujii alone crosses the boundary between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
Reviews View More
I'm impregnating Mercurius.
Masada really knows how to write his characters. They all feel very alive and well characterized. Mercurius in particular has one of the best character concepts I've ever seen and his reveal at the end has left me speechless the first time I witnessed it.
Although I do adore Dies Irae for it's pretty much filled with incredible fights, characters, emotional moments, music and amazing messages. I have to admit this series suffers from repetitiveness, especially in the first 3 routes.
Rea route is literally the pinnacle of this visual novel. Most of the best moments within the novel are present in the last 3 chapters of Rea route. With both ending 1 and ending 2 having great conclusions to the story. Without Rea route this visual novel would just be above average.
Overall though I would still say that Dies Irae is one of the best pieces of fiction I've ever consumed and it has some of the best character writings I've ever seen.
Although I do adore Dies Irae for it's pretty much filled with incredible fights, characters, emotional moments, music and amazing messages. I have to admit this series suffers from repetitiveness, especially in the first 3 routes.
Rea route is literally the pinnacle of this visual novel. Most of the best moments within the novel are present in the last 3 chapters of Rea route. With both ending 1 and ending 2 having great conclusions to the story. Without Rea route this visual novel would just be above average.
Overall though I would still say that Dies Irae is one of the best pieces of fiction I've ever consumed and it has some of the best character writings I've ever seen.
Dies Irae: Amantes Amentes is a quite polarizing visual novel for me. On one hand I don't have too fond feelings towards any of the first three routes, only really enjoying their endings and what they do for the final route. Yet on the other hand I believe that Rea route, the fourth and final one within this game, is truly mind blowing.
-
Each route stems from the same first 6/12 chapters called the Common Route, the choices within these are what locks you into one of the rest of the 4 actual routes. Kasumi, Kei, Marie, and Rea are the routes within this visual novel in that exact order.
-
The first three routes will be talked about within this one paragraph as, besides Rea route, I genuinely feel the same way about the routes. I honestly do not care about these routes. Although I can recognize their importance towards Rea route and understand how others can say they're mandatory to do I see no positives towards them within themselves besides their conclusions. The endings of each of these routes were all positives, however for the time investment that goes into each route it just isn't worth it to me. I initially dropped this series a while ago due to this issue within the first route yet due to some hidden masochism or a feeling of needing to finish it I decided to stick my way through it and wade through the garbage.
-
I truly cannot state truly how fantastic Rea route was. After some time I may need to come back and only replay Rea route in order to view it more positively as my thoughts upon it, although fantastic, are still muddied by the previous routes experiences. Everything within this story has been building up towards this and it was executed in such an amazing way. Ending 1 personally is my less favored of the two endings, however the conclusion to Mercurius was genuinely fantastic as well as the final conversation between Merc, Rein, and the girls. Ending 2 to me is easily the better ending, especially after truly sitting on it and thinking back upon it. The final three way fight, 'Amantes, Amentes', final talk with Lotus, and the conclusion itself are all genuinely so mind-blowingly fantastic.
-
Mercurius himself is a fascinating character and one in which I'll have to go back to and think about. Alongside himself, his dynamic with the rest of the main cast is very interesting too. Ren, Reinhard, and Marie are all fairly good too and characters I'll have to think about more to gather thoughts upon.
-
Overall this was a positive experience, but not one in which I could force myself to reread in its entirety anytime. It has it's positives but these positives are heavily shadowed by its own former inconsistencies and flaws.
-
TLDR; Rea route saved Dies Irae.
-
Each route stems from the same first 6/12 chapters called the Common Route, the choices within these are what locks you into one of the rest of the 4 actual routes. Kasumi, Kei, Marie, and Rea are the routes within this visual novel in that exact order.
-
The first three routes will be talked about within this one paragraph as, besides Rea route, I genuinely feel the same way about the routes. I honestly do not care about these routes. Although I can recognize their importance towards Rea route and understand how others can say they're mandatory to do I see no positives towards them within themselves besides their conclusions. The endings of each of these routes were all positives, however for the time investment that goes into each route it just isn't worth it to me. I initially dropped this series a while ago due to this issue within the first route yet due to some hidden masochism or a feeling of needing to finish it I decided to stick my way through it and wade through the garbage.
-
I truly cannot state truly how fantastic Rea route was. After some time I may need to come back and only replay Rea route in order to view it more positively as my thoughts upon it, although fantastic, are still muddied by the previous routes experiences. Everything within this story has been building up towards this and it was executed in such an amazing way. Ending 1 personally is my less favored of the two endings, however the conclusion to Mercurius was genuinely fantastic as well as the final conversation between Merc, Rein, and the girls. Ending 2 to me is easily the better ending, especially after truly sitting on it and thinking back upon it. The final three way fight, 'Amantes, Amentes', final talk with Lotus, and the conclusion itself are all genuinely so mind-blowingly fantastic.
-
Mercurius himself is a fascinating character and one in which I'll have to go back to and think about. Alongside himself, his dynamic with the rest of the main cast is very interesting too. Ren, Reinhard, and Marie are all fairly good too and characters I'll have to think about more to gather thoughts upon.
-
Overall this was a positive experience, but not one in which I could force myself to reread in its entirety anytime. It has it's positives but these positives are heavily shadowed by its own former inconsistencies and flaws.
-
TLDR; Rea route saved Dies Irae.
Dies irae is the story of a man who dreamed. It's as much the story of Ren and Reinhard, Marie and Mercurius as it is of Masada himself.
Incredibly ambitious and a bit too long, it's the game that most expresses the desire to create a story ive played in a while. It mixes everything that's cool in modern japanese urban horror with chuuni media and nazis and ties it all in a story about influences, legacies and authorship. By the end of Rea's route you'll be crying your eyes out at the sheer scale of the monster you just experienced and see it cross yet another mountain before gently decending down into a pristine lake. Play this if you want to experiences the highs and lows of an author with a lot of ambition and the jank to pull it through and fall apart again and again.
Incredibly ambitious and a bit too long, it's the game that most expresses the desire to create a story ive played in a while. It mixes everything that's cool in modern japanese urban horror with chuuni media and nazis and ties it all in a story about influences, legacies and authorship. By the end of Rea's route you'll be crying your eyes out at the sheer scale of the monster you just experienced and see it cross yet another mountain before gently decending down into a pristine lake. Play this if you want to experiences the highs and lows of an author with a lot of ambition and the jank to pull it through and fall apart again and again.
Easily one of the best novels I've ever seen (especially being the first one I read/played from beginning to end), although the plot is quite shallow in the kasumi and kei routes, I'm not saying they're unnecessary at all, as they show part of the story that complements the two main routes (rea and marie). But that's only it, complements. Honestly, the biggest point of this novel would be where the development of the protagonist and the charisma of the villains often exceed the brilliance of the protagonist himself. And the development of the plot throughout the main routes is simply “absolute visual novel”. My review? 4.5 (it would be a 5 if kasumi and kei's routes didn't exist to be honest, but especially kasumi's is useless.)
My favorite fictional character is a crackhead