perhaps the greatest love story ever written.
Pleasant surprise, one of my favorite VNs, easy.
Cried a lot
there is a house in fata morgana, and every day i am paying emotional rent for it
Down the winding forest path leading deep into the woods, the blue, green, and orange van sputtered as it made contact with the road’s various protrusions; that is to say, if it could even be called a “road” at all. Perhaps another word would better suit the zig-zagging trail of dirt stretching into the heart of that interminable tree line.
Grinding to a halt in front of a large, peculiar mansion – seemingly displaced from centuries prior – the automobile unceremoniously gave up the ghost.
“Like, where are we?” the young man in the green shirt inquired of his four companions. He was not what one might typically describe as handsome, but there was a certain allure to his lanky appendages, scraggly beard, and… unique voice. It is entirely possible that, with a fair amount of grooming, he could be considered modestly attractive.
“I’m not sure,” replied the man with the orange ascot, “but it seems we lucked out – there’s a large house not twenty yards in front of us!” His cocksure demeanor and optimism instantly made apparent his friend’s lack of masculinity by comparison, though there was something vaguely irritating about the way he spoke.
“Gosh, that sure is a creepy old mansion, though,” interjected the woman wearing a purple mini-dress. She was conventionally beautiful – suspiciously so, in fact – but did not outwardly project any positive traits aside from that. It was obvious from the way she and the previous speaker made eye contact that they were regularly engaging in carnal relations.
Turning to a page in the large textbook she had been lugging around, the bespectacled, orange turtleneck-clad young woman spoke next. “Jinkies! According to the Encyclopedia of Haunted 10th Century Estates, that’s the House in Fata Morgana!” She gave off the impression of being a know-it-all, but not to the point of inherent obnoxiousness; she was simply well-read.
“Ruh rouse in rhat now?” the final passenger of the doomed vehicle asked. This one was not a human at all, but a brown dog covered in black spots. (Though my knowledge of the animal kingdom is embarrassingly limited, my impression is that he was a canine of the Great Dane variety.) None of the other four seemed at all surprised that he could communicate in English, however broken it may have been.
“The House in Fata Morgana,” the bespectacled woman repeated. “It says here that a witch lives there!”
“Wow, that sounds perfect, doesn’t it gang!?” the beascoted man exclaimed in response. He appeared to be the leader of the merry band.
“A r-ritch?” the dog responded, noticeably frightened.
“Now, xxxxxx, everyone knows witches aren’t real!” the woman in purple reassured.
“Oh, and not just any witch – a cursed witch!” the bookish young lady clarified.
“Zoinks! A r-regular witch is bad enough! Like, count me out,” the skinny coward declared, promptly exiting through the back door of the van.
“Reah, me too,” the Great Dane quickly nodded in agreement, following suit. However, the moment his quadrupedal frame touched the ground, he gave a quick glance back toward the mansion, and froze in place. The green shirted-boy was already long gone, dashing down the road.
“What is it, xxxxx?” the leader asked of his faithful hound.
“I… reel rompelled to renter… Romething is rrawing me roward it…” the dog replied in a hushed tone, his voice quivering.
[A/N: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my story, please comment and subscribe if you’d like to see more! Sorry this one is so rushed, I only had a few minutes to work on it this week because my grandpa is in the hospital (my dad poisoned him so we could inherit his property, but don’t tell him I found out!). I promise the next one will be better! ^___^]
Grinding to a halt in front of a large, peculiar mansion – seemingly displaced from centuries prior – the automobile unceremoniously gave up the ghost.
“Like, where are we?” the young man in the green shirt inquired of his four companions. He was not what one might typically describe as handsome, but there was a certain allure to his lanky appendages, scraggly beard, and… unique voice. It is entirely possible that, with a fair amount of grooming, he could be considered modestly attractive.
“I’m not sure,” replied the man with the orange ascot, “but it seems we lucked out – there’s a large house not twenty yards in front of us!” His cocksure demeanor and optimism instantly made apparent his friend’s lack of masculinity by comparison, though there was something vaguely irritating about the way he spoke.
“Gosh, that sure is a creepy old mansion, though,” interjected the woman wearing a purple mini-dress. She was conventionally beautiful – suspiciously so, in fact – but did not outwardly project any positive traits aside from that. It was obvious from the way she and the previous speaker made eye contact that they were regularly engaging in carnal relations.
Turning to a page in the large textbook she had been lugging around, the bespectacled, orange turtleneck-clad young woman spoke next. “Jinkies! According to the Encyclopedia of Haunted 10th Century Estates, that’s the House in Fata Morgana!” She gave off the impression of being a know-it-all, but not to the point of inherent obnoxiousness; she was simply well-read.
“Ruh rouse in rhat now?” the final passenger of the doomed vehicle asked. This one was not a human at all, but a brown dog covered in black spots. (Though my knowledge of the animal kingdom is embarrassingly limited, my impression is that he was a canine of the Great Dane variety.) None of the other four seemed at all surprised that he could communicate in English, however broken it may have been.
“The House in Fata Morgana,” the bespectacled woman repeated. “It says here that a witch lives there!”
“Wow, that sounds perfect, doesn’t it gang!?” the beascoted man exclaimed in response. He appeared to be the leader of the merry band.
“A r-ritch?” the dog responded, noticeably frightened.
“Now, xxxxxx, everyone knows witches aren’t real!” the woman in purple reassured.
“Oh, and not just any witch – a cursed witch!” the bookish young lady clarified.
“Zoinks! A r-regular witch is bad enough! Like, count me out,” the skinny coward declared, promptly exiting through the back door of the van.
“Reah, me too,” the Great Dane quickly nodded in agreement, following suit. However, the moment his quadrupedal frame touched the ground, he gave a quick glance back toward the mansion, and froze in place. The green shirted-boy was already long gone, dashing down the road.
“What is it, xxxxx?” the leader asked of his faithful hound.
“I… reel rompelled to renter… Romething is rrawing me roward it…” the dog replied in a hushed tone, his voice quivering.
[A/N: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my story, please comment and subscribe if you’d like to see more! Sorry this one is so rushed, I only had a few minutes to work on it this week because my grandpa is in the hospital (my dad poisoned him so we could inherit his property, but don’t tell him I found out!). I promise the next one will be better! ^___^]
Kramer Hentai Adventures 5.
me at the maid: i am once again asking for your hand in marriage
There’s a deep seeded vulnerability to every significant character in The House of Fata Morgana, a vulnerability that is festering behind a thin shield of various defense mechanisms and a facade of the person they purport to be among others. “You instinctively accept as truth the events unfolding before you”, the title crawl declares. This could be taken at face value of course, one must accept the magical element of the story for it to hold any weight, but I also took it as a challenge of premise. The game entreats the reader to investigate the real people trapping themselves behind this fata morgana (a term for a type of mirage I embarrassingly only learned about after completing the game so if you also didn’t know, well, there you go) and observe them for the holistic human beings they are, beyond what they want or are compelled to portray themselves to be. Beyond this, I can say that narratively the game succeeds at interrogating themes of victimhood, cyclical abuse, vengeance, hatred, and personal identity with strokes of deftness and occasionally nuance as needed and that is the greatest praise I could shoulder upon it. Light spoilers for The House in Fata Morgana follow so if you're interested in reading this VN completely blind, be warned.
Now I just said that Fata Morgana’s thematic strength in relation to its fully realized characters is its greatest strength but I can’t help but contradict myself just to express how enthusiastically I have to celebrate its character art, background art, and music. These components alone are what I imagine most immediately captures every person who even mildly likes this VN so I cannot stress enough how much I would understand the argument that these are its greatest accomplishments. Every piece of background art, at least for the PC version, expresses these rough impressionistic outlines of indoor and outdoor environments that can be equally as crude and grimy and stark in visual texture and color as they can be soft and dream-like and enigmatic. There's an appreciable contrast between these dappled, almost amorphous background shapes and the beautifully detailed, porcelain-like character art realized by Moyataro. In the landscape of visual novels the character art is immediately distinct, sure, but even more than that it often allows for the oft-unsettling atmosphere to permeate through characters such as The Maid, The White Haired Girl, the Beast, and the Witch whose entire physical existences reek of uncanniness or horror or both. The CGs must bear mention here as well because the painterly quality of the facially expressive character art as well as their posing and framing within stark backgrounds is unforgettable.
Now, perhaps the most pivotal element in contributing to Fata Morgana’s atmosphere, which is equal parts dour, chaotic, dreadful, ethereal and occasionally euphoric, is the music. It's also the aspect of the game I was immediately enamored by the moment the eponymous title track coincided with the opening title crawl. The most apparent strength of the soundtrack of this VN is its willingness to let the reader steep in despairing moods accompanied with discordant tracks that can at times grate against the ear or overwhelm with a sense of discomfort and eeriness. Not every song is appreciable outside of its game context but given the eclectic variety and the distinct place that every song has in the soundtrack, I wouldn’t have it any other way. There is an abundance of vocal tracks, most of which are sung in Portuguese by Japanese singers, with different affects and vocal effects placed on them. This is certainly an oddity within the space of VNs as I understand it, but it's one I welcome given the sheer ability of the singer(s) in every song. Speaking of song placement, I cannot neglect to mention that in the case of the first half of the game wherein the reader explores four different doors in varying locations and time periods, the soundtrack is curated in a way that each door to each setting also opens a portal to a distinct sonic palate that makes each one have a greater sense of identity both within the world and in my memory. Altogether, the entire soundtrack is worthwhile and one of my new favorites in a game; I revisit at least a portion of it nearly every day.
There’s an anthological vignette structure to the first half of the narrative that is ostensibly only loosely tied by the mystery of the player character’s identity. It’s within this framework that I think Fata Morgana is most consistently impressive in its effective creation of small period pieces reflecting on sort of tangential themes like class disparity, avarice, relationships and their need for communication, the nature of man, race and gender identity. Many of these themes, while carrying over between vignettes, don’t exactly get fully realized explorations unfortunately (such as class disparity and race), but they do serve to unflatteringly portray the blemishes of the people and period in a manner that is coherent and establishes societal systems as being quite influential in the production of discriminatory and heinous acts that take place later in the story. The second door that explores the reality of a nebulous and foreboding beast that the Maid is catering to in 1707 was an immediate highlight following a tonally and atmospherically successful first vignette that played a little too close into reader expectations without much characterization of the brother and sister beyond their roles as tragic figures. This is a criticism I have of the first door, albeit one that did not impede my enjoyment of the first few hours, but it's also a purposeful trend in the first four vignettes (called doors) that pays off fantastically by the end of the fourth door as the realization that these tales curated by the Maid with tragic tones and cruel ends and all too poetic finales serve a dual purpose in punishing the characters within and obfuscating the truth from the player character.
Around the halfway mark of the narrative, the game asks the player to make an almost superficial, inevitable choice, one with a much deeper emotional resonance that I only realized much later. Without leveraging spoilers to entice any potential future readers of The House in Fata Morgana, I want to make it explicitly clear that this game is queer. I obviously cannot speak for the writer themselves, but Fata Morgana itself is a story very much predicated on the experience and themes of gender nonconformity that speaks in equal parts to intersex people and transgender people; the narrative crux pivots around this as a core element and it can’t be ignored, especially because of how empathetic and surprisingly delicately the writer handles the topic. The distinction has to be made, of course, between intersex and transgender people but with the understanding that intersex people can also be transgender, it is through this lens that Fata Morgana explores gender identity and it acknowledges this difference. There is of course some discussion to be had about the portrayal of intersex and transgender peoples in situations of despair and suffering and oppression in media, and I as neither cannot speak to it genuinely so I leave that in the hands of actual intersex and transgender people to unpack. In my limited judgement though, I think Fata Morgana takes a few missteps of language and drags out some sequences of suffering in a way that mirrors some sluggish pacing in the second half of the story in general, but ultimately affirms and celebrates these identities in a way that is some of the most respectful I have seen in media.
Briefly, I want to touch on the core themes of abuse, victimhood, hatred, and forgiveness. These are all inextricably tied together but what I found most compelling about their implementation in Fata Morgana, specifically near the end, is that the game never relents to a strict “cycles of abuse perpetuate hatred and violence and ill will and thus everyone is equally culpable and in the end nobody is really at fault(or everybody is at fault)” sort of mentality. Many of the characters in the game are fully realized in ways that often don't make them agreeable or even tangentially good people by the game’s judgement. The reader is asked to accept these characters not for their cumulative goodness or likeability, but for the human beings who have done good, bad, and everything in between that they are. All that being said, the VN also makes sure to emphasize that it is always in the hands of the victim to weigh the heinousness of the acts done upon them and determine whether they can forgive or cast off their abuser entirely. Several characters offer several different perspectives and decisions when presented with this query but it never creates a situation wherein the victim is beholden to meet their abuser(s) halfway. I can’t speak for others obviously but this was an intensely gratifying stance to me that the game reinforced constantly.
A lot of the elements of the game were similarly gratifying to me in a way that coalesced into a whole that consistently affected me. Yes, I teared up and cried on more than one occasion. I have some minor misgivings with the pacing and overly grave tone of the second half of the story, the relatively safe ending even though I somewhat made peace with it, underutilization of several key characters who could have used more fleshing out, and with some details of its exploration of gender and sexuality. All that being said, none of these came together in a way that meaningfully detracted from The House In Fata Morgana’s messaging, its characters or thematic weight. Perhaps the biggest tragedy surrounding The House in Fata Morgana, despite its notoriety in visual novel circles, is how little its merits and (relatively minor, in my view) failings are discussed or dissected, even among those who have played it, outside of overt characteristics like its art and music. Considering that I produced this review as a passionate, spoiler-skirting entreaty to play this visual novel, I am perhaps no one to talk as well. Maybe this will foster more discussion from new and old readers, maybe it won’t. So long as I contribute to the dialogue and even one person picks up this wonderful game, I can’t really complain.
Now I just said that Fata Morgana’s thematic strength in relation to its fully realized characters is its greatest strength but I can’t help but contradict myself just to express how enthusiastically I have to celebrate its character art, background art, and music. These components alone are what I imagine most immediately captures every person who even mildly likes this VN so I cannot stress enough how much I would understand the argument that these are its greatest accomplishments. Every piece of background art, at least for the PC version, expresses these rough impressionistic outlines of indoor and outdoor environments that can be equally as crude and grimy and stark in visual texture and color as they can be soft and dream-like and enigmatic. There's an appreciable contrast between these dappled, almost amorphous background shapes and the beautifully detailed, porcelain-like character art realized by Moyataro. In the landscape of visual novels the character art is immediately distinct, sure, but even more than that it often allows for the oft-unsettling atmosphere to permeate through characters such as The Maid, The White Haired Girl, the Beast, and the Witch whose entire physical existences reek of uncanniness or horror or both. The CGs must bear mention here as well because the painterly quality of the facially expressive character art as well as their posing and framing within stark backgrounds is unforgettable.
Now, perhaps the most pivotal element in contributing to Fata Morgana’s atmosphere, which is equal parts dour, chaotic, dreadful, ethereal and occasionally euphoric, is the music. It's also the aspect of the game I was immediately enamored by the moment the eponymous title track coincided with the opening title crawl. The most apparent strength of the soundtrack of this VN is its willingness to let the reader steep in despairing moods accompanied with discordant tracks that can at times grate against the ear or overwhelm with a sense of discomfort and eeriness. Not every song is appreciable outside of its game context but given the eclectic variety and the distinct place that every song has in the soundtrack, I wouldn’t have it any other way. There is an abundance of vocal tracks, most of which are sung in Portuguese by Japanese singers, with different affects and vocal effects placed on them. This is certainly an oddity within the space of VNs as I understand it, but it's one I welcome given the sheer ability of the singer(s) in every song. Speaking of song placement, I cannot neglect to mention that in the case of the first half of the game wherein the reader explores four different doors in varying locations and time periods, the soundtrack is curated in a way that each door to each setting also opens a portal to a distinct sonic palate that makes each one have a greater sense of identity both within the world and in my memory. Altogether, the entire soundtrack is worthwhile and one of my new favorites in a game; I revisit at least a portion of it nearly every day.
There’s an anthological vignette structure to the first half of the narrative that is ostensibly only loosely tied by the mystery of the player character’s identity. It’s within this framework that I think Fata Morgana is most consistently impressive in its effective creation of small period pieces reflecting on sort of tangential themes like class disparity, avarice, relationships and their need for communication, the nature of man, race and gender identity. Many of these themes, while carrying over between vignettes, don’t exactly get fully realized explorations unfortunately (such as class disparity and race), but they do serve to unflatteringly portray the blemishes of the people and period in a manner that is coherent and establishes societal systems as being quite influential in the production of discriminatory and heinous acts that take place later in the story. The second door that explores the reality of a nebulous and foreboding beast that the Maid is catering to in 1707 was an immediate highlight following a tonally and atmospherically successful first vignette that played a little too close into reader expectations without much characterization of the brother and sister beyond their roles as tragic figures. This is a criticism I have of the first door, albeit one that did not impede my enjoyment of the first few hours, but it's also a purposeful trend in the first four vignettes (called doors) that pays off fantastically by the end of the fourth door as the realization that these tales curated by the Maid with tragic tones and cruel ends and all too poetic finales serve a dual purpose in punishing the characters within and obfuscating the truth from the player character.
Around the halfway mark of the narrative, the game asks the player to make an almost superficial, inevitable choice, one with a much deeper emotional resonance that I only realized much later. Without leveraging spoilers to entice any potential future readers of The House in Fata Morgana, I want to make it explicitly clear that this game is queer. I obviously cannot speak for the writer themselves, but Fata Morgana itself is a story very much predicated on the experience and themes of gender nonconformity that speaks in equal parts to intersex people and transgender people; the narrative crux pivots around this as a core element and it can’t be ignored, especially because of how empathetic and surprisingly delicately the writer handles the topic. The distinction has to be made, of course, between intersex and transgender people but with the understanding that intersex people can also be transgender, it is through this lens that Fata Morgana explores gender identity and it acknowledges this difference. There is of course some discussion to be had about the portrayal of intersex and transgender peoples in situations of despair and suffering and oppression in media, and I as neither cannot speak to it genuinely so I leave that in the hands of actual intersex and transgender people to unpack. In my limited judgement though, I think Fata Morgana takes a few missteps of language and drags out some sequences of suffering in a way that mirrors some sluggish pacing in the second half of the story in general, but ultimately affirms and celebrates these identities in a way that is some of the most respectful I have seen in media.
Briefly, I want to touch on the core themes of abuse, victimhood, hatred, and forgiveness. These are all inextricably tied together but what I found most compelling about their implementation in Fata Morgana, specifically near the end, is that the game never relents to a strict “cycles of abuse perpetuate hatred and violence and ill will and thus everyone is equally culpable and in the end nobody is really at fault(or everybody is at fault)” sort of mentality. Many of the characters in the game are fully realized in ways that often don't make them agreeable or even tangentially good people by the game’s judgement. The reader is asked to accept these characters not for their cumulative goodness or likeability, but for the human beings who have done good, bad, and everything in between that they are. All that being said, the VN also makes sure to emphasize that it is always in the hands of the victim to weigh the heinousness of the acts done upon them and determine whether they can forgive or cast off their abuser entirely. Several characters offer several different perspectives and decisions when presented with this query but it never creates a situation wherein the victim is beholden to meet their abuser(s) halfway. I can’t speak for others obviously but this was an intensely gratifying stance to me that the game reinforced constantly.
A lot of the elements of the game were similarly gratifying to me in a way that coalesced into a whole that consistently affected me. Yes, I teared up and cried on more than one occasion. I have some minor misgivings with the pacing and overly grave tone of the second half of the story, the relatively safe ending even though I somewhat made peace with it, underutilization of several key characters who could have used more fleshing out, and with some details of its exploration of gender and sexuality. All that being said, none of these came together in a way that meaningfully detracted from The House In Fata Morgana’s messaging, its characters or thematic weight. Perhaps the biggest tragedy surrounding The House in Fata Morgana, despite its notoriety in visual novel circles, is how little its merits and (relatively minor, in my view) failings are discussed or dissected, even among those who have played it, outside of overt characteristics like its art and music. Considering that I produced this review as a passionate, spoiler-skirting entreaty to play this visual novel, I am perhaps no one to talk as well. Maybe this will foster more discussion from new and old readers, maybe it won’t. So long as I contribute to the dialogue and even one person picks up this wonderful game, I can’t really complain.
Absolutely wonderful
Pretty cool
This review contains spoilers
There are already tons of reviews full of praises, so here I will just focus on what I disliked, thus expect this review to be quite one-sided (this, of course, is just an excuse to rant)
I would recommend reading the prequel VN first to enhance the experience of the OG one, considering its mystery is worthless anyway, in case you have even a tiny bit of idea of where the story is heading (by knowing character designs, names, and a number of doors) - it is that kind of a story that you need to experience completely blindly and have room to speculate on everything along the way to be completely invested in it. Now sure, these details may seem trivial on the face value and not ruin the experience, but the thing is, that they help build the expectations and serve as the crucial hints for the story as you start experiencing the VN. Like, some people are saying things like ‘how is Morgana’s existence spoiled by knowing her character design, her name is in the title’, but in the story itself Morgana’s identity is unreliably narrated and thus it is part of the mystery at first and even her ‘clean’ face is some sort of a revelation later on.
Boggles my mind how do people say stuff like ‘we love Fata Morgana because of characters, not the mystery’ when mystery and its presentation is exactly what's supposed to make the perspective of these characters compelling, so how else are you getting invested? Of course, there will be people saying that they went into Fata with these spoilers and still ended up liking the story, that which is of course within the possibilities, but I do not particularly care about these examples as it is not what I am talking about here and changes nothing in their terms
How the mystery is structured seems decent-to-fine to me, but it is the general picture that disappointed me. Although the premise itself is also decently satisfying - Just like any other edgy Japanese story that's trying to give the hopeful message, it is also about the lack of connections, and all of the problems could be solved by characters just sitting and talking them out (cheese, I know), instead of overreacting everything, sure, but it is also trying to say how impulsive the human nature is and how it gets in the way of forming the relationships and how the resulting actions craft the twisted, fake perspectives (Unfortunately the reactions themselves are so overblown that it seems ingenuine to me, as well as how the all of the interesting concepts are pretty much discarded)
What I dislike is how gimmicky it is - oh look, we have stories full of tragedies that are an homage to Shakespeare and fairy tales, oh look we have a sexy maid, oh look we have different time-periods, oh look we have characters literally named after a saint and a witch... you get the point. Everything exists just for the sake of sensationalism.
And hardly anything here is over-arching and cohesive, since everything constantly makes drastic changes and you constantly need to be re-attached to things even after playing half of the visual novel.
Visuals are just pretty, soulless designs with very limited expressiveness and range, on top of the backgrounds that are just random pictures mixed with some cheap filters and borders. It's also inconsistent as the sprites keep changing in style for no reason whatsoever - on top of that, not only some characters are literal walking paintings that are hard to be taken seriously, but characters, that are not getting too much of a focus (but otherwise have quite high relevance), do not even have designs whatsoever (maybe not even the names) and in a good chunk of the scenes you end up seeing characters just standing all alone while talking to others, which to be fair makes the framework rather theatrical and results in turning it atmospheric in a way that can be appreciated, but there is no ‘acting’ so as for the feeling of the disconnection to be compensated. Now I am not asking for it to have literal actors doing expressions, but looking at some of the other visual novels (such as Muv Luv and Mahoyo), there is so much more that can be done with it.
Oh and some of the scenes that are supposed to hit you emotionally with how visceral they are, are just lacking in terms of CGs and you end up watching mere blood splatters, that's also taking away from the experience even further. They even shied away from showing an oh so disturbing scar on a woman’s body - I guess it would not have mattered either way as the character is too hyper-sexualized for it to have an effect and would still be distracting. It is almost completely relying on your imagination, so it might as well have been just a novel… It is not really using its medium's potential, so I would have preferred if it was a collection of OVA anime directed in a theatrical manner (like that one episode about Melos from Aoi Bungaku). But I have to admit that the reliance on imagination does warrant investment/immersion, in the same manner it does for the novels.
Prose… Well, I think for a medium that is generally infamous for its redundant prose, it’s pointless to talk about this exact aspect, especially when so many things may be lost in translation and thus it’s not really something the author is responsible for. Not to mention how the prose of Fata seems exceptional and well-written mostly because of how good of a translator it got to have and original Japanese prose is supposedly PTSD inducing, as I have directly heard from the Japanese readers. Aristocrats talking with slang and all. I have not even read any substantial argument as to why would Fata’s prose be exceptional, so there is that - there are characters that talk in a manner they are not supposed to talk and even if I were to ignore that, I do not really see a reason to praise never-ending conversations that are just exposition of emotions, instead of characters doing something actually interesting
Soundtracks are probably the best part, but still, a hit or miss, considering how sometimes they just absorb you into the scene with how heart-pumping and fitting they are, but in other cases, they just hurt your ear with how their momentum just does not fit the scene and vocals amidst dialogue do not help either with their stand out voice that keeps detracting the attention... There also are not any voice actors to compensate for the lack of sprites, sadly. Maybe it's just me, but they also resemble JRPG soundtracks too much and my immersion was breaking even more as a result. Another problem of mine is just how much of a difference is between the backgrounds and the OSTs - on the one hand, you have something that is trying to craft an atmosphere in a way to make you imagine the environment with its own depth of field, but on the other hand, you have a static, lifeless visual presentation that is clashing with it. I could see how these scenes can be enhanced with the help of the imagination once the scene ends and you can re-build them in your own mind so I would still give it props, but that does not really happen for me mid-way playing the visual novel, so the point that it was clashing in my experience still stands.
Setting is... I have no idea, it just is. It is random after-life or purgatory or something, it is not explained or hinted at properly or anything. There are random doors that for no reason serve as a cursed reincarnation and somehow they can also be faked... then it is also revealed they you can also do all sorts of magic by the power of will, which is in itself inconsistent, considering how sometimes they are able to do things and how they just are not and random things happen that were not wished by anyone. Why are they even able to do it if it is only Morgana who provided the curse? And why was she able to do it anyway? Not only I legitimately have no idea what the hell is going on the more the story progresses, but it also gives me all the reasons to not care about a single thing that has happened - it's just a gimmick house that merely shows to me how some randoms have died (well if I know that they gonna happen, why would I care) and how nothing I will do will have any effect on the story… Oh, right, why is the character even able to move and interact in the final door? Why would Giselle be a mere voice then? How are these people unable to understand the identity of the white-haired girl when they were the ones who made her anyway and why is she able to interact in the real world anyway?! Not to mention how uninteresting presence she has, literally doing nothing for the whole run, just exists to have parallels or something. She is somehow a separate entity in the real world and in the... dunno, somewhere? How do these people get reincarnated if their souls drift around and why they get reincarnated only once anyways?
Someone could say that I am nitpicking and should instead maximize my suspension of disbelief to indulge in the narrative, but I refuse to do so in case of stories that do not have anything satisfying enough to compensate for its shortcomings to me
Regarding the ‘take you on a journey through the different time periods’ I would say that the events here are taking place in the same household for 80% of the screen time at the very last and none of the periods have been exceptionally explored either way (they just feel mere homages that are not trying to stand on their own with their own unique input on the table), on top of not even having the fitting visuals - like my friend mentioned ‘I like how this is supposed to look like a victorian European city and it has modern pottery and the roads aren't covered in horse feces’.
Characters are simple and random, to the point you can't even understand why do they even exist, to begin with, and the story does not even have banter between them to make them feel like actual personalities and they just talk and talk and talk about their emotions they can be understood quite quickly, to the point that you keep guessing whole sentences at the beginning of each one. I have a hard time understanding why people love these characters so much about Fata’s cast (well, aside from their ideas, of course) when these characters are barely doing anything, to begin with and feel more like they were spawned to do their single fixed role to the bitter end. It's especially hard to care about them when you know that after 2-3 scenes they will overreact to something and just die in a meaningless, rushed and edgy manner - because some background characters are mad. How am I supposed to care about the CHARACTERS if first I am not convinced that they are human? Especially when they are merely made to suffer and I already know that about them for the get-go? Hell, their character ‘climaxes’ also get repetitive as you move towards the ending and you start expecting that amidst the tension characters will just start feeling bad and move on, nothing else, really.
They all also accept magic rather strangely. background characters are overreacting everything and label everything as evil, satanic and so on without confirming anything, but whenever it comes to the main character - not only do they never give in to these rumors and never assume such things on their own, but they are never even get affected, never terrorized/frightened much by such unknown and supernatural things that are not really established as a norm in their lives or anything, they just carry on their lives.
The work does not really understand the 'twisted' perceptions of varied individuals (there is more to it than just being optimistic or pessimistic), as everyone admits to the same old morality and does not conflict it with a wide array of beliefs, superstitions, and whatnot. Here you either are a kind partner (being victim of something/someone and forced to do something being their only 'flaw') who keeps being idealized with or evil incarnate. Well I guess there is Yukimasa as a sole exception, but him being bewitched by Michel (as well as being seen by Pauline, but that does not fix the issue to me) so easily was quite disappointing to say the least - really underestimating the stubbornness of human nature
That would not be the case if Fata had some other novelties that could pique the interest, but it really does nothing aside from demanding empathy from the player. As well as 'mysteries' that only really consist of 'how did this guy turned into psycho', which is quite a corny experience when the answer is always either voodoo magic or abuse.
Morgana - titular character, who was... abused and life never gave her freedom to live her own life... so now she is cursing the souls of those who wronged her, but... her perception was also damaged and thus twisted? So then... where are the other characters that wronged her... like her mother... and what are Giselle and Michel, who have never met her, doing in the 'house'? no idea, no idea... She is completely unlikable and 'gets bored' of abusing the souls after Michel proves the capabilities of sympathy towards her and probably regrets giving up hope on humanity. I do not know, man, traumatized people won’t suddenly get good, their trauma will surely get over them and they will commit something all again, that’s the most interesting part, but her character arc ends here? Yeah, the story ‘knows’ how to dig a hole by putting characters in as miserable as it gets predicaments, I guess, but how does it go above? ‘Get a lover who will be with you in your darkest hours?’ What am I supposed to take away from the story? I do not believe that these characters are redeemable, so why is the story putting the idea down my throat? I mean, sure, I can understand the sympathy/empathy towards them, that they were not just spawned evil in this world, but it is easier to advocate for them once they are dead and turned into souls because the only thing that left for them is to be freed, as there is a whole eternity of opportunities for that - but there are no souls in the real world and the consequences remain permanently. Sure, you could say that Morgana has not forgiven (as if she has any right to forgive them anymore) them for what they have done, but these were may as well be unreliable.
Regarding her twisted perception, that's the whole point of Morgana's character, that she is unable to properly look at things in an objective manner because of her trauma, but then somehow proceed to make a perfect copy of Michel or something?
Regarding her godly powers... why do they even exist? why does she even have them? I would understand if the work sneaked in ambiguous details as if demanding from the players to connect the dots by themselves and achieve various interpretations of what is really going on at the higher plane of existence and what kind of unreachable and incomprehensible beings are present there, but this is not the case here - details are just nowhere to be found... Morgana is just randomly born with magic powers, uses them for a bit, the world does not start caring about said powers further than just drinking her blood (while from various religions we can see how messiah attracts way more relevance in the world and shifts the destiny of the whole world, not just a singular house, just by a mere presence) and then stop using her powers up until she dies... then she is allowed to use her 'sacred' powers for the opposite, devilish, matters for some unknown reason. Neither point nor sense can be found here.
She is foiled by Michel, which is also strange, because we do not even know why would all these 'jesus figures' would be born and why would only Morgana be with magical powers and why would she would exist
simultaneously with the white-haired girl (be in the real world or in that 'ghost world' or whatever, handing out the sword to Michel out-of-nowhere) when she did not even have DID when she was alive traumatized or why would she even think she is Michel(le) or something. Foil feel as forced as it gets.
Her identity is quite obvious since Morgana is pretty much the only character who has no identity for a good amount of time and DID through several forms is just a common technique in the medium. BUT the story is still trying to throw the most forced red-herrings known to mankind at you for some reason (concealing things in the text and showing them as - - when characters are meant to be just talking) and repeatedly twisting the identity by constantly revealing someone else to be thinking that it is, in fact, them - for no reason whatsoever.
That being said, she is interesting conceptually - a girl born as something more than human, thus she was never perceived as a human being, everyone being more interested in her larger-than-life identity eventually shaped not only her perception of the world and herself, but also her deeply rooted nature, which gives her internal conflicts resulting in her double identity as people's perception towards her transforms from the saint to that of a witch - that which leads her to both accept the identity of the witch (as she was tainted from her point-of-view too) and still do the bits of kindness.
Message being that societal labels are pretty much irrelevant on the grounded level and that they are merely weaponized by higher ups for their own good and that has consequences over the masses. But would have been better if I were to witness her being an actual human being, though - I do not think execution and her personality do the justice to the concept.
All in all, no matter the era, she will either confront her deeply rooted issues both in her and the society/system or she will end up self-sabotaging all of her longings.
Now of course it is perfectly fine to highlight how deeply rooted expectations laid on people melting their psyche and asking people to see people as people, themselves, but what I find strange about this is how she clearly is not human and that has always been the root of her problems, which is way more than just someone placing expectations on you. So when these very traits are treated as just the backstory and the characters are actively trying to ignore them just to view her as an average persona, that to me does not really communicate anything regarding to the fundamental issue.
Giselle - well she is just another historical girl who got a job because her family needed money and is expected to have sexual relations with the boss... nothing exceptional about her, up until she randomly gets turned into immortal (idk how, don't ask, writing is just nowhere to be found here - I could somehow make sense out of affecting someone else's psyche, but how do you turn someone into zombie witch? And how come for so many hundreds of years people shrug her mysterious existence off just by saying that 'she must have been working here for a while'. For one, she does not even look that old and two, nobody has lived here for two generations to notice how she just does not change? Yeah I just can't buy that) and... she just gets sad after hundreds of years... that which gets miraculously 'cured' after a while, instead of leaving permanent marks into her character, as if nothing had happened... So the concept of immortality is not really explored with her - the only interesting part about her character is just used as a gimmick… a sexy maid as a means to not lose hope in humanity. I liked how some pathetic randoms forced her to blame things on Michel, that which had an emotional culmination in the fifth door - and both of them got close by venting each other’s flaws, as well as realizing their own ones, so it was pretty touching, as it may as well be the most sincere and satisfying way of opening-up and thus bonding, rather than just sitting and calmly talking about each other - but that's pretty much it.
Which brings me to the scenes of rape and the abuse in general - How are these nobles getting away with literally anything they are doing? Not to mention how superficial and unreasonable said actions are. Like, what's with having public rape attempts? A noble teenager comes into the house of another noble and randomly decides to assault someone, but makes up an excuse as if he was drunk and gets away with it, nobody says anything. There is also an instance when the boss is trying to rape her in their own house, with several people there, including hysterical wife - like, may try to be cautious? Ask someone to get you a maid that will be okay with sex or something? Anything? They can make a living for someone else’s whole family (by the way, where are they), right? So, for instance, how are they unable to go to the brothel? Why even send Giselle to Michel? What did these guys expect? Giselle would not tell Michel what happened? Michel would kill her? Yeah no. Forced.
On another note, she strangely is not being called out for being a passive bystander (at the very least) of so many atrocities that were happening in front of her all of these years.
Talk about repercussions and call outs, the romance between Michel and Giselle is quite strange - first, a rape victim is running around with open cleavage for quite a good amount of time in front of a man for some reason (and the story even turns that into comic relief once Michel randomly touches her breast and they just make 'feels like rat' joke about it). Two, they tried to kill each other and somehow just talked it out... Like, yeah, empathy may make you understand someone so you forgive and realize that you two are in similar shoes, so you believe that they are actually good, sure... But why is that the case in-between them? Not only they are two drastically different personalities with drastically different upbringings and problems they have faced both externally and internally, but they also forget it right away that they did bad to each other out of their nature - as the lurking suspicion and overthinking should remain... Instead they just confess to each other, while not really having anything else to do with their lives and not wanting even for a bit to go out somewhere else, not being done with that damned place. And three, Giselle's questionable future aside, Michel without consent forces Giselle to remember things she does not want to remember, hurting her deeply with such behavior - so... Why do they end up as perfect, unconditional couple regardless of so many internal and external problems influencing their mindset?
Their interactions as a couple also come out rather cringe-worthy to me
Yeah, romance has always been quite questionable here... Like with the third door, accompanied by another passive love interest that is White-Haired Girl... She never starts holding a semblance of grudge or anything negative, really, even after being locked up for several months and does not really have any character/personality on her own aside from his husband, who she has only seen once doing something considerate (not romanticized at all)... Then there is that Jacopo who is presented as someone who was just a bit late to save his marriage... Yeah, there somehow a glimmer of hope for his relationship that was being crushed not because of himself alone, but because of some other human being (Maria), despite him being a massive scmbag, who treats everyone like trash (but then for that gets his parent blamed, as he himself is just a boy who struggled with brainwashing because he is not actually such a freak... Who believes in that?)
Michel - hmm... his character goes two ways... one is 'how miserable would it be if we were to put a hermaphrodite in the past' that which is not an exceptional idea (Not to say that it makes the character bad (quite the opposite, it raises contradictions within the character and he gets defined well) just that I have seen it in other stories, such as Shigurui, so it's hard to get interested again) and does not offer anything aside of suffering... and the second way is just how much of a saint s/he is - which is weird for someone who is being cynical around the family at first and no one in the environment really affirms that saint-hood... but it goes on such ridiculous levels, that he 'cures' people of their 'aggression' (for the lack of better word) by merely talking about their 'alternate selves' and then he gets hailed as a saint in a heavy-handed manner as well (like yeah, I noticed his name and how he is standing in front of backgrounds full of saints, chill and stop looking down at readers). Michels disposition to be more talkative and sociable feels more like the writing requiring him to become that way in Door 8 rather than natural development for him. Although I like the part in which his image of his own idealized brother gets crushed and how that experience allows him to help out Nelliel's relationship with her brother - I wish so much that every door was as lengthy as the eighth door to be full of such interactions
Talk about being Jesus, is not that kind of a contradiction regarding the themes of identity here? For Morgana, it is irrelevant whether she is a saint or a witch, because one can be both and thus labels become pointless (although to be fair she has not done anything to be referred as a saint - since her death), but what about Michel being presented as clear-cut saint? Do not give 'yeah he was trying his best, but emotionally he disliked three men' when he has not been defined by these emotions there.
He does not really affect anything and we have no idea how the setting operates, as well as how there are no proper hints towards the happy or bittersweet future, but the ending still wants to give a hopeful message, despite being a forced tragedy throughout the whole run - completely ingenuine. I was constantly being reminded of anime named Princess Tutu, which is all about criticizing authors that put all sorts of devices and whatnot to force the story towards culminating into the tragedies and love that aspect wholeheartedly
It is also weird seeing him coming out of his cynical phase just because of Giselle and buying everything she says so easily, despite how she clearly even sold him out for her own good, so when the guy has only such selfish people at every corner of his life, one would think he would remain cynical. But Giselle is that cute, I guess.
The plot is basically meaningless, the character is merely observing some random, disconnected, and simple stories that end in patterned tragedies that you have no reason to care about, considering the pacing that equals the speed of light the moment characters stop rambling about their feelings. Not sure, you need to have a terrible attention span to consider it as a good one (to be fair my attention span is also quite short, but it breed these other problems for me). Oh, you were interested in what happened to the characters after the tragedy occurred? Were you interested in the setting and seeing how connected details were affecting each other to lead from one period to another? Well, too bad for you, we never cared about such trivialities. There really is no coherence whatsoever. I guess it gets some semblance of plot since the fifth door, but really it's just a poorly structured drag with nothing much in it, the whole story is told through individual and boring flashbacks and then you get to the last door. I still have no idea how so people are trying to sell Fata as if it was taking the players on the ADVENTURE through several different periods when 90% of the time the player sits in the house alongside the maid
Oh and, the most amusing part is how literally none of the conflicts ever get resolved. All of the plot points end in the simplest, tragic way because characters do not even think about finding out some unique ways to fix the problems, and aside from the character that gets sad in the afterlife, we have no idea what happened to other characters that were responsible for the most crucial of the plot development and what happened to them - well, they probably died of sadness because that's how every human being's life goes in this universe, I guess. Only meaningful thing here probably is 'move on' aspect, but I do not want to hear that from dead people that are ready to be reincarnated with no problems in their next life for some reason. At least do not bring the conflicts that are not supposed to be 'resolved' through the 'moving on' and 'empathy'.
Recontextualization is also abysmal as these details are not really being added in the context of the first doors themselves, because characters in the first doors are completely different incarnations of their original selves and thus do not really have much connection to each other and you just look at the ‘parallels’ (be damned). The only thing you can probably do is to judge them from a different perspective after hearing their stories, but I am not really convinced enough... now sure it is still good that it gives you the room to enjoy the re-play, of course, but that comes off with a price of making the whole first run completely lacking in the hook department, as you can't really solve anything and the overarching plot is virtually non-existent up until you finish at least the 70% of the story. So if you are not into a collection of little mysteries in each door, there really is no other novelty to keep your interest/attention - and even if you were into such mysteries, they are very predictable, so you understand almost the whole picture in each case, before finishing the doors.
Door 1 - That was the instance when I actually liked this VN, as it seemed distinct enough and conflicting character traits were very well implemented in the dialogue, but alas it ended up as some spoiled brats whining about their predicament and losing their mind in a blink of an eye, instead of coming in terms with the reality... Mell is just a cowardly guy who is being torn in-between the ideals of her sister and the hardships of reality between religion and the business - as he fails . Needless to say, he is completely unlikeable and is not progressing at all - he just seeks comfort in the white-haired girl and that also results in complications (also forced one, as the character and characters in her backstory could actually done literally anything else and it would feel more natural (say, artist getting another job)). One would think Mell would have been disillusioned after understanding what that girl actually was and would have tried to escape from her (a girl intentionally trying to ruin your family and all, you know), which would be a norm for him, but oh well.
and the door suddenly ends after 15 min long climax and my feelings were left hanging. There was parental emotional abandonment as well, but I did not find it compelling as the dad himself had no progression or/and exploration of said actions (or lack of thereof).
Without giving as details to speculate what would have happened in the future this is just a very cheap ordeal.
Also not sure why Nel settled on merely cutting the hair of the girl, instead of killing her. That does not really fix her problem in any shape or form.
Door 2 -That was the instance when I ‘paused’ this VN for good. So a BEAST appears... and then the twist is that the BEAST is... a SADIST... shocking, I know. At first, it somehow wants you to believe that the literal monster is somehow becoming a human (again, nothing exceptional, especially when it has no other context for a while - there is no in-between scenes for his gradual transformation for us to have the proper sense of its value and it is solely used as killing machine of the guests), which is a ridiculous idea... although later it gets revealed that it's just a twisted perception that somehow stems from him being a sadist and being called out for his race... I do not really know if that was a realistic exploration of anything psychological, it seemed too over-the-top to me. Maybe Morgana affected his mind? But I am not sure about that because Morgana did not affect that way neither Michel nor Giselle. Not to mention how he had no problems seeing the Maid and the White Haired Girl like proper human beings, but for some reason his girlfriend is an exception.
Another problem is how the story gets detracted to the point of tonal whiplash with an introduction of some naive girl, that repeats and repeats her naivety and dies in a brutal manner but I hated the girl and it was also too over-the-top, again, so if I have felt anything, it would be a satisfaction - and also a child, whose parent was killed by the beast, but instead of having a damaged psyche, he just acts like a random introverted boy from the 21st century that somehow drops 'interesting' views, that should not make sense, considering he should not be that educated to begin with and should not word things like that. The cherry on top is, how the village somehow blames the victim child TO BEING UNABLE TO KILL A BEAST ALL ALONE. It is a cartoony ordeal at this point. Like, guys, literally every frightened-of-a-scary-house villagers I have ever seen in the media always go and burn the damn house, so… what stopped you to do so?
You could say that the twist and message were how these deeds that are usually pointed towards made-up images of the monsters in actuality could be done by our beloved representations of the human race, but I think this door would have benefited of this idea if it was used as a prologue door, considering we as players would not have any idea that there were no actual monsters in this story (coming from the first door, I think we can already assume that) and it would serve nicely as it would have been the most surface step of the ideas that Fata Morgana is trying to convey. For a story that is trying to set up the criticism of naivety and romanticism, I think it is not really doing a good job up at properly providing ideals and just comes off as edgy 'haha, you are such a child for believing in ideals, now suffer', but at the same time, ends on a romantic/idealistic note regardless - both achieved in a forceful manner. So if the author himself can not naturally make his views flow through his own work and has to rely on the forced devices, how am I supposed to believe in whatever he is trying to tell me with his work?
Door 3 - Jacopo is such a sensitive child, that with barely any proof just gets enraged towards a girl that he should know very well, as she is his wife, but somehow he has only interacted with her only once in his life. He somehow has that inferiority complex towards noble, rich women, that which is not explained - I also have no idea how he can explain how no one bats an eye when her wife is locked somewhere in the house, in a room for SEVERAL MONTHS... why is he so insecure? And if he is so insecure, how does he manage to have a successful business and 'mafia' of some sort? Yeah, his dad was trying to brainwash him, but he clearly is an emotional wreck as a result and has not really done anything of that sort. Well, anything besides the 'romance' tends to be an afterthought and a just another discarded theme in each of the doors, unfortunately.
Oh, and the door ends with Jacopo miraculously being able to somehow kill a girl (awfully accurate aim for someone so insecure, especially while being in haste and aiming at his beloved childhood friend), who had him on a gun-point... if anything, Maria was the one who deserved to survive here, but no, everything needs to be bleak. And even if I liked Maria, she was still quite disappointing in the role of villainess... her satanic laugher aside, she could have had some competent goals and motivations, alongside petty emotions to counter/contrast the irrationality of the couple, but no, nothing. Everything is an afterthought here, after all. Now to be fair, I just liked the twist and the idea behind it, but the way she ‘disconnected’ the couple was also quite implausible (exchanging the letters for months was especially absurd, as it does not seem likely for hyper insecure Jacopo to not take suspicion towards Maria just because she is a childhood friend as he should have overthinked that as well and at least ask other maids to keep track of things in secret)
Talk about the dad, why is his whole character/personality being an asshole who conveniently pop-ups to say basic cynical stuff? What is wrong with parents in general here, why does this thing feels like some anti-parental movement? No redeeming qualities whatsoever, all of them are just psychos
Now you could say how he may remember his 'sins' from his previous life (as in a body memory or whatever... or soul memory... Jesus), but that makes no sense, considering how it can't be explained by the rules of the setting, so I don't really care. Heck, it is not even foreshadowed or anything, so who cared about that 'recontextualization'? It won't suddenly replace my initial experience and it makes things even worse when the witch is supposed to be blamed for everything - like, evul Maria was being blamed for it either, so what does it change? Not to mention how lazy the whole 'yeah it was not too good but hey the witch arranged it with the means that makes no sense whatsoever, so it is suddenly a 10/10 door' thing sounds. No, I do not admit to such non-sense, whether the witch did it or not, the door should make sense through the humane means and not 'it was all magic' (to blur the line between the witches and humans, on top of that)
Door 4 - basically a FORCED filler to make a message about how FORCED the interactions can be made in romantic tales but the reality is oh not like this at all... self-unawareness here is hilarious, considering I do not find this story in its entirety to be realistic, at all. It just feels too meta for no reason at all and it is also a story she managed to remember for centuries to cling to the hope of them getting together? Well leaving the positive stuff as nostalgic bits in the memory does seem realistic enough to me, so it is fine I guess. It is just Michel coming back as he made the change in her character quite irrelevant as the whole appeal of the march of time and separation is how after the fundamental changes two personalities do not click to each other in one way or another - be it the external factors such as environment or the internal factors such as personality traits being changed or new ones being acquired and all - but none of these were present at the end of the day in their dynamic.
I keep hearing how The Maid is deliberately hiding things from these doors - how is she even aware of such capabilities of her own - and heavily altered the fourth one or/and Morgana actually made this whole door up on her own, somehow - It seems rather strange to me that it is possible to make up, fabricate the stories in the doors themselves? How can you make something up out of someone else’s memory bits that can be viewed as if you were watching a TV? ‘It's just magic?’ I don't really get it, from where would she even learn that? She just hid the truth that it's a fake door for some reason? Hell, how is she even able to ‘reconstruct’ Michel out of thin air and turn into someone that can’t even be distinguished from the original one, especially when she did not even remember him properly or at all? even if she was not the one who made this door, then how else would there be a fake door.
Door 5 - problems repeat - two characters just talk and talk 80% of the time, but unfortunately they have nothing interesting to talk about... 10% is random disconnected things that happened and 10% is the sudden tragedy… really, it is just a generic romance, I have no idea where the appraisal comes from, these people have not been watching movies, I guess. Well, they actually vented and formed a relationship, so it was not as miserable as the previous ones, which is a breath of fresh air. I just disliked how they forgot that they would not have been able to get away with suddenly arriving at the family house and getting away with it. Oh and it was rather strange in the middle of the door, the random people being scared of a ‘monster’ that looks so pretty. Not even one human being had a different enough personality to at least throw something towards someone who looks so fragile as obviously is not a monster? I think they should have had enough adrenaline as well.
the shift in tone is also quite jarring on here. I could understand if this was the first door, making us care about the characters, unaware of what may come, but... here it is just place in the middle of constant misery? It has been pretty visceral and fast paced before, but now it wastes time on slice-of-life things (that does not even make sense for its time-period... meditation? enlightenment? really now) as if nothing has happened? I am afraid I can't get invested in that.
Door 6 - how Morgana is trying to corrupt Giselle, who was corrupted by a random village in a blink of an eye in the previous episode... but somehow Morgana can't get under Giselle's skin for hundreds of years... just because she remembers Michel... romanticization through the character rewrite is off the charts. Oh there was also Morgana’s backstory, which was uncommonly good as it does blur the identity of a girl, whether she is a saint or a witch. Unfortunately, I found everything surrounding it to be hyper edgy. Like, why is it even being narrated, I am getting whole individual doors for randoms like Yukimasa, but I can’t get one for the main antagonist? Lol, alright. I dunno how does a child gets brainwashed into thinking that she is a saint that shall never sin when that’s not very childish to me; I dunno why her mom allowed her saint-ly deeds to kick-start if she was so cynical, what did she expect (was it a forced contrast to Michel? Morgana getting treated positively (at first, at least) for being special, meanwhile Michel was being tortured? To be fair Michel was indeed named as a saint, so their dynamic should probably viewed as a foil, but I did not mean the names here) and then it’s just suffering that I have no reason to care about and feels like I am yet again being forcefully drained.
Door 7 - I already talked about Michel's backstory... It is just Michel reacting to things and not doing anything, even in his own door and then Michel gets magically saved by Giselle... Oh there is also a satanic girl in this door, who randomly comes to Michel and tortures him/her, as if the story was not cartoony enough already. I would have liked it if these characters came to terms with their problems after so many years and somehow went on compromise and tried to adapt with one another, instead of just sending Michel away out of nowhere.
I am not so sure that evocating the pity is the best way to deal with these themes.
That said, the very existence of this plotline is strange. These layers have always been present within Michel - him standing in front of holy thing as if Fata was written by Zack Snyder to symbolise him being a Jesus figure and as well as secret about Michel's body being slowly revealed, that which serves narrative of perspective very well - but as if that was not obvious enough, we now need to indulge in several more hours of pure misery just for the story to put it down our throats just how much of a saint he is by with excessive violence having him hanged on a cross by his brother for virtually no reason and then of course be resurrected. Then somehow that brother is somehow expected to be atoned or something, despite acting all evil even as a ghost (why is he even there)
Best part, of course, was when we were witnessing the drastic changes of Michel's body, but everything else leaves much to be desired.
Door 8 - The episode starts with the hidden identities of the men, but the girl’s identity is not hidden and we see her being called a sister… like why hide it then if you are going to make it so obvious?
To start with the positives that are minimal, well… I like the idea of using saint blood or whatever it is, I don't even know why it is. Despite being edgy, it does blur what exactly is the truth behind it, what is the motive of using said blood, no one should be able to tell that. There was also some semblance of banter between secondary characters so at least there is that. You are somehow able to see what actually happened before everyone died. Like, Morgana did not know these stuff, right? So by whom were these events crafted? You are somehow able to interact with the characters... you also know since the start that all of your actions will bear no fruit, but somehow it is still served as a plot twist. And about the story in the door itself... well... our saint's 'talk no jutsu' somehow is able to change the minds of hardened assholes with no consequences whatsoever (broken fingers aside, but they were useless and lack of fingers won't affect future developments (neither in conflict, nor in bed), so there really is no value in their loss) and... that's pretty much the 'climax' of the 30-40 hours long build-up. Seriously, the guy we knew was sadistic on unhinged, uncontrollable levels, somehow is not losing any sense and conveniently stops once his beloved appears conveniently… then he starts praising the random lunatic as Jesus in a blink of an eye. Well Jacopo is a loser so there were no difficulties there, so its not even a climax… then random magical things happen again and we also see how sorry they are in front of Morgana… Yeah, okay, that was not very interesting. Why do I care whether Morgana gets satisfied by that? Well of course people start feeling bad once consequences come to bite them. At least they had goals and motivations here (a bit too late, though). Why did I waste 50 hours on something so simple and obvious? Nothing actually happened here. Fata Morgana is about people getting dehumanised by others who have no understanding and have expectations too high or too low for other individuals, which is a good starting point... but at the end of the day Morgana calms down after its revealed how whatever happened was the fault and mistake of some specific bad actors and that she can't be mad after hundreds of years of angry (self-)sabotage, while nothing is really questioned and Michel just acts how any priest could act.
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Now sure you could say that motivations of these actors does imply that the source of problems they all share is not caused by them, but the conflict itself is still portrayed as individual oriented where Morgana has to see good in them and forgive them all on her own and that is where the story ends. Morgana, she who has been doing the same thing the world has been doing by goading these actors in other doors and yet no one really pays attention to that, also had to forgive herself since the existence of WHG implies the self-sabotage but end of this door just makes her consciouss that she
replaying to finish this section
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Well it also gets revealed that a silly boy Jacopo over here is actually a pedophile who likes 12 years old girl, that which quickly turns into a joking matter thanks to Maria who says how she was knee deep in dick at her age jokingly and to enable their relationship. Obviously this is terrible so I will leave it at that.
After the door is finished, Michel and Morgana (she is 'redeeming' herself, you see) will free the soul of the tormented, which is sweet and all, but I would not care about the souls, would I now? Sorry but I also do not care about the whole reincarnation thing and find it whatever - they are reborn as identical beings, in the same environment and are magically attracted to each other? If that was the finale (from my understanding, that is) it is quite forced I daresay, there is no reason for this situation to occur but it does. Oh and I do not remember Michel's brothers ever deserving to be redeemed either, so why are they shoehorned into the story AFTER the climax? The structure is all over the place. It does not even make sense how could Didier be forced to brutally massacre his beloved brother, when everything in Fata's universe reeks of corruption, so it should have been perfectly within the possibilities to take care of his brother in one way or another - but he did not do anything.
Can't remember a narrative that is cheaper than that of Fata Morgana - every event is contrived and convenient and simple characters barely do anything, barely change, just talk and spoonfeed you with details. basically the opposite of what an actual mystery that is trying to explore the perception should be - an omnipresence of the lack of credibility through the completely unreliable narrator, that expects from YOU to 'solve' the rabbit hole by yourself, settle on one 'truth' or just accept it as it is, an unsolvable ordeal and do not give in to mania, improve your own life with the infinity possibilities within in you reach (a la Umineko). After all, everything is in the eye of the beholder and the truth never gets reached by mere talking, but quite the opposite, interpretations and retellings further complicate the rabbit hole
Shameless recommendation section btw, read Ravages of Time for the same theme - specifically, how the cultural shift affects the perspective and how we judge the history and legends by re-interpreting the interpretation of those people that had different perception of these words to begin with and more.
All in all, if you don't care about the characters, just like I do not, it is going to be extremely hard to find any merit in this story. In case of the prequel I have to say that I enjoyed it way more, as it focused only one story with the best characters from the OG, accompanied with more side-characters and more slice-of-life interactions that made me able to care about the characters and lack of magic also helped quite a bit - unfortunately it also has its own problems, as its not only lacking in the plot-department (stuff that is supposed to advance the plot is quite random and gets quite easily off-screened) as its not only as edgy as the OG in climactic scenes, but also has fatal problems regarding standing on its own, considering it was not written as self-contained story - for one, its not finished in a satisfying manner in case we won’t take the OG into the account and two, if we take the OG into the account, then the experience of the Requiem seems underwhelming as most of its content was heavily spoiled in the original visual novel.
I would recommend reading the prequel VN first to enhance the experience of the OG one, considering its mystery is worthless anyway, in case you have even a tiny bit of idea of where the story is heading (by knowing character designs, names, and a number of doors) - it is that kind of a story that you need to experience completely blindly and have room to speculate on everything along the way to be completely invested in it. Now sure, these details may seem trivial on the face value and not ruin the experience, but the thing is, that they help build the expectations and serve as the crucial hints for the story as you start experiencing the VN. Like, some people are saying things like ‘how is Morgana’s existence spoiled by knowing her character design, her name is in the title’, but in the story itself Morgana’s identity is unreliably narrated and thus it is part of the mystery at first and even her ‘clean’ face is some sort of a revelation later on.
Boggles my mind how do people say stuff like ‘we love Fata Morgana because of characters, not the mystery’ when mystery and its presentation is exactly what's supposed to make the perspective of these characters compelling, so how else are you getting invested? Of course, there will be people saying that they went into Fata with these spoilers and still ended up liking the story, that which is of course within the possibilities, but I do not particularly care about these examples as it is not what I am talking about here and changes nothing in their terms
How the mystery is structured seems decent-to-fine to me, but it is the general picture that disappointed me. Although the premise itself is also decently satisfying - Just like any other edgy Japanese story that's trying to give the hopeful message, it is also about the lack of connections, and all of the problems could be solved by characters just sitting and talking them out (cheese, I know), instead of overreacting everything, sure, but it is also trying to say how impulsive the human nature is and how it gets in the way of forming the relationships and how the resulting actions craft the twisted, fake perspectives (Unfortunately the reactions themselves are so overblown that it seems ingenuine to me, as well as how the all of the interesting concepts are pretty much discarded)
What I dislike is how gimmicky it is - oh look, we have stories full of tragedies that are an homage to Shakespeare and fairy tales, oh look we have a sexy maid, oh look we have different time-periods, oh look we have characters literally named after a saint and a witch... you get the point. Everything exists just for the sake of sensationalism.
And hardly anything here is over-arching and cohesive, since everything constantly makes drastic changes and you constantly need to be re-attached to things even after playing half of the visual novel.
Visuals are just pretty, soulless designs with very limited expressiveness and range, on top of the backgrounds that are just random pictures mixed with some cheap filters and borders. It's also inconsistent as the sprites keep changing in style for no reason whatsoever - on top of that, not only some characters are literal walking paintings that are hard to be taken seriously, but characters, that are not getting too much of a focus (but otherwise have quite high relevance), do not even have designs whatsoever (maybe not even the names) and in a good chunk of the scenes you end up seeing characters just standing all alone while talking to others, which to be fair makes the framework rather theatrical and results in turning it atmospheric in a way that can be appreciated, but there is no ‘acting’ so as for the feeling of the disconnection to be compensated. Now I am not asking for it to have literal actors doing expressions, but looking at some of the other visual novels (such as Muv Luv and Mahoyo), there is so much more that can be done with it.
Oh and some of the scenes that are supposed to hit you emotionally with how visceral they are, are just lacking in terms of CGs and you end up watching mere blood splatters, that's also taking away from the experience even further. They even shied away from showing an oh so disturbing scar on a woman’s body - I guess it would not have mattered either way as the character is too hyper-sexualized for it to have an effect and would still be distracting. It is almost completely relying on your imagination, so it might as well have been just a novel… It is not really using its medium's potential, so I would have preferred if it was a collection of OVA anime directed in a theatrical manner (like that one episode about Melos from Aoi Bungaku). But I have to admit that the reliance on imagination does warrant investment/immersion, in the same manner it does for the novels.
Prose… Well, I think for a medium that is generally infamous for its redundant prose, it’s pointless to talk about this exact aspect, especially when so many things may be lost in translation and thus it’s not really something the author is responsible for. Not to mention how the prose of Fata seems exceptional and well-written mostly because of how good of a translator it got to have and original Japanese prose is supposedly PTSD inducing, as I have directly heard from the Japanese readers. Aristocrats talking with slang and all. I have not even read any substantial argument as to why would Fata’s prose be exceptional, so there is that - there are characters that talk in a manner they are not supposed to talk and even if I were to ignore that, I do not really see a reason to praise never-ending conversations that are just exposition of emotions, instead of characters doing something actually interesting
Soundtracks are probably the best part, but still, a hit or miss, considering how sometimes they just absorb you into the scene with how heart-pumping and fitting they are, but in other cases, they just hurt your ear with how their momentum just does not fit the scene and vocals amidst dialogue do not help either with their stand out voice that keeps detracting the attention... There also are not any voice actors to compensate for the lack of sprites, sadly. Maybe it's just me, but they also resemble JRPG soundtracks too much and my immersion was breaking even more as a result. Another problem of mine is just how much of a difference is between the backgrounds and the OSTs - on the one hand, you have something that is trying to craft an atmosphere in a way to make you imagine the environment with its own depth of field, but on the other hand, you have a static, lifeless visual presentation that is clashing with it. I could see how these scenes can be enhanced with the help of the imagination once the scene ends and you can re-build them in your own mind so I would still give it props, but that does not really happen for me mid-way playing the visual novel, so the point that it was clashing in my experience still stands.
Setting is... I have no idea, it just is. It is random after-life or purgatory or something, it is not explained or hinted at properly or anything. There are random doors that for no reason serve as a cursed reincarnation and somehow they can also be faked... then it is also revealed they you can also do all sorts of magic by the power of will, which is in itself inconsistent, considering how sometimes they are able to do things and how they just are not and random things happen that were not wished by anyone. Why are they even able to do it if it is only Morgana who provided the curse? And why was she able to do it anyway? Not only I legitimately have no idea what the hell is going on the more the story progresses, but it also gives me all the reasons to not care about a single thing that has happened - it's just a gimmick house that merely shows to me how some randoms have died (well if I know that they gonna happen, why would I care) and how nothing I will do will have any effect on the story… Oh, right, why is the character even able to move and interact in the final door? Why would Giselle be a mere voice then? How are these people unable to understand the identity of the white-haired girl when they were the ones who made her anyway and why is she able to interact in the real world anyway?! Not to mention how uninteresting presence she has, literally doing nothing for the whole run, just exists to have parallels or something. She is somehow a separate entity in the real world and in the... dunno, somewhere? How do these people get reincarnated if their souls drift around and why they get reincarnated only once anyways?
Someone could say that I am nitpicking and should instead maximize my suspension of disbelief to indulge in the narrative, but I refuse to do so in case of stories that do not have anything satisfying enough to compensate for its shortcomings to me
Regarding the ‘take you on a journey through the different time periods’ I would say that the events here are taking place in the same household for 80% of the screen time at the very last and none of the periods have been exceptionally explored either way (they just feel mere homages that are not trying to stand on their own with their own unique input on the table), on top of not even having the fitting visuals - like my friend mentioned ‘I like how this is supposed to look like a victorian European city and it has modern pottery and the roads aren't covered in horse feces’.
Characters are simple and random, to the point you can't even understand why do they even exist, to begin with, and the story does not even have banter between them to make them feel like actual personalities and they just talk and talk and talk about their emotions they can be understood quite quickly, to the point that you keep guessing whole sentences at the beginning of each one. I have a hard time understanding why people love these characters so much about Fata’s cast (well, aside from their ideas, of course) when these characters are barely doing anything, to begin with and feel more like they were spawned to do their single fixed role to the bitter end. It's especially hard to care about them when you know that after 2-3 scenes they will overreact to something and just die in a meaningless, rushed and edgy manner - because some background characters are mad. How am I supposed to care about the CHARACTERS if first I am not convinced that they are human? Especially when they are merely made to suffer and I already know that about them for the get-go? Hell, their character ‘climaxes’ also get repetitive as you move towards the ending and you start expecting that amidst the tension characters will just start feeling bad and move on, nothing else, really.
They all also accept magic rather strangely. background characters are overreacting everything and label everything as evil, satanic and so on without confirming anything, but whenever it comes to the main character - not only do they never give in to these rumors and never assume such things on their own, but they are never even get affected, never terrorized/frightened much by such unknown and supernatural things that are not really established as a norm in their lives or anything, they just carry on their lives.
The work does not really understand the 'twisted' perceptions of varied individuals (there is more to it than just being optimistic or pessimistic), as everyone admits to the same old morality and does not conflict it with a wide array of beliefs, superstitions, and whatnot. Here you either are a kind partner (being victim of something/someone and forced to do something being their only 'flaw') who keeps being idealized with or evil incarnate. Well I guess there is Yukimasa as a sole exception, but him being bewitched by Michel (as well as being seen by Pauline, but that does not fix the issue to me) so easily was quite disappointing to say the least - really underestimating the stubbornness of human nature
That would not be the case if Fata had some other novelties that could pique the interest, but it really does nothing aside from demanding empathy from the player. As well as 'mysteries' that only really consist of 'how did this guy turned into psycho', which is quite a corny experience when the answer is always either voodoo magic or abuse.
Morgana - titular character, who was... abused and life never gave her freedom to live her own life... so now she is cursing the souls of those who wronged her, but... her perception was also damaged and thus twisted? So then... where are the other characters that wronged her... like her mother... and what are Giselle and Michel, who have never met her, doing in the 'house'? no idea, no idea... She is completely unlikable and 'gets bored' of abusing the souls after Michel proves the capabilities of sympathy towards her and probably regrets giving up hope on humanity. I do not know, man, traumatized people won’t suddenly get good, their trauma will surely get over them and they will commit something all again, that’s the most interesting part, but her character arc ends here? Yeah, the story ‘knows’ how to dig a hole by putting characters in as miserable as it gets predicaments, I guess, but how does it go above? ‘Get a lover who will be with you in your darkest hours?’ What am I supposed to take away from the story? I do not believe that these characters are redeemable, so why is the story putting the idea down my throat? I mean, sure, I can understand the sympathy/empathy towards them, that they were not just spawned evil in this world, but it is easier to advocate for them once they are dead and turned into souls because the only thing that left for them is to be freed, as there is a whole eternity of opportunities for that - but there are no souls in the real world and the consequences remain permanently. Sure, you could say that Morgana has not forgiven (as if she has any right to forgive them anymore) them for what they have done, but these were may as well be unreliable.
Regarding her twisted perception, that's the whole point of Morgana's character, that she is unable to properly look at things in an objective manner because of her trauma, but then somehow proceed to make a perfect copy of Michel or something?
Regarding her godly powers... why do they even exist? why does she even have them? I would understand if the work sneaked in ambiguous details as if demanding from the players to connect the dots by themselves and achieve various interpretations of what is really going on at the higher plane of existence and what kind of unreachable and incomprehensible beings are present there, but this is not the case here - details are just nowhere to be found... Morgana is just randomly born with magic powers, uses them for a bit, the world does not start caring about said powers further than just drinking her blood (while from various religions we can see how messiah attracts way more relevance in the world and shifts the destiny of the whole world, not just a singular house, just by a mere presence) and then stop using her powers up until she dies... then she is allowed to use her 'sacred' powers for the opposite, devilish, matters for some unknown reason. Neither point nor sense can be found here.
She is foiled by Michel, which is also strange, because we do not even know why would all these 'jesus figures' would be born and why would only Morgana be with magical powers and why would she would exist
simultaneously with the white-haired girl (be in the real world or in that 'ghost world' or whatever, handing out the sword to Michel out-of-nowhere) when she did not even have DID when she was alive traumatized or why would she even think she is Michel(le) or something. Foil feel as forced as it gets.
Her identity is quite obvious since Morgana is pretty much the only character who has no identity for a good amount of time and DID through several forms is just a common technique in the medium. BUT the story is still trying to throw the most forced red-herrings known to mankind at you for some reason (concealing things in the text and showing them as - - when characters are meant to be just talking) and repeatedly twisting the identity by constantly revealing someone else to be thinking that it is, in fact, them - for no reason whatsoever.
That being said, she is interesting conceptually - a girl born as something more than human, thus she was never perceived as a human being, everyone being more interested in her larger-than-life identity eventually shaped not only her perception of the world and herself, but also her deeply rooted nature, which gives her internal conflicts resulting in her double identity as people's perception towards her transforms from the saint to that of a witch - that which leads her to both accept the identity of the witch (as she was tainted from her point-of-view too) and still do the bits of kindness.
Message being that societal labels are pretty much irrelevant on the grounded level and that they are merely weaponized by higher ups for their own good and that has consequences over the masses. But would have been better if I were to witness her being an actual human being, though - I do not think execution and her personality do the justice to the concept.
All in all, no matter the era, she will either confront her deeply rooted issues both in her and the society/system or she will end up self-sabotaging all of her longings.
Now of course it is perfectly fine to highlight how deeply rooted expectations laid on people melting their psyche and asking people to see people as people, themselves, but what I find strange about this is how she clearly is not human and that has always been the root of her problems, which is way more than just someone placing expectations on you. So when these very traits are treated as just the backstory and the characters are actively trying to ignore them just to view her as an average persona, that to me does not really communicate anything regarding to the fundamental issue.
Giselle - well she is just another historical girl who got a job because her family needed money and is expected to have sexual relations with the boss... nothing exceptional about her, up until she randomly gets turned into immortal (idk how, don't ask, writing is just nowhere to be found here - I could somehow make sense out of affecting someone else's psyche, but how do you turn someone into zombie witch? And how come for so many hundreds of years people shrug her mysterious existence off just by saying that 'she must have been working here for a while'. For one, she does not even look that old and two, nobody has lived here for two generations to notice how she just does not change? Yeah I just can't buy that) and... she just gets sad after hundreds of years... that which gets miraculously 'cured' after a while, instead of leaving permanent marks into her character, as if nothing had happened... So the concept of immortality is not really explored with her - the only interesting part about her character is just used as a gimmick… a sexy maid as a means to not lose hope in humanity. I liked how some pathetic randoms forced her to blame things on Michel, that which had an emotional culmination in the fifth door - and both of them got close by venting each other’s flaws, as well as realizing their own ones, so it was pretty touching, as it may as well be the most sincere and satisfying way of opening-up and thus bonding, rather than just sitting and calmly talking about each other - but that's pretty much it.
Which brings me to the scenes of rape and the abuse in general - How are these nobles getting away with literally anything they are doing? Not to mention how superficial and unreasonable said actions are. Like, what's with having public rape attempts? A noble teenager comes into the house of another noble and randomly decides to assault someone, but makes up an excuse as if he was drunk and gets away with it, nobody says anything. There is also an instance when the boss is trying to rape her in their own house, with several people there, including hysterical wife - like, may try to be cautious? Ask someone to get you a maid that will be okay with sex or something? Anything? They can make a living for someone else’s whole family (by the way, where are they), right? So, for instance, how are they unable to go to the brothel? Why even send Giselle to Michel? What did these guys expect? Giselle would not tell Michel what happened? Michel would kill her? Yeah no. Forced.
On another note, she strangely is not being called out for being a passive bystander (at the very least) of so many atrocities that were happening in front of her all of these years.
Talk about repercussions and call outs, the romance between Michel and Giselle is quite strange - first, a rape victim is running around with open cleavage for quite a good amount of time in front of a man for some reason (and the story even turns that into comic relief once Michel randomly touches her breast and they just make 'feels like rat' joke about it). Two, they tried to kill each other and somehow just talked it out... Like, yeah, empathy may make you understand someone so you forgive and realize that you two are in similar shoes, so you believe that they are actually good, sure... But why is that the case in-between them? Not only they are two drastically different personalities with drastically different upbringings and problems they have faced both externally and internally, but they also forget it right away that they did bad to each other out of their nature - as the lurking suspicion and overthinking should remain... Instead they just confess to each other, while not really having anything else to do with their lives and not wanting even for a bit to go out somewhere else, not being done with that damned place. And three, Giselle's questionable future aside, Michel without consent forces Giselle to remember things she does not want to remember, hurting her deeply with such behavior - so... Why do they end up as perfect, unconditional couple regardless of so many internal and external problems influencing their mindset?
Their interactions as a couple also come out rather cringe-worthy to me
Yeah, romance has always been quite questionable here... Like with the third door, accompanied by another passive love interest that is White-Haired Girl... She never starts holding a semblance of grudge or anything negative, really, even after being locked up for several months and does not really have any character/personality on her own aside from his husband, who she has only seen once doing something considerate (not romanticized at all)... Then there is that Jacopo who is presented as someone who was just a bit late to save his marriage... Yeah, there somehow a glimmer of hope for his relationship that was being crushed not because of himself alone, but because of some other human being (Maria), despite him being a massive scmbag, who treats everyone like trash (but then for that gets his parent blamed, as he himself is just a boy who struggled with brainwashing because he is not actually such a freak... Who believes in that?)
Michel - hmm... his character goes two ways... one is 'how miserable would it be if we were to put a hermaphrodite in the past' that which is not an exceptional idea (Not to say that it makes the character bad (quite the opposite, it raises contradictions within the character and he gets defined well) just that I have seen it in other stories, such as Shigurui, so it's hard to get interested again) and does not offer anything aside of suffering... and the second way is just how much of a saint s/he is - which is weird for someone who is being cynical around the family at first and no one in the environment really affirms that saint-hood... but it goes on such ridiculous levels, that he 'cures' people of their 'aggression' (for the lack of better word) by merely talking about their 'alternate selves' and then he gets hailed as a saint in a heavy-handed manner as well (like yeah, I noticed his name and how he is standing in front of backgrounds full of saints, chill and stop looking down at readers). Michels disposition to be more talkative and sociable feels more like the writing requiring him to become that way in Door 8 rather than natural development for him. Although I like the part in which his image of his own idealized brother gets crushed and how that experience allows him to help out Nelliel's relationship with her brother - I wish so much that every door was as lengthy as the eighth door to be full of such interactions
Talk about being Jesus, is not that kind of a contradiction regarding the themes of identity here? For Morgana, it is irrelevant whether she is a saint or a witch, because one can be both and thus labels become pointless (although to be fair she has not done anything to be referred as a saint - since her death), but what about Michel being presented as clear-cut saint? Do not give 'yeah he was trying his best, but emotionally he disliked three men' when he has not been defined by these emotions there.
He does not really affect anything and we have no idea how the setting operates, as well as how there are no proper hints towards the happy or bittersweet future, but the ending still wants to give a hopeful message, despite being a forced tragedy throughout the whole run - completely ingenuine. I was constantly being reminded of anime named Princess Tutu, which is all about criticizing authors that put all sorts of devices and whatnot to force the story towards culminating into the tragedies and love that aspect wholeheartedly
It is also weird seeing him coming out of his cynical phase just because of Giselle and buying everything she says so easily, despite how she clearly even sold him out for her own good, so when the guy has only such selfish people at every corner of his life, one would think he would remain cynical. But Giselle is that cute, I guess.
The plot is basically meaningless, the character is merely observing some random, disconnected, and simple stories that end in patterned tragedies that you have no reason to care about, considering the pacing that equals the speed of light the moment characters stop rambling about their feelings. Not sure, you need to have a terrible attention span to consider it as a good one (to be fair my attention span is also quite short, but it breed these other problems for me). Oh, you were interested in what happened to the characters after the tragedy occurred? Were you interested in the setting and seeing how connected details were affecting each other to lead from one period to another? Well, too bad for you, we never cared about such trivialities. There really is no coherence whatsoever. I guess it gets some semblance of plot since the fifth door, but really it's just a poorly structured drag with nothing much in it, the whole story is told through individual and boring flashbacks and then you get to the last door. I still have no idea how so people are trying to sell Fata as if it was taking the players on the ADVENTURE through several different periods when 90% of the time the player sits in the house alongside the maid
Oh and, the most amusing part is how literally none of the conflicts ever get resolved. All of the plot points end in the simplest, tragic way because characters do not even think about finding out some unique ways to fix the problems, and aside from the character that gets sad in the afterlife, we have no idea what happened to other characters that were responsible for the most crucial of the plot development and what happened to them - well, they probably died of sadness because that's how every human being's life goes in this universe, I guess. Only meaningful thing here probably is 'move on' aspect, but I do not want to hear that from dead people that are ready to be reincarnated with no problems in their next life for some reason. At least do not bring the conflicts that are not supposed to be 'resolved' through the 'moving on' and 'empathy'.
Recontextualization is also abysmal as these details are not really being added in the context of the first doors themselves, because characters in the first doors are completely different incarnations of their original selves and thus do not really have much connection to each other and you just look at the ‘parallels’ (be damned). The only thing you can probably do is to judge them from a different perspective after hearing their stories, but I am not really convinced enough... now sure it is still good that it gives you the room to enjoy the re-play, of course, but that comes off with a price of making the whole first run completely lacking in the hook department, as you can't really solve anything and the overarching plot is virtually non-existent up until you finish at least the 70% of the story. So if you are not into a collection of little mysteries in each door, there really is no other novelty to keep your interest/attention - and even if you were into such mysteries, they are very predictable, so you understand almost the whole picture in each case, before finishing the doors.
Door 1 - That was the instance when I actually liked this VN, as it seemed distinct enough and conflicting character traits were very well implemented in the dialogue, but alas it ended up as some spoiled brats whining about their predicament and losing their mind in a blink of an eye, instead of coming in terms with the reality... Mell is just a cowardly guy who is being torn in-between the ideals of her sister and the hardships of reality between religion and the business - as he fails . Needless to say, he is completely unlikeable and is not progressing at all - he just seeks comfort in the white-haired girl and that also results in complications (also forced one, as the character and characters in her backstory could actually done literally anything else and it would feel more natural (say, artist getting another job)). One would think Mell would have been disillusioned after understanding what that girl actually was and would have tried to escape from her (a girl intentionally trying to ruin your family and all, you know), which would be a norm for him, but oh well.
and the door suddenly ends after 15 min long climax and my feelings were left hanging. There was parental emotional abandonment as well, but I did not find it compelling as the dad himself had no progression or/and exploration of said actions (or lack of thereof).
Without giving as details to speculate what would have happened in the future this is just a very cheap ordeal.
Also not sure why Nel settled on merely cutting the hair of the girl, instead of killing her. That does not really fix her problem in any shape or form.
Door 2 -That was the instance when I ‘paused’ this VN for good. So a BEAST appears... and then the twist is that the BEAST is... a SADIST... shocking, I know. At first, it somehow wants you to believe that the literal monster is somehow becoming a human (again, nothing exceptional, especially when it has no other context for a while - there is no in-between scenes for his gradual transformation for us to have the proper sense of its value and it is solely used as killing machine of the guests), which is a ridiculous idea... although later it gets revealed that it's just a twisted perception that somehow stems from him being a sadist and being called out for his race... I do not really know if that was a realistic exploration of anything psychological, it seemed too over-the-top to me. Maybe Morgana affected his mind? But I am not sure about that because Morgana did not affect that way neither Michel nor Giselle. Not to mention how he had no problems seeing the Maid and the White Haired Girl like proper human beings, but for some reason his girlfriend is an exception.
Another problem is how the story gets detracted to the point of tonal whiplash with an introduction of some naive girl, that repeats and repeats her naivety and dies in a brutal manner but I hated the girl and it was also too over-the-top, again, so if I have felt anything, it would be a satisfaction - and also a child, whose parent was killed by the beast, but instead of having a damaged psyche, he just acts like a random introverted boy from the 21st century that somehow drops 'interesting' views, that should not make sense, considering he should not be that educated to begin with and should not word things like that. The cherry on top is, how the village somehow blames the victim child TO BEING UNABLE TO KILL A BEAST ALL ALONE. It is a cartoony ordeal at this point. Like, guys, literally every frightened-of-a-scary-house villagers I have ever seen in the media always go and burn the damn house, so… what stopped you to do so?
You could say that the twist and message were how these deeds that are usually pointed towards made-up images of the monsters in actuality could be done by our beloved representations of the human race, but I think this door would have benefited of this idea if it was used as a prologue door, considering we as players would not have any idea that there were no actual monsters in this story (coming from the first door, I think we can already assume that) and it would serve nicely as it would have been the most surface step of the ideas that Fata Morgana is trying to convey. For a story that is trying to set up the criticism of naivety and romanticism, I think it is not really doing a good job up at properly providing ideals and just comes off as edgy 'haha, you are such a child for believing in ideals, now suffer', but at the same time, ends on a romantic/idealistic note regardless - both achieved in a forceful manner. So if the author himself can not naturally make his views flow through his own work and has to rely on the forced devices, how am I supposed to believe in whatever he is trying to tell me with his work?
Door 3 - Jacopo is such a sensitive child, that with barely any proof just gets enraged towards a girl that he should know very well, as she is his wife, but somehow he has only interacted with her only once in his life. He somehow has that inferiority complex towards noble, rich women, that which is not explained - I also have no idea how he can explain how no one bats an eye when her wife is locked somewhere in the house, in a room for SEVERAL MONTHS... why is he so insecure? And if he is so insecure, how does he manage to have a successful business and 'mafia' of some sort? Yeah, his dad was trying to brainwash him, but he clearly is an emotional wreck as a result and has not really done anything of that sort. Well, anything besides the 'romance' tends to be an afterthought and a just another discarded theme in each of the doors, unfortunately.
Oh, and the door ends with Jacopo miraculously being able to somehow kill a girl (awfully accurate aim for someone so insecure, especially while being in haste and aiming at his beloved childhood friend), who had him on a gun-point... if anything, Maria was the one who deserved to survive here, but no, everything needs to be bleak. And even if I liked Maria, she was still quite disappointing in the role of villainess... her satanic laugher aside, she could have had some competent goals and motivations, alongside petty emotions to counter/contrast the irrationality of the couple, but no, nothing. Everything is an afterthought here, after all. Now to be fair, I just liked the twist and the idea behind it, but the way she ‘disconnected’ the couple was also quite implausible (exchanging the letters for months was especially absurd, as it does not seem likely for hyper insecure Jacopo to not take suspicion towards Maria just because she is a childhood friend as he should have overthinked that as well and at least ask other maids to keep track of things in secret)
Talk about the dad, why is his whole character/personality being an asshole who conveniently pop-ups to say basic cynical stuff? What is wrong with parents in general here, why does this thing feels like some anti-parental movement? No redeeming qualities whatsoever, all of them are just psychos
Now you could say how he may remember his 'sins' from his previous life (as in a body memory or whatever... or soul memory... Jesus), but that makes no sense, considering how it can't be explained by the rules of the setting, so I don't really care. Heck, it is not even foreshadowed or anything, so who cared about that 'recontextualization'? It won't suddenly replace my initial experience and it makes things even worse when the witch is supposed to be blamed for everything - like, evul Maria was being blamed for it either, so what does it change? Not to mention how lazy the whole 'yeah it was not too good but hey the witch arranged it with the means that makes no sense whatsoever, so it is suddenly a 10/10 door' thing sounds. No, I do not admit to such non-sense, whether the witch did it or not, the door should make sense through the humane means and not 'it was all magic' (to blur the line between the witches and humans, on top of that)
Door 4 - basically a FORCED filler to make a message about how FORCED the interactions can be made in romantic tales but the reality is oh not like this at all... self-unawareness here is hilarious, considering I do not find this story in its entirety to be realistic, at all. It just feels too meta for no reason at all and it is also a story she managed to remember for centuries to cling to the hope of them getting together? Well leaving the positive stuff as nostalgic bits in the memory does seem realistic enough to me, so it is fine I guess. It is just Michel coming back as he made the change in her character quite irrelevant as the whole appeal of the march of time and separation is how after the fundamental changes two personalities do not click to each other in one way or another - be it the external factors such as environment or the internal factors such as personality traits being changed or new ones being acquired and all - but none of these were present at the end of the day in their dynamic.
I keep hearing how The Maid is deliberately hiding things from these doors - how is she even aware of such capabilities of her own - and heavily altered the fourth one or/and Morgana actually made this whole door up on her own, somehow - It seems rather strange to me that it is possible to make up, fabricate the stories in the doors themselves? How can you make something up out of someone else’s memory bits that can be viewed as if you were watching a TV? ‘It's just magic?’ I don't really get it, from where would she even learn that? She just hid the truth that it's a fake door for some reason? Hell, how is she even able to ‘reconstruct’ Michel out of thin air and turn into someone that can’t even be distinguished from the original one, especially when she did not even remember him properly or at all? even if she was not the one who made this door, then how else would there be a fake door.
Door 5 - problems repeat - two characters just talk and talk 80% of the time, but unfortunately they have nothing interesting to talk about... 10% is random disconnected things that happened and 10% is the sudden tragedy… really, it is just a generic romance, I have no idea where the appraisal comes from, these people have not been watching movies, I guess. Well, they actually vented and formed a relationship, so it was not as miserable as the previous ones, which is a breath of fresh air. I just disliked how they forgot that they would not have been able to get away with suddenly arriving at the family house and getting away with it. Oh and it was rather strange in the middle of the door, the random people being scared of a ‘monster’ that looks so pretty. Not even one human being had a different enough personality to at least throw something towards someone who looks so fragile as obviously is not a monster? I think they should have had enough adrenaline as well.
the shift in tone is also quite jarring on here. I could understand if this was the first door, making us care about the characters, unaware of what may come, but... here it is just place in the middle of constant misery? It has been pretty visceral and fast paced before, but now it wastes time on slice-of-life things (that does not even make sense for its time-period... meditation? enlightenment? really now) as if nothing has happened? I am afraid I can't get invested in that.
Door 6 - how Morgana is trying to corrupt Giselle, who was corrupted by a random village in a blink of an eye in the previous episode... but somehow Morgana can't get under Giselle's skin for hundreds of years... just because she remembers Michel... romanticization through the character rewrite is off the charts. Oh there was also Morgana’s backstory, which was uncommonly good as it does blur the identity of a girl, whether she is a saint or a witch. Unfortunately, I found everything surrounding it to be hyper edgy. Like, why is it even being narrated, I am getting whole individual doors for randoms like Yukimasa, but I can’t get one for the main antagonist? Lol, alright. I dunno how does a child gets brainwashed into thinking that she is a saint that shall never sin when that’s not very childish to me; I dunno why her mom allowed her saint-ly deeds to kick-start if she was so cynical, what did she expect (was it a forced contrast to Michel? Morgana getting treated positively (at first, at least) for being special, meanwhile Michel was being tortured? To be fair Michel was indeed named as a saint, so their dynamic should probably viewed as a foil, but I did not mean the names here) and then it’s just suffering that I have no reason to care about and feels like I am yet again being forcefully drained.
Door 7 - I already talked about Michel's backstory... It is just Michel reacting to things and not doing anything, even in his own door and then Michel gets magically saved by Giselle... Oh there is also a satanic girl in this door, who randomly comes to Michel and tortures him/her, as if the story was not cartoony enough already. I would have liked it if these characters came to terms with their problems after so many years and somehow went on compromise and tried to adapt with one another, instead of just sending Michel away out of nowhere.
I am not so sure that evocating the pity is the best way to deal with these themes.
That said, the very existence of this plotline is strange. These layers have always been present within Michel - him standing in front of holy thing as if Fata was written by Zack Snyder to symbolise him being a Jesus figure and as well as secret about Michel's body being slowly revealed, that which serves narrative of perspective very well - but as if that was not obvious enough, we now need to indulge in several more hours of pure misery just for the story to put it down our throats just how much of a saint he is by with excessive violence having him hanged on a cross by his brother for virtually no reason and then of course be resurrected. Then somehow that brother is somehow expected to be atoned or something, despite acting all evil even as a ghost (why is he even there)
Best part, of course, was when we were witnessing the drastic changes of Michel's body, but everything else leaves much to be desired.
Door 8 - The episode starts with the hidden identities of the men, but the girl’s identity is not hidden and we see her being called a sister… like why hide it then if you are going to make it so obvious?
To start with the positives that are minimal, well… I like the idea of using saint blood or whatever it is, I don't even know why it is. Despite being edgy, it does blur what exactly is the truth behind it, what is the motive of using said blood, no one should be able to tell that. There was also some semblance of banter between secondary characters so at least there is that. You are somehow able to see what actually happened before everyone died. Like, Morgana did not know these stuff, right? So by whom were these events crafted? You are somehow able to interact with the characters... you also know since the start that all of your actions will bear no fruit, but somehow it is still served as a plot twist. And about the story in the door itself... well... our saint's 'talk no jutsu' somehow is able to change the minds of hardened assholes with no consequences whatsoever (broken fingers aside, but they were useless and lack of fingers won't affect future developments (neither in conflict, nor in bed), so there really is no value in their loss) and... that's pretty much the 'climax' of the 30-40 hours long build-up. Seriously, the guy we knew was sadistic on unhinged, uncontrollable levels, somehow is not losing any sense and conveniently stops once his beloved appears conveniently… then he starts praising the random lunatic as Jesus in a blink of an eye. Well Jacopo is a loser so there were no difficulties there, so its not even a climax… then random magical things happen again and we also see how sorry they are in front of Morgana… Yeah, okay, that was not very interesting. Why do I care whether Morgana gets satisfied by that? Well of course people start feeling bad once consequences come to bite them. At least they had goals and motivations here (a bit too late, though). Why did I waste 50 hours on something so simple and obvious? Nothing actually happened here. Fata Morgana is about people getting dehumanised by others who have no understanding and have expectations too high or too low for other individuals, which is a good starting point... but at the end of the day Morgana calms down after its revealed how whatever happened was the fault and mistake of some specific bad actors and that she can't be mad after hundreds of years of angry (self-)sabotage, while nothing is really questioned and Michel just acts how any priest could act.
-------------------------
Now sure you could say that motivations of these actors does imply that the source of problems they all share is not caused by them, but the conflict itself is still portrayed as individual oriented where Morgana has to see good in them and forgive them all on her own and that is where the story ends. Morgana, she who has been doing the same thing the world has been doing by goading these actors in other doors and yet no one really pays attention to that, also had to forgive herself since the existence of WHG implies the self-sabotage but end of this door just makes her consciouss that she
replaying to finish this section
---------------------------
Well it also gets revealed that a silly boy Jacopo over here is actually a pedophile who likes 12 years old girl, that which quickly turns into a joking matter thanks to Maria who says how she was knee deep in dick at her age jokingly and to enable their relationship. Obviously this is terrible so I will leave it at that.
After the door is finished, Michel and Morgana (she is 'redeeming' herself, you see) will free the soul of the tormented, which is sweet and all, but I would not care about the souls, would I now? Sorry but I also do not care about the whole reincarnation thing and find it whatever - they are reborn as identical beings, in the same environment and are magically attracted to each other? If that was the finale (from my understanding, that is) it is quite forced I daresay, there is no reason for this situation to occur but it does. Oh and I do not remember Michel's brothers ever deserving to be redeemed either, so why are they shoehorned into the story AFTER the climax? The structure is all over the place. It does not even make sense how could Didier be forced to brutally massacre his beloved brother, when everything in Fata's universe reeks of corruption, so it should have been perfectly within the possibilities to take care of his brother in one way or another - but he did not do anything.
Can't remember a narrative that is cheaper than that of Fata Morgana - every event is contrived and convenient and simple characters barely do anything, barely change, just talk and spoonfeed you with details. basically the opposite of what an actual mystery that is trying to explore the perception should be - an omnipresence of the lack of credibility through the completely unreliable narrator, that expects from YOU to 'solve' the rabbit hole by yourself, settle on one 'truth' or just accept it as it is, an unsolvable ordeal and do not give in to mania, improve your own life with the infinity possibilities within in you reach (a la Umineko). After all, everything is in the eye of the beholder and the truth never gets reached by mere talking, but quite the opposite, interpretations and retellings further complicate the rabbit hole
Shameless recommendation section btw, read Ravages of Time for the same theme - specifically, how the cultural shift affects the perspective and how we judge the history and legends by re-interpreting the interpretation of those people that had different perception of these words to begin with and more.
All in all, if you don't care about the characters, just like I do not, it is going to be extremely hard to find any merit in this story. In case of the prequel I have to say that I enjoyed it way more, as it focused only one story with the best characters from the OG, accompanied with more side-characters and more slice-of-life interactions that made me able to care about the characters and lack of magic also helped quite a bit - unfortunately it also has its own problems, as its not only lacking in the plot-department (stuff that is supposed to advance the plot is quite random and gets quite easily off-screened) as its not only as edgy as the OG in climactic scenes, but also has fatal problems regarding standing on its own, considering it was not written as self-contained story - for one, its not finished in a satisfying manner in case we won’t take the OG into the account and two, if we take the OG into the account, then the experience of the Requiem seems underwhelming as most of its content was heavily spoiled in the original visual novel.
peak fiction
Masterpiece
"So tell me... How'd you feel looking behind those doors? Was it frightening? Saddening? Heartwrenching? Well, lemme tell you something...You were able to bear 'em because they weren't your tragedies."
A tragedy filled gothic horror/suspense/love story centered around a cursed house and its occupants over 100s of years. Primarily exploring social status, self image and loathing, sexism, trauma, and gender roles and dysphoria while detailing how and why characters became who they are or what lead them to act in the way they do. Well written, with often rapid shifts in tone from mysterious, horrific, funny, romantic, and grotesque. Subtle foreshadowing likely to be missed in one playthrough from the ways different characters describe things in the same or opposite ways, details in even what is shown as being censored text to cause surprise later having its own character reasoning for appearing so, frequent seemingly insignificant things that seem to have only been mentioned to give a bit more detail at the time being given greater or additional layers of meaning at later points in the story. Good use of pauses and breaks in text to create surprise and tension when mixed with well drawn expressive facial expressions. Frequent twists and sudden surprising elements to each story that both lead to a more unique tale in what once could have seemed more ordinary at first but that also furthers the games themes regarding the human condition. Mixture of beautiful, dark, and foreboding artwork done in a more realistic style than most visual novels with one of the strongest vocal heavy soundtracks I've heard.
The House in Fata Morgana ended up having one of the best believable romances I've seen, one of the best depictions of effects of trauma, one of the best soundtracks, best art style in a visual novel, and best pacing in a visual novel. Making it one of my favorite games.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1414423313552576521
A tragedy filled gothic horror/suspense/love story centered around a cursed house and its occupants over 100s of years. Primarily exploring social status, self image and loathing, sexism, trauma, and gender roles and dysphoria while detailing how and why characters became who they are or what lead them to act in the way they do. Well written, with often rapid shifts in tone from mysterious, horrific, funny, romantic, and grotesque. Subtle foreshadowing likely to be missed in one playthrough from the ways different characters describe things in the same or opposite ways, details in even what is shown as being censored text to cause surprise later having its own character reasoning for appearing so, frequent seemingly insignificant things that seem to have only been mentioned to give a bit more detail at the time being given greater or additional layers of meaning at later points in the story. Good use of pauses and breaks in text to create surprise and tension when mixed with well drawn expressive facial expressions. Frequent twists and sudden surprising elements to each story that both lead to a more unique tale in what once could have seemed more ordinary at first but that also furthers the games themes regarding the human condition. Mixture of beautiful, dark, and foreboding artwork done in a more realistic style than most visual novels with one of the strongest vocal heavy soundtracks I've heard.
The House in Fata Morgana ended up having one of the best believable romances I've seen, one of the best depictions of effects of trauma, one of the best soundtracks, best art style in a visual novel, and best pacing in a visual novel. Making it one of my favorite games.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1414423313552576521
A very precious game that I highly recommend. It has a lot of dark themes very well portrayed, u can see how trauma changes the characters, also i cried my fucking eyes out thank you.
almost literally perfect
This review contains spoilers
An excellent visual novel that explores gender, sexism, xenophobia, familial and spousal abuse, and many more complex themes. Controversies aside, the translation team did a great job; unlike many VN translations, this one reads extremely naturally and I was almost unable to tell it had actually been translated at all. My one criticism of it would probably be that it drags a bit at times, and that it honestly doesn't really need to have choices and different endings at all, since the story is fairly linear.
There is little more to say than The House In Fata Morgana is an experience to which nothing compares among video games
There was a large part of this novel I absolutely despised, yet it would be unfair to advise against reading it mainly because I was not probably the target audience for its contents. To tell in short, Fata Morgana answer the need of feeling constantly depressed, reminded that life is a never-ending stream of suffering, much like reading Wuthering Heights or Judas the Obscure but with a more mundane, easily accessible, japanese-ish anime-ish narrative.
At its core, The House in Fata Morgana is a bizarre yet somehow familiar story made of mystery and supernatural tropes that are neither foreign to Japanese and Western literature, as it really does read as a – inferior – gothic novel from the 19th century with a more modern take on character interactions and fantasy. It directly borrows from medieval folklore and superstition and it mixes it with mildly historical contents and a long tale of guilt, revenge and forgiveness.
My main issue with Fata Morgana was not with its overall plot though, rather with the weird delivery of its content. There are many ways to describe how the narrative works in this novel, in Japanese it is called ‘utsuge’, which directly translates in the English language as misery lit, or misery porn. What this means is that most of the time the reader will be presented with an endless stream of depressing and graphically brutal content, often missing any sort of convincing delivery behind the suffering of the characters. Sure, there are many movies where the point is to witness the desperation and death of a character, notoriously there are the Passions of Jesus Christ and Joan of Arc, but we are comparing relatively short movies to a 30 hours long novel, where the satisfactory reward will not show up until the last three to four hours of gameplay.
In Fata Morgana you are asked to root for characters that apparently do not know what happiness is in life, or rather, there are happy times in their life but they are mostly treated as a justification to the pain and misery, as footnotes necessary to understand the story. The most striking example of this might be a character who supposedly lived just three years of their life as the most beautiful and blissful, and whilst these three years are often mentioned during the long depictions of grief the character has to go through, they are almost never actually showed or described, and if so in very brief detail.
Then there are random complaints about the characters themselves. I appreciated their depiction as flawed and complex human beings, but this depiction was ultimately biased: there are maybe two characters you have to actively appreciate, as they are pristine, faultless, immaculate, Mary Suecough I mean, fundamentally constantly good people. They are also the worst written characters as most of their traits and dialogues can be summed up with dumb anime tropes and jokes that may seem reasonable to read in a YA novel. Then there are all the others characters, a nice mixture of either sympathetic of plainly despicable human beings that might have worked as a believable depiction of humanity worst sins, but ultimately failed to be so. These characters are presented in black and white, firstly you have to know about them being horrible people and then the story will reveal that they do have – questionable – motivations to act as they did. This biased presentation prevents the readers from forming their own opinion on the story and the characters, it leads your judgment because the story is more interested to deliver shock and cheap twists to the readers than actual human portraits.
Moreover, thorough the latter half of the game, there is a huge chunk of the same events being told from different perspectives but with very little added to the overall narrative, giving unnecessary padding to a novel already long as it is. Not to mention how most of the story takes place during different historical periods yet all the characters seem to talk using the same pattern, particularly during a section in the Middle Age where the dialogues are made of unbearable anachronistic onomatopoeias. So much for the immersion, I guess.
All in all the story was compelling and interesting, but the structure could have been done much better.
Technically, Fata Morgana was nothing short of sublime. While the art may have had its ups and downs with some weird looking facial expressions and overly complex drawings, the eerie atmosphere given from the sound design, the photographical backgrounds and the beautiful musical score all helped in providing the mansion a magnificent aura of both magic and obscurity.
If one were to wish buying Fata Morgana, my only advise would be to carefully consider how much unending, and many times superfluous and pointless, suffering could be endured before reaching the payoff, otherwise on a similar note I’d recommend reading Umineko (much, much longer to read and greater in scope) or Cross Channel.
At its core, The House in Fata Morgana is a bizarre yet somehow familiar story made of mystery and supernatural tropes that are neither foreign to Japanese and Western literature, as it really does read as a – inferior – gothic novel from the 19th century with a more modern take on character interactions and fantasy. It directly borrows from medieval folklore and superstition and it mixes it with mildly historical contents and a long tale of guilt, revenge and forgiveness.
My main issue with Fata Morgana was not with its overall plot though, rather with the weird delivery of its content. There are many ways to describe how the narrative works in this novel, in Japanese it is called ‘utsuge’, which directly translates in the English language as misery lit, or misery porn. What this means is that most of the time the reader will be presented with an endless stream of depressing and graphically brutal content, often missing any sort of convincing delivery behind the suffering of the characters. Sure, there are many movies where the point is to witness the desperation and death of a character, notoriously there are the Passions of Jesus Christ and Joan of Arc, but we are comparing relatively short movies to a 30 hours long novel, where the satisfactory reward will not show up until the last three to four hours of gameplay.
In Fata Morgana you are asked to root for characters that apparently do not know what happiness is in life, or rather, there are happy times in their life but they are mostly treated as a justification to the pain and misery, as footnotes necessary to understand the story. The most striking example of this might be a character who supposedly lived just three years of their life as the most beautiful and blissful, and whilst these three years are often mentioned during the long depictions of grief the character has to go through, they are almost never actually showed or described, and if so in very brief detail.
Then there are random complaints about the characters themselves. I appreciated their depiction as flawed and complex human beings, but this depiction was ultimately biased: there are maybe two characters you have to actively appreciate, as they are pristine, faultless, immaculate, Mary Suecough I mean, fundamentally constantly good people. They are also the worst written characters as most of their traits and dialogues can be summed up with dumb anime tropes and jokes that may seem reasonable to read in a YA novel. Then there are all the others characters, a nice mixture of either sympathetic of plainly despicable human beings that might have worked as a believable depiction of humanity worst sins, but ultimately failed to be so. These characters are presented in black and white, firstly you have to know about them being horrible people and then the story will reveal that they do have – questionable – motivations to act as they did. This biased presentation prevents the readers from forming their own opinion on the story and the characters, it leads your judgment because the story is more interested to deliver shock and cheap twists to the readers than actual human portraits.
Moreover, thorough the latter half of the game, there is a huge chunk of the same events being told from different perspectives but with very little added to the overall narrative, giving unnecessary padding to a novel already long as it is. Not to mention how most of the story takes place during different historical periods yet all the characters seem to talk using the same pattern, particularly during a section in the Middle Age where the dialogues are made of unbearable anachronistic onomatopoeias. So much for the immersion, I guess.
All in all the story was compelling and interesting, but the structure could have been done much better.
Technically, Fata Morgana was nothing short of sublime. While the art may have had its ups and downs with some weird looking facial expressions and overly complex drawings, the eerie atmosphere given from the sound design, the photographical backgrounds and the beautiful musical score all helped in providing the mansion a magnificent aura of both magic and obscurity.
If one were to wish buying Fata Morgana, my only advise would be to carefully consider how much unending, and many times superfluous and pointless, suffering could be endured before reaching the payoff, otherwise on a similar note I’d recommend reading Umineko (much, much longer to read and greater in scope) or Cross Channel.
fuck
Greatly ambitious magical realism story that is engrossing as a result of its great characters, presentation, storytelling and mystery. It is an unpredictable ride that is filled with many ideas, perhaps too many for it to wrap up elegantly, but interesting ideas nonetheless. This novel thus eloquently explores the deep seated human flaws that lead to suffering and abuse.
This review contains spoilers
First off, what an spectacular soundtrack. It was so bloody good that I enjoyed it more than the actual story. My top 3 themes were Petalouda, Skia Oura and this: https://youtu.be/J1I9iz9dDJc
Especially the last one, where the melody starts off as if it was a vals in 3/4, but around the build up at minute 4:14 it grows evident it was triplets in 4/4. I think I'll steal it for one of my songs, because that buildup is genuinely beautiful.
Well, continuing with the art style, it somewhat disturbed me a little at first, but grew to love it as much as I loved Steins;Gate.
Then, to the story. It's really hard to give an opinion on it, because while it's true that I've been glued to the screen for almost 2 weeks, I feel bad because I get the feeling that it didn't impact me as hard as it should have. I mean, it was an incredibly interesting tale, but I was sold to the notion that it would make me feel sad to the point it would hurt to play, but I guess I really didn't feel the tragedy with my entire being. I could empathize with how everyone was bound to do what they did because of their circumstances and how helpless they were to their fates, but I wasn't actually destroyed emotionally or anything. In fact, the first 3 doors were the parts which most got me on an emotional level. Maybe the rest didn't hit me because I got the notion that it didn't matter because everybody was already dead anyway? I don't know.
The characters were incredible, they all felt so human and real. It was genuinely heart breaking seeing the backstory to Michel's situation, how cruel fate was on him. Another thing: The White-Haired Girl is my new crush. Especially the 3rd door's.
All around, pay no heed to your preconcieved notions of what this masterpiece might be, since it'll turn over your head. Definitely into my top 3.
Especially the last one, where the melody starts off as if it was a vals in 3/4, but around the build up at minute 4:14 it grows evident it was triplets in 4/4. I think I'll steal it for one of my songs, because that buildup is genuinely beautiful.
Well, continuing with the art style, it somewhat disturbed me a little at first, but grew to love it as much as I loved Steins;Gate.
Then, to the story. It's really hard to give an opinion on it, because while it's true that I've been glued to the screen for almost 2 weeks, I feel bad because I get the feeling that it didn't impact me as hard as it should have. I mean, it was an incredibly interesting tale, but I was sold to the notion that it would make me feel sad to the point it would hurt to play, but I guess I really didn't feel the tragedy with my entire being. I could empathize with how everyone was bound to do what they did because of their circumstances and how helpless they were to their fates, but I wasn't actually destroyed emotionally or anything. In fact, the first 3 doors were the parts which most got me on an emotional level. Maybe the rest didn't hit me because I got the notion that it didn't matter because everybody was already dead anyway? I don't know.
The characters were incredible, they all felt so human and real. It was genuinely heart breaking seeing the backstory to Michel's situation, how cruel fate was on him. Another thing: The White-Haired Girl is my new crush. Especially the 3rd door's.
All around, pay no heed to your preconcieved notions of what this masterpiece might be, since it'll turn over your head. Definitely into my top 3.
empathy machine
Cry about it
Tears in my eyes so glad my top two are finally females. Before it was just boring lame dumb men and I couldn't be a true ally that way but now that my top 2 are women I feel like I'm fighting that good fight
made me cry for 3 hours straight
Saints and witches, angels and demons, blessed and cursed… contraries that are true depending on the perspective, but that turn out to be false in the overall image. Behind those labels, made up to simplify complexities, there are just regular people and their circumstances.
Discrimination for one’s gender, racism, greed, honor, class differences… many unfortunate events may push someone into doing harm to get away, taking into account all of the perspectives there is really not one true evil to point the finger at and to condemn. Does this excuse anyone from hurting? It doesn’t. Having to sacrifice others is never an option, it may seem like it sometimes, but at that same moment the damage is done for not even considering a way to protect everyone as the only real choice. Should there be vengeance upon those who hurt? Not either. Trying to pay with the same coin not only creates the well known never ending cycle, as other people get caught in the consequences escalating the conflict into eternity, but the own person who seeks vengeance ends up trapped, unable to find their own peace, arguably suffering more than anyone else. The proper penance is not receiving the damage dealt back, it is compromising and being active towards changing for the best.
A game with so much tragedy and suffering can be deceiving at first. Everything will end up the worst way possible, the characters, even with their reasons, seem to make all the wrong choices, hundreds of years pass on with very few hints of hope that is slowly vanishing. But the game never rejoices in said suffering, it is there to make us understand every perspective properly, but always treated carefully, conscious of what is shown and how. Where the game rejoices, be it on the scarce illustrations and especially in the extended romantic narrations, is in the more tender moments.
A “chapter” stands out as a pillar in the middle of the story where the true heart is revealed. Only two people, trapped, who went through a lot of suffering, being betrayed by those who were closest to them at some point, unable to trust anymore. It is because they share stigmas upon them that they can, ironically, understand each other so well. From there on the relationship just flourishes in mundane and beautiful ways, talking every day, picking some flowers in the garden, playing chess, reading a book together, a declaration of love that slips through the tongue…
Forgiveness, of oneself and therefore towards those who hurt you, is a long process, it cannot be granted so easily. The first step is listening. This is no easy task for any side, the one who has to tell also has trouble opening the doors that were shut in order to forget, but said doors cannot stay closed, the past cannot be forgotten, even if it hurts. Only upon sharing and understanding, the fairy tales will come down and reality can be taken on. The past cannot be changed, the damage is done, but for that same reason we must do our best from there on. To have faith and to be our best as we push forward for a better future.
Discrimination for one’s gender, racism, greed, honor, class differences… many unfortunate events may push someone into doing harm to get away, taking into account all of the perspectives there is really not one true evil to point the finger at and to condemn. Does this excuse anyone from hurting? It doesn’t. Having to sacrifice others is never an option, it may seem like it sometimes, but at that same moment the damage is done for not even considering a way to protect everyone as the only real choice. Should there be vengeance upon those who hurt? Not either. Trying to pay with the same coin not only creates the well known never ending cycle, as other people get caught in the consequences escalating the conflict into eternity, but the own person who seeks vengeance ends up trapped, unable to find their own peace, arguably suffering more than anyone else. The proper penance is not receiving the damage dealt back, it is compromising and being active towards changing for the best.
A game with so much tragedy and suffering can be deceiving at first. Everything will end up the worst way possible, the characters, even with their reasons, seem to make all the wrong choices, hundreds of years pass on with very few hints of hope that is slowly vanishing. But the game never rejoices in said suffering, it is there to make us understand every perspective properly, but always treated carefully, conscious of what is shown and how. Where the game rejoices, be it on the scarce illustrations and especially in the extended romantic narrations, is in the more tender moments.
A “chapter” stands out as a pillar in the middle of the story where the true heart is revealed. Only two people, trapped, who went through a lot of suffering, being betrayed by those who were closest to them at some point, unable to trust anymore. It is because they share stigmas upon them that they can, ironically, understand each other so well. From there on the relationship just flourishes in mundane and beautiful ways, talking every day, picking some flowers in the garden, playing chess, reading a book together, a declaration of love that slips through the tongue…
Forgiveness, of oneself and therefore towards those who hurt you, is a long process, it cannot be granted so easily. The first step is listening. This is no easy task for any side, the one who has to tell also has trouble opening the doors that were shut in order to forget, but said doors cannot stay closed, the past cannot be forgotten, even if it hurts. Only upon sharing and understanding, the fairy tales will come down and reality can be taken on. The past cannot be changed, the damage is done, but for that same reason we must do our best from there on. To have faith and to be our best as we push forward for a better future.
DUDES ROCK
Truly a "page-turner" (dialogue box turner?).
This is for people who like tragedies.
CW for slur (1-2 usages), dismemberment, bodily harm, sexual assault
Truly a "page-turner" (dialogue box turner?).
This is for people who like tragedies.
CW for slur (1-2 usages), dismemberment, bodily harm, sexual assault
Jacopo foi o 0,5 a mais
Lifechanging. I wish I could give it 6 stars.