this game is, essentially, if Shrek was a video game. a genuinely great, heartfelt story with great characters and writing that ended up getting buried due to meme factor. which is really sad, because this game is genuinely incredible, and it's very sad to see people online (including the review section here on Backloggd!) dismiss it as silly and stupid. I wish the "secret" endings for Shuu, Sakuya, and Okosan were overall more substantial, but I genuinely do love and treasure this game

either way, unfortunately the Shrek comparison is still apt even today - joke VN after joke VN has come out since 2011/2012 without understanding what made Hatoful Boyfriend such a special experience, and in a way everyone loses

anyways DDLC wants what this game has

Ignore the first reviews on this site which trash on this game, it rocks but it has its issues.

Pacing kinda sucks if you're not ready for a slow story, there's tons of alternate text which makes every route fairly unique with less skippable text than you'd probably expect.

Certain events expect you to have played other routes in order to unlock them. Sometimes they never play again and there's no way to track whether you've seen an event and it sucks replaying a route just to see nothing happen. Following a suggested route order is recommended.

Love this VN so much, but some of the design hasn't aged too well and I'd definitely recommend using a guide for route order and choices.

Some of the strongest plotting I've seen, three of my favourite characters ever and much much more, needless to say I love The House in Fata Morgana. It started off pretty weak for me but the later parts were just so, so good. It kept getting better and peaked at the end, truly, as it's climax is my favourite moment of all time. Despite all this, my favourite aspect is not any of the above but the strong thematic core of the story which resonated with me deeply and is the reason it's probably my favourite story ever.