The House in Fata Morgana

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papillon
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The House in Fata Morgana

#1 Post by papillon »

There's a Japanese game currently considering whether they should try to localise it into English - if you're into gothy stuff with blood and NOT hentai, check out this Playism blog post for more information.

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Re: The House in Fata Morgana

#2 Post by Googaboga »

Looks very interesting. I'd play it for sure if it was translated. Time to go off and give them my support.

Thanks for bringing this up :].
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Re: The House in Fata Morgana

#3 Post by gekiganwing »

I hadn't heard of Fata Morgana, but looking at it today, it sounds like a decent horror story.

Likewise, I haven't yet purchased any games that Playism distributes. I read the company's FAQ, but I still wasn't sure if their games only work if the player is online, or if an uninterrupted internet connection is required.

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Re: The House in Fata Morgana

#4 Post by Renmiou »

Thread necromancy, 'cause it's worth it!

Image

I've just finished the true route (I'm pretty positive it was) and I've gotta tell you: it's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful VN. I'd steer clear of reviews if you're interested in playing it without getting spoiled in the least, because it's hard to talk about it without spoiling anything, but I can say that this story is the best I've read in visual novels (and ranks really high among books).

As you can see from the sprite above, the art is gorgeous too!

You can get a pretty good idea of what sort of thing it is if you play the free demo, which is really long. The final hour count is estimated between 10 and 30 hours - this is because it's not one of those choose-your-own-route sort of deals, you have to discover the true story to get most of its value.
There is no voice acting, though I didn't miss it at all; I was so eager to find out what the mystery of the house was that I was reading at the speed of light and I would have just interrupted the voice acting all the time.

The soundtrack is rather peculiar: several of the tracks are voiced. I must say that the overall sound style isn't something I've heard in other VNs, it's not your usual collection of melancholy piano music. The one track that stuck out in particular was "Bianco e Nero" - it sounds so apt and genuinely inspired by Italian folk music that I was surprised: most movies seem to always go for a caricature of what our traditional music sounds like, so it was a nice surprise to see this relatively small developer nail the style so much! Weirdly, the lyrics are all in Portuguese, as far as I can tell.

In terms of story, trying to stay as spoiler-free as possible: I'd say I mainly enjoyed it because it's a tale about how humans interact with each other and hurt each other and make each other happy. It doesn't pull any punches, it doesn't refrain from the ugliness but doesn't revel in it, either. The characters range from people who are almost saintly at first glance, but still have very human flaws and insecurities, to people you couldn't possibly sympathise with, but you are given a chance to at least understand their mental processes. I think that if you do enjoy a story where you don't have the "bad guy" and the "good guy", you'll probably enjoy this one.

Really, I can't recommend it enough!

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