vn release The House in Fata Morgana Released!

[Decay]

(official site)

Novectacle's gothic horror VN The House in Fata Morgana is finally translated and released on MG's site, and will be released on Steam shortly (19 hours, according to Steam's countdown). Just what is Fata Morgana about? The author wrote a good summary on MG's blog:

Quote

Hello, everyone. My name is Keika Hanada, author of  The House in Fata Morgana, and I would like to take a little bit of your time to talk about what kind of game it is.
Fata Morgana is a collection of four tragic, loosely related short stories.

 

…Or so it appears at first. But in truth, the game is much larger than that, its pieces more deeply connected than they seem. And once you reach the end of the first four tales, the story shifts focus to You and to answering the many questions You (and you) may have.

 

The House in Fata Morgana is a story with many mysteries (or perhaps I should say plot threads) scattered about, but I give you my word, as the author, that none of these threads are left dangling. That you will find your answers. That everything comes together in a satisfying, cathartic conclusion.

 

And why can I promise you that? Because we at Novectacle love stories, and we created Fata Morgana for readers who love them as much as we do.

 

The House in Fata Morgana is a visual novel, but it is not a dating sim or an otome game. It’s not targeted specifically at men or women, but everyone who enjoys stories.
Do you like mysteries? What about suspense? Or characters you would not want to be stuck alone in a room with? Are you looking for unexpected twists or something to make you cry? Well, Fata Morgana has all of that and more. If you’re someone who just likes a good story, we’re certain you’ll enjoy the game, and we hope you see it through to the end and uncover all its many secrets.

 

Novectacle
Keika Hanada

It's a very highly rated VN on both EGS and VNDB, and has received some pretty serious acclaim from members of the community in recent times. And the spoiler-filled content advisory that I very briefly glanced at indicates that it deals with some rather dark themes.  I'm a little bit worried that it will underperform, however. It's a very unique VN, and uniqueness is not always a selling point for a lot of people. If you're one of those people who don't like ever leaving your comfort zone, I suggest that you at least give the demo a shot. This VN deserves to be a hit. I'm eager to start reading it, but it may unfortunately be a while before I'm able to. 

Anyone else excited for this?

[Eclipsed]

Decay whippin' out news for another underrated gem. The mystery-everything-will-come-together-at-the-end intrigues me, but I gotta finish Tokyo Babel first

I'll look forward to people's thoughts of this until then  

 

[Nerathim]

I'm like super-duper excited for this VN, everything in Fata Morgana looks so unique and "mature" (it might also be one of the very few VN to have a good artstyle) I can't wait to read it. Fata Morgana definitely contrasts with many other VNs and I'm really happy it got translated, I guess it's one of my most expected titles along with Himawari and SubaHibi.

I'm still worried about one thing though, I read that the prose and the way of talking of some characters weren't really suited to the historical context which is a real shame if it's true.

[DarkZedge]

Wow, it looks really nice  I love mysteries and goth horror kind of settings also I really like the artstyle.

[Turnip Sensei]

Gonna give this one a go after work today. I buy (almost) every story focused VN Mangagamer licenses on principle anyways and I did like the demo. Uniqueness is one enticing part of it, but I'm also pretty curious about the reasons behind the really high EGS score.

[Scorp]

2 hours ago, Nerathim said:

I'm still worried about one thing though, I read that the prose and the way of talking of some characters weren't really suited to the historical context which is a real shame if it's true.

I read demo, Conjueror is just being too picky (or it was not in demo). I remember some phrases which were a BIT out of context, but these were just a few phrases, from a 20+ hour long novel. By me nothing to be worried about.

Anyway, when I will read that in full, then would be able to give you a more detailed analysis on that matter.

[Darklord Rooke]

This story looks ... a bit too dark for me. So I'll be skipping this one  

[Scorp]

7 minutes ago, Rooke said:

This story looks ... a bit too dark for me. So I'll be skipping this one  

You told you read all sort of books? And now finally comes out a VN, which is essentially a book with good art - and you'll be skipping on this? Too bad, Rooke.

[Darklord Rooke]

I've drifted away from darker stories as I got older. Don't worry about me, though. I've got a backlog of a hundred books on the Kindle and it's growing daily, so always plenty for me to read  

[XReaper]

finally, that´s all there´s to say!

[Scorp]

9 minutes ago, Rooke said:

I've drifted away from darker stories as I got older. Don't worry about me, though. I've got a backlog of a hundred books on the Kindle and it's growing daily, so always plenty for me to read  

I am actually worried, because you probably skip the most interesting thing I read in last 2 years. This is indeed something new in VNs - at least this is how I felt, complete step away from most of usual tropes used in VN. That's unique situation in current VN market, overloaded with moege and chuuni, you know.

[XReaper]

wouldnt even call it a "dark" story by default, because there´s much more to it than it meets the eye. there arent lots of (good)stories around, which feel this much human, at least i can only think of few such like mugen kairou1-2, bokuten & kagerou.
feels-wise it reminded me abit at robert silverbergs lord of darkness in terms of ones own impuissance.
basically saying by spending a rather small amount of money on fatamorgana, he/she who decides on doing so, gains quite alot & pretty thought through content in return.

[Mr Poltroon]

I shall reiterate and steal Rooke's opinion for myself. I'm sure it's great and all, but not my particular cup of tea.
Entirely my fault for preferring off-brand tea knockoffs than the good stuff.

[Conjueror]

7 hours ago, Scorp said:

I read demo, Conjueror is just being too picky (or it was not in demo). I remember some phrases which were a BIT out of context, but these were just a few phrases, from a 20+ hour long novel. By me nothing to be worried about.

Anyway, when I will read that in full, then would be able to give you a more detailed analysis on that matter.

It's mainly a problem with one character that gets introduced in the later half, but it's not bad enough to ruin the experience, just an odd eyebrow raising phrase here and there. It's also possible BDH fixed it in the tled version.

[Kawasumi]

7 hours ago, Rooke said:

I've drifted away from darker stories as I got older. Don't worry about me, though. I've got a backlog of a hundred books on the Kindle and it's growing daily, so always plenty for me to read  

my mom told me this as well lol, im still edgy AF, so I dont get it at all.

[VirginSmasher]

I'll probably be choosing between this and Root Double after I finish Ayakashibito. I love the art style and the MangaGamer Trigger Warning Post they made only made me want to play this one even more.

Here is that post btw.

http://blog.mangagamer.org/2016/05/12/the-house-in-fata-morgana-content-advisory/

[Leaf]

I don't know if I can get on this, you see the japanese culture has brainwashed me into enjoying cutesy moe characters and nothing more. Don't get me wrong the art looks pretty well drawn, it's just not something i'm used to is all.

[solidbatman]

Its super good, and anyone looking for a good story, not just fartsy shit cute girls, is doing themselves a great disservice by not picking this one up. 

[Silvz]

Is there a walkthrough of sorts? I've read that some choices lead to bad endings, I'd like to know which ones, so I can read everything

[Nerathim]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=685653577

Here you go

 

I'm definitely having a blast with Fata Morgana. I can't believe a non-chuuni VN can be this good.

The art is undoubtedly the best you can find in any translated VN (or even any VN at at all), the soundtrack is on par with Umineko's in term of raw quality and I don't even need to mention the absolutely unique atmosphere resulting from the two previously mentioned qualities. It has me spellbound to such an extent I am able to overlook any kind of questionable pacing.

[littleshogun]

After seeing the game, I think even though maybe the art was not usual VN art ie this game use gothic, it's still better than Higurashi original art. Okay, maybe I'd said the art was off putting in the past, but right now I think it wasn't too bad (And some of us called it beautiful art). About the VN itself, I think it's quite good indeed with VNDB average score was at 8.38 right now and Bayesian at 7.29 (I'd already knew Bayesian rating was created in order to prevent VN with low votes had very high or very low ranking, but seeing the Bayesian score raise significantly at least indicate that this VN was good imo and acceptable (Although I might be better to look at average score of course)). As for the OST, it had voice and quite good if I said myself.

By the way, if some of you want another feedback in form of review, I'll give the review from Operation Rainfall. The review was quite good imo, and I think it was quite spoiler free imo (Although be careful though). And I think this VN was quite profitable in Japan, so much that I'd browse Jap Wiki for this game and find out that the Drama CD was had some very good seiyuu name like Mamiko Noto for White Haired Girl and Yui Horie (Will Mangagamer localize the Drama CD later I wonder, or will we had voiced Fata Morgana with the seiyuu from Drama CD voicing character in the future? I'd certainly hope so). Okay, and for last word here sorry if I couldn't word well what I want to said. Here's the review from Operation Rainfall, divided in 2 pages.

House in Fata Morgana Review Page 1

House in Fata Morgana Review Page 2