19.2 hours played
Written 18 days ago
To place into words how utterly brilliant, forward-thinking, and ingenius The House in Fata Morgana's narrative is, without spoiling it, is no less than equitable to the herculean task enforced upon Sisyphus by Zeus himself, but dammit if I won't try my best.
There is but one word I can use to define Fata Morgana's narrative : Perfect.
Just to be clear, I'm not throwing around the P-word willy-nilly here. Not only is Fata Morgana my personal pick for the best story ever devised in the gaming medium; it's most possibly the best story ever devised in any medium, period. This game didn't make my cry once, not twice, not even 3 times, but a total of 4 times throughout it's run and I really need to stop dragging my feet in this intro, so fuck it, lets get into my best non-spoiler review of the--
[h3]Story[/h3]
Dear god where do I even start? What do I even have the ability to talk about without robbing you the experience of playing the game? Fata Morgana is a tragedy in the most brutal sense possible, and not just one, singular tragedy, a tragedy made up of many more tragedies that contextualize how the main tragedy unfolds. It tells the story of many characters, each with an important piece of the puzzle, each with an important part of them that effects the main story.
Throughout it's runtime, Fata Morgana slowly builds puzzle pieces that come together to form a final visage that would make even the most stoic people feel awful about what the characters go through. I've never quite seen a story so expertly make every detail count, there is no loose threads, there are no final mysteries, from beginning to end every single aspect is covered, every single line, every single moment, has a payoff. I will use this section to give a little bit of a content warning however, Fata Morgana is incredibly dark, more so than most games I have ever played. There are many moments that sicken me, and make me feel sick to my stomach with just how detailed some of these aspects are, and I fucking love it.
Fata Morgana is a story of multi-millennia tragedy, and one that, once you play, you will not forget anytime even remotely soon. Any kind of tragedy you can think of, emotional, romantic, bloody, scarring, so forth; is present in Fata Morgana. In a way it is the tragedy that ends all tragedies as there may never be one so utterly profane and dark-spirited. This all helps that a majority of the story elements and metaphorical devices are expertly used, incredibly unique (for the time) and everything is so well defined to the extent that the only blemish you could even derive is that some aspects are too detailed, but for me that's hardly even a point of contention as I utterly love the attention to detail and the moment-to-moment writing.
There is one pervading question about this game though I think needs to be adressed; why, if it's so damn good, is it not just a book? And to be clear this is a question I've asked myself for years on end, and while it's still a valid question, it's much more complicated than just "make it a book" and to explain why, we have to get into the--
[h3]Gameplay[/h3]
Visual Novels often do a handful of things to separate themselves from being "books", that is often Audio, Visuals, and Character Choice. Morgana uses all 3, but less begrudgingly so, and more to enhance the story in it's medium. Let's start with the audio. This is the party of Fata Morgana that is the most haywire-y on my replay. There are some songs in some sections that I myself am not in love with, but a majority of the game is backed by absolutely gut-wrenching and stellar musical pieces that really help set you in the frame of mind for experiencing the story. There are moments in the game where a musical piece is recurrent, coming back in crucial story moments that help land the impact of reveals, and emotional moments that will leave you heartbroken. A non-spoiler-y example, there is a track which for the god of me I cannot find the hardest I look, but it first shows up in the context of one character who you start to associate with them; a later moment in the story the musical piece will be recontextualized with a reveal that shifts the tone of the song and the meaning heavily in a new direction, turning from a mysterious theme to a much more sinister one.
For visuals I'll be more brief. You have your bog-standard anime-esque visuals of course as well as some stunningly beautiful watercolour scenes as backdrops and sometimes foregrounds. What really is more impressive in this regard though is the moments that visuals are the centerpiece. There are many, many moments throughout the game where text is used in creative ways. Sometimes color will change to imply a sense of dominance or subservience in ways that books use fonts to similar effects, or italicization. In other sections, text is sped up, or slowed down, in rare instances it is splattered across the screen to display manic and panicked perception. As well as that the general style a Visual Novel takes on with the character-box text adds a lot of good suspense as well, there is no quick-glancing to the next line, you are forced to go piece by piece, moment-by-moment, which helps sell the growing tension in the story.
Anyways, not as brief as I aimed to be there, but lets talk Character Choice and Agency. Fata Morgana never really presents choice in the aspect of branching paths outside a few faux-endings halfway into the story. However, what it does do is define the importance of choice. Throughout the game you play a character, whose name I cannot say, but there are many moments playing this character that there is a choice presented, and while often these choices are mute, the aspect of choice is very important. For example, there are scenes where making a choice, or not making a choice in a few-second window will drastically change the meaning of a scene. While in itself the choice providing little, the fact you are giving a choice helps define the character's feelings and motives in ways that otherwise could not be expressed in other mediums. The agency you are given, or the agency taken away, provides characterization in ways that are seldom possible in a book or a manga, which is something that is wholly impressive. Sure you could make a shitty CHYOA out of it for a novelization, which would just undermine the feeling of the choice at all.
[h3]Conclusion[/h3]
There isn't really a third section I can add here so imma just put my conclusion at the end. The House in Fata Morgana is incredibly impressive, both when it came out, and even today. I may be a bit overzealous in my praise for it's story, and while it is annoying that this expert-level of a narrative is stuck in a visual novel form, I don't have much issue with it personally. I think if you have the patience to treat a visual novel like a different kind of book, and a few dozen hours, and a decent tolerance for debaucher-ous and stomach-churning writing that both makes you feel awful and sick from moment to moment; you will find a fantastic narrative unlike any other you can find in gaming.
For those who can't I hope you'd be able to enjoy the novelization or manga-versions that do well to repeat the story, if a great deal dumbed-down and simplified for those mediums.
I am happy to say to myself that this is my favorite story, narrative, what-have-you, in any medium ever. I will be thinking about this for years to come as it is something that is mind-blowingly great, and I'm so happy I came back to replay it. Now just to play the spinoffs...
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