The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition

Genre: Visual Novel

Players: 1

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Review:

The House in Fata Morgana is a Visual Novel first released on PC in 2016, later ported to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in 2019 as Dreams of the Revenants Edition, which featured remastered HD artwork, the prequel story A Requiem for Innocence, the sequel story Reincarnation, and various other connected short stories. This version of the game was ported to Nintendo Switch in 2021.

This game focuses on a multi-generational story of a mansion said to be cursed, and the tumultuous lives of its residents through the ages, as conveyed to an unknown protagonist by a mysterious and seemingly immortal maid as she gives him a tour of the mansion’s rooms. Each of these connected but seemingly separate stories plays out almost like an episode of Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, but instead of the focus being various twisted realities like Twilight Zone or the dehumanizing technology of Black Mirror, Fata Morgana’s stories seem focused on doomed relationships, both romantic and familial. Or at least, that’s how it starts – I’ll refrain from spoiling things by discussing how this story evolves as it goes on.

Throughout each of the stories, a few elements remain as recurring fixtures. The mansion itself, seemingly transposed to different locations at different times, yet those locations are always nebulous and vague. The mansion is also supposedly capable of acting on the wishes of its residents, but the way it goes about granting those wishes seems to be a monkey’s paw sorta’ situation. Another repeated element, as I’ve mentioned, is the maid, who at times seems to present herself as a personification of the mansion itself, and perhaps fittingly is both helpful and yet seems to be withholding important information at the same time, or perhaps hiding some darker motive. Finally, there is The White Haired Girl, who appears in each time, seemingly a different person in each story yet bearing the same appearance and mannerisms. What is their connection, The White Haired Girl, The Maid, and the mansion? What is the nature of the mansion’s curse? Who is the person The Maid is conveying these stories to and why?

One of the fun things about this game is that each of the individual stories works well enough as its own self-contained tragedy, and yet they all do eventually tie together in one cohesive saga. And while I have told you a lot of this story’s framework, I think it’s fairly safe to say that I’ve barely scratched the surface of the overarching story here, and haven’t even touched on any of the individual ones. Even more delightful is that, while some of the twists in the game’s story can clearly be seen coming quite a distance away, each of the stories manages to hide multiple twists, with the more obvious twists helping to hide others.

The story here isn’t without its flaws, though. Each of the individual stories takes some time to pick up steam, and the earlier introductory parts can be a bit dull. In addition, some of the characters here seem a bit cartoonishly evil, though without giving away too much I can say that at least some of that is due to different ways that these stories have been distorted by others’ lies and misperceptions. Also, if you’re sensitive to violent or triggering content, know that some of the darker elements in the stories explored here include both. And while the localization here is generally pretty good, it feels a bit awkward in a few places that slightly dulls the otherwise serious tones the story is aiming for.

Regarding the presentation here, The House in Fata Morgana is beautiful but also somewhat off-putting. Both the anime-esque character designs and background art are wonderfully designed and intricately detailed, but at times the character art seems to depict characters who are inhumanly pale, bearing creepy expressions, or otherwise just a bit… off. Likewise, the background art is frequently blurry or stylized, and at times this seems like it’s intended to resemble an impressionist painting, but at others this presentation seems like it’s intended to twist reality into something dreamlike, or perhaps nightmarelike.

The music here is similarly beautiful, but… off. Songs can be overly loud, shrill, or discordant, or with especially high reverb. While this does do a good job of underlining the creepy and off-putting tone of the game, it can be distracting from reading the text and at times the tone of the music doesn’t quite seem to fit what’s happening in the story. Nevertheless, multiple songs in this game’s soundtrack are quite memorable, with the soundtrack shifting in tone based on the time period being depicted, with the music generally having orchestral and choral music, with vocals generally in some foreign language I can’t quite place. Some noteworthy tracks include Petalouda, Skia Oura, Fecha Me, and Cicio.

Before concluding, I should take a brief moment to mention the controls in this game. This game does make use of the Nintendo Switch’s touchscreen, but only to supplement the traditional gamepad controls. This is fine, as the gamepad controls are largely sufficient. I will note that at multiple points the game seemed to skip a line of text without me pressing the button to do so, but this was easily remedied by pressing a button to review the text history to see the missing line. A mild frustration, but worth noting nonetheless.

Overall, The House in Fata Morgana is not going to be a game for everyone, even some people who are normally fans of Visual Novels. The stories take some considerable time to get interesting, are generally bleak, and feature a lot of off-putting content with presentation to match. However, those with the patience and stomach to see this through will find that the stories here are excellent, with enough twists that you’re not likely to predict where things go, and while the presentation can be off-putting, it also holds a lot of beauty, a pairing that’s all too fitting given the nature of the stories being told. If you’re looking to enjoy a well-crafted and eerily dark story and don’t mind it taking its time to tell its tale, you should definitely try The House in Fata Morgana.

tl;dr – The House in Fata Morgana is a Visual Novel about an enigmatic maid telling a mysterious protagonist about the history of a cursed mansion and the doomed fates of its prior residents. Each of the stories takes some time to get interesting, but once things get going these dark tales take on a cruel irony not unlike a Twilight Zone episode. The slow pacing, dark content, and at times beautiful and sometimes off-putting presentation may not be for everyone, but those with the patience and constitution to see it through will find this game’s stories to be well worth experiencing.

Grade: B+

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