So I've finished the game, clocked in at 35 hours, and I've had some time to collect my thoughts. I am going to keep this as spoiler free and short as possible, while trying to get across my feelings for this game.
I have to start by stating that The House in Fata Morgana is the first Visual Novel I've really played...at least the first one I've played to completion. If you count Phoenix Wright (the first game), I guess I played one back when that was released in the US for the DS, but I never finished it. Regardless, I admittedly took in a lot of preconceptions to what a VN was. It was going to have waifus, it was going to have schoolgirls...all the stereotypical things one thinks when they haven't really researched or played one. I wondered just how much "game" was there. I'm a game designer by trade. Interaction of systems is generally a cornerstone of an experience for me. So yeah, The House of Fata Morgana had a lot going against it in terms of perception for me going in. When I finally emerged from the experience, there was but a single word I could pin on the entirety of it.
Perfection.
Apart from being a game designer, my original collegiate focus was creative writing. I'm definitely able to enjoy great works of fiction. I also tend to surrender myself to anything I am giving myself to. I allow myself to become emotionally invested because I personally get more out of any media when I do this. So despite some bias going in, I knew I had to leave a lot at the door in order to do this. I approached as the name suggested I should, a novel.
Let me get this out of the way early. If you aren't interested in reading, this game isn't for you. You have to read, and a lot. I mentioned this took me 35 hours to complete. Now, that's all the endings and dead ends, and some of it is idle time where I had to step away, but I'm a greater-than-average speed reader and it took me greater than 30 hours to do. It has visuals, sound effects, and music. Some light animation. There are points where you have to make choices, though few and far between in most cases. There are no stats, no inventory, no puzzles. It's a long choose-you-own adventure book. I, however, struggle to say that, as it belittles the experience, and use it only as a means for understanding what someone would be getting themselves into.
As I mentioned, I want to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, so I'll only speak in vague terms about the story itself. The Steam page says its, "A gothic suspense tale set in a cursed mansion. "The House in Fata Morgana" is a full-length visual novel spanning nearly a millennium that deals in tragedy, human nature, and insanity." This is definitely accurate, but there are a couple of things I'd like to expand upon, more in reference to the subject matter.
First, the story itself doesn't just make a great Visual Novel, at least as much as I understand them. This is honestly going on my list of favorite fictional works. I read quite a bit, and I do have a level of leniency on things that others sometimes don't. I mean, one of my favorite books of all time is The Thief of Always by Clive Barker. Not just favorite YA novel or whatnot, but favorite. I'm just stating this to set your barometer for whether or not you'd agree with my tastes. But this VN tells a tale so engrossing that I couldn't stop thinking about it any time that I had to step away from it. It's tragic, it shows people at their worst, and has long stretches of depressing narrative beating your over the head as it were a sledgehammer of vileness. Some of the twists you see coming, and it makes things all the worse since figuring out the twist doesn't damper anything, but instead just creates more pain as you watch it the light on the freight train of sadness just get closer and closer. I mentioned that give myself up to anything I am experiencing. I outright admit that I cry at things, though when it comes to games, there aren't too many that have made me. The House in Fata Morgana didn't only make me cry, but at certain points, turned me into a sobbing, messy puddle of a person. So to say it affected me would be an understatement.
Another topic I'd like to bring up is the care in which it handles very sensitive subject matter. While I'm not going to go into specifics, as that would ruin critical emotional beats, The House in Fata Morgana tackles certain, we'll say, "High Risk" topics with care and grace that is not only rarely seen in games, but rarely seen in media in general. There is little to nothing that is presented for shock value, as other works are more than guilty of when these things are used. Here, instead, they are made part of the emotional core of a character, and the writers go to great lengths to show the internal and external effects of each subject they breach.
Wrapping up, this game totally threw my preconceived notions for a VN out the window. No waifu focused, half-nude schoolgirl stuff here. Just an incredibly told story, crafted incredibly well with layers upon layers of tragic, heartbreaking narrative that build to an amazing end. Again, if you don't want to sit down in front of a PC and read for 30+ hours, this isn't for you. But if that doesn't bother you, and jumping into a VN is something you might want to do, while my limited experience with them doesn't allow me to recommend anything else, this is certainly one I can say was a great jumping on point for me, instantly propelling itself into my pantheon of best games and fictional works.
Sorry guys. I also asked Cheesemeister and he says its eligible.
