A Brutally Honest Review of “The House in Fata Morgana”

THIS IS NOT A POSITIVE REVIEW. IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE IT THEN DON’T READ.

THIS IS NOT A POSITIVE REVIEW. IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE IT THEN DON’T READ.

THIS IS NOT A POSITIVE REVIEW. IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE IT THEN DON’T READ.

This is just a personal blog, nobody cares if you disagree.

So, I played the highly rated and highly recommended game on review sites: The House in Fata Morgana.

To put it shortly, it was…alright. Nothing to write home about. There were some glaring flaws that made the experience extremely unpleasant for me at times so I can’t in my good conscience recommend this game. The story is quite simple, just wrapped up in layers of mystery that stir intrigue in the player. If you were invested in the story and characters, I think it would be a blast.

I wanted to be invested.

Normally I wouldn’t write a review on this kind of “meh” gaming experience I had. But due to the raving reviews this game gets and being recommended everywhere, I thought I’d balance things out with a more critical view. Aaaaand I’m just salty because this game gave me a headache. I’m not saying the story is terrible, in fact, it’s good at times (though I wouldn’t say had-me-at-the-edge-of-my-seat amazing either), it’s that I just couldn’t enjoy it like how I wanted.

Imagine going to some restaurant and ordering a dish, and the waiter brings it to you in a trash can with no utensils. Granted, the dish is cooked pretty good, but I wouldn’t eat something out of a trash can. It’s not as dramatic as my analogy, but you get the point. THIFM is a decent story with some genuinely good bits, wrapped up in some very poor presentation choices.

I had my own gripes with some of the messages and characters in the story as well, but these are mainly due to my own values and tastes so…

Some background info: I played the original Japanese version on the switch. I’ve finished the main story. Don’t really feel like going for the extra bits now, maybe in the future. So I’m just going to be talking about the main story. I’m also going to be assuming that those reading this review already have some idea on what the game is about, and have probably seen some really positive reviews.

This review/rant is mostly spoiler-free and spoilers will be marked.

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The Writing

This is a major issue, at least for me. I don’t get how the people who rated this game so highly can overlook this seeing it’s a text-based game.

I played this game in Japanese, so there’s no translation issue here. The writing AND pacing of this game is poor, and it only gets worse as you play on. I have a feeling that the writer is so wrapped up in their own writing that they fail to see how a reader will experience it. But this started out as a doujin game so they probably didn’t have a proper editor.

Let’s talk about the dialogue. The writer REALLY likes rambly dialogue that goes in all kinds of different directions before settling down on the main point, then it drags out the exchange, until when you finally thought it was over, the characters have to go on about some other trivial issue before bidding farewell, then there’s some inner monologue about what they just talked about… and this happens A LOT. At first I was tolerant because I wanted to get to know the characters, but it got on my nerves as early on as the second chapter. The dialogue is just overly fluff and don’t contain a lot of important content. It’s also one of the reasons the game is so slow at the start.

The writer also uses ellipses to an extremely frustrating extent. When you notice it, it becomes very annoying. It’s as if the characters aren’t able to speak properly. I guess the writer wanted to communicate hesitation and thoughtfulness of the character, but it’s just very poor writing technique. For example, a character having only one sentence to say will start with ellipses, and the sentence will be split into multiple lines punctuated by ellipses, and you have to click through ALL of that for one sentence. Heck, sometimes a character just goes “……” for no fcking reason at all. And let’s not talk about how some characters love repeating the same things over and over.

What’s more, when two characters are having a “conversation” :

A: Says something.

B: ……

A: Says another thing.

B: ……

A: Says one more thing.

B: ……

A: Says yet another thing.

B: ……

I wanted to flip a table when I see this shit. Isn’t there a better way of expressing this? Maybe let A say whatever they had to say and B just stays silent the whole way through. It doesn’t make any difference so why are you wasting my time? A VN isn’t like a book where you can just flip over the page and read at your own pace, you have to sit through all of that appearing on your screen. Not a good experience!

Those are just some technical issues with the writing. The style of writing also got on my nerves. This is a story set in Europe from the Middle Ages until the 1800s, but the writer uses this typical Japanese light-novel style throughout, including modern colloquialisms and anime cliches. It reads no different from a VN set in a modern day Japanese high school and breaks the immersion. I don’t find the comedic parts funny either, just awkward. The style and tone don’t match the story’s setting at all. I don’t find the language particularly beautiful either, if anything, it’s just plain with a lot of over-explaining.

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The Pacing

Probably the biggest joy-killer apart from the writing itself, tied in with the overly redundant dialogue. The writer has a penchant of breaking the flow of the story with some flashback or exposition or just plain banter.

Example 1: I first became irritated at door 2 where something interesting was going on at the mansion and then the scene cuts to another character who frankly isn’t that interesting. I have no problems with switching POVs but holy moly this other character’s plot line is just a bore to sit through. The change in mood is also very jarring because you’re in a scene fill with blood and gore and in another scene, it’s two lovers pining for each other. In the end though, whatever the lovers said to one another had no impact on me understanding the plot anyways, which makes me question WHY the story is structured in this way. Door 7 also had some of this with the amount of flashbacks that just shoehorn in some poignant scenes. I know the writer probably wants to make me care for these characters, but it’s just so, so forced.

Example 2: In door 8 there’s character A, who can talk telepathically with character B who isn’t physically with them. When A engages in dialogue with someone else, they would simultaneously be speaking telepathically with B. The writer insists on having B pit in their opinion on EVERYTHING that is going on and then have some private chit-chat with A, all the while when the plot should be moving forward. It breaks the pacing, wastes time, and makes me annoyed with these characters.

The repetition of previous plot lines also kills the fun. After the half-way point, the story starts to go back and re-tell the story from the POV of a different character with very little new information revealed, what’s told is just more on this character’s thoughts and motivations at that time. Door 4 is entirely fabricated an has absolutely no impact on the story, then door 5 is just a retelling of door 4 with mostly similar plot beats and different characters. Door 6 retells all of door 1-3 from another POV, then door 7 retells door 5, and then door 8 retells another character’s story from 3 different POVs…I mean, It’s FINE to do this in moderation, but this game just kept doing it right until the end.

Readers aren’t dumb, we can infer a character’s thoughts and motivations from new information we learn about them and their personality WITHOUT having to be told outright what exactly they were doing. It just felt like the writer was trying to pad out the story, or they just don’t have confidence in their writing and/or the reader’s intelligence, so they felt the need to explain EVERYTHING in fear we might miss this detail or we can’t empathise with this character. I felt like shouting I GET IT ALREADY, I just want to move on with the story!

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The Music (or how it’s used)

I’m probably going to be stepping on a lot of toes, but the background music also caused me stress during gameplay. I’m not saying the tracks weren’t good… there were some tracks I enjoyed, but it certainly isn’t all of them.

The main story doesn’t have any voice acting, so when the music with chanting and vocals come up in a scene, it just becomes so distracting. This is immediately noticeable in door 1, and I don’t particularly like that track either, it’s a very messy composition imo. The scenes in this game can get LONG due to how wordy the writing is, and in the background the same track just keeps looping regardless of shifts in the mood of the scene. I remembered hating some of the tracks in door 2 (maybe that added to my annoyance with that part of the game). And in certain scenes, the mood can be quite light and comedic but the background music is melancholic…these little things add to my stress level playing this game. Otherwise I don’t have much complaint about the music, I mean there are some genuinely great tracks. But having vocals in the music when your game doesn’t have voice acting is an oversight, because I’m sure a lot of people have problems reading when that happens.

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The Art

I actually don’t have much to say about this but since I’m complaining anyways, what the heck.

The CGs are fine for the most part. Some of them can be very pretty to look at…but some of them are ugly. That CG with two characters on the bed facing each other in door 1… That one, yeah, it’s not good. I think some of the prettier ones were drawn at a later date, seeing that this game was released multiple times. The sprites can also have very awkward proportions, some heads are way too big (looking at you Mell) and hands are too small, or eyes are too far apart.

And then there’s a lot of emphasis on BOOBS. I have nothing against boobies, I love boobs. But it’s incredibly…noticeable…in some CGs where there’s really no need to emphasise on them. I also don’t feel that the characters in question should be the subject of such fanservice given the circumstances, but this is only a very minor gripe.

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I started this game feeling really excited to read a good story, but due to the above problems, my enjoyment just went down the hill until I was practically BEGGING for it to just end and release me from my suffering. I know what some fans are going to say: that I have no patience or have no sympathy or whatever. But the fact is I have sat through some really long VNs and NONE have been such a frustration to read as this one. I almost never complain about the writing, because I read JPVNs in Japanese and I have a higher tolerance for bad writing because I’m not a native speaker, I can’t tell if the prose is a little cheesy. But with this, even I can notice it, because it’s just that bad.

And I haven’t even gotten to the story and characters yet, another whole can of worms.

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The Story and Characters (Spoilers)

I think the way the plot was unraveled was clever in some parts, the mystique of the mansion is its main selling point, after all. But the writer is just so unimaginative with how they choose to write the story. They seem to love writing the grimdark parts with all the gore and torture, describing intricately how Giselle, Morgana and Michel were violently abused. But is incapable of having the slightest bit of originality when writing romances or lighthearted parts, often resolving to anime cliches.

When I really think about it, the story is nothing special. We’ve seen this kind of story in many other media, probably not presented in the same way, but having the same basic themes. There’s reincarnation, soul mates, love story, reunited in another life, etc. And then the typical Japanese anime tropes of forgiveness and understanding and working together with nakama to save everyone. It was pretty fresh at the start due to the mystery surrounding the mansion, but by the end the message is: “I know that person hurt you real bad, but if you listened to their circumstances and understand them, you’d realise they didn’t want this to happen! It’s always better to forgive!”

I know it’s pretty much the point that he’s an angel, but frankly Michel’s saintly values don’t resonate with me at all, and I don’t think his values are universal values either. I’m glad that Morgana did NOT forgive her abusers in the end, even if she decided to let go of the hatred which was hurting herself, at least the writer had that semblance of a conscience.

I also thought the idea of setting this whole story in a mansion trapping in purgatory (or in a world after death or whatever) was really convenient in places. The writer could just let the characters show up whenever needed, or do random stuff because they’re souls and not exactly tangible. Like how Giselle was able to still appear and talk to Michel after Morgana trapped her, I guess it’s due to the “power of love”. I think if you’re the kind to easily go along with the story, you don’t care about these things. But I just found it extremely convenient (or lazy).

This is a matter of personal taste. I found the ending a little too “happy” for the tone of this story, which was tragedy and despair for the most part. I would have liked it if it was Michel who was waiting for Giselle this time, and it was left open to interpretation if they really did meet again. I felt like this story as a whole just didn’t leave much for the reader to think about due to the writer explaining absolutely EVERYTHING.

Also a matter of personal taste is that I liked none of the pairings in this game lol. For the most part I found them either underdeveloped or just plain uninspired. I don’t care if it’s incest, but Mell and Nellie were just very boring characters with a very cliched “imouto and onii-chan” relationship. I liked that the beast knows he doesn’t love Pauline, I just don’t like the beast or Pauline as characters. Jacopo and Morgana is just…no, not for the p*do aspect but because I can’t get behind this character after all he’s done, EVEN with all that explanation and circumstance. He’s just not sympathetic to me (but I know in the sequel the writer’s going to make them get together…). Giselle and Michel’s relationship is terribly, terribly boring. I know it’s all sweet and fluffy and healthy, but it’s so boring. The way it was written like a romcom in the story is also just awkward to see.

Michel as the main character annoys me, he’s the worst perpetrator of the abuse of ellipses. None of his outbursts, rashness, broodiness, and then preachy saintly personality appeals to me. I get how he’s the way he is, doesn’t mean I have to like it. Also I’m tired of male characters getting female characters falling head over heels for them just because they are “yasashii”. If you’ve read enough galgame VNs, you’d see the same kind of traits on the male leads a lot of the time. Michel is really nothing special apart from his…physical state and dark past. In the end he just became a very preachy and boring character. I don’t really buy into his love for Giselle either, it’s rather cheap that the writer had ALL other female presences in his life be absolutely horrible to him, so that he would latch onto Giselle because she was decent (but he never even told her about his secret before his death??). Their love story is just so artificial to me.

I liked Giselle better when she was a maid with that inhuman vibe, always poised and calm. Normal Giselle is just…a typical cheerful girl with past trauma. There are practically ENDLESS characters with this trait. Her whole personality practically revolves around being abused and being in love with Michel, which isn’t very interesting at all. Also I don’t like her short hair character art.

I think out of all the characters, I liked Morgana the most, but even so it’s more like I find her sympathetic. She had a good reason to hate everything. Though trapping Giselle in the mansion isn’t very nice, I like that she’s an antagonist who doesn’t let the saintly main characters preach at her.

All in all, story and characters weren’t bad per se. I also thought the delving into the dark parts of human nature was interesting, how humans are flawed and weak. But even so I just don’t like these characters, much like how I don’t really like real people (oh dear, I’m going to be called a sociopath aren’t I). Even so there were places where I did shed a tear because it really is sad.

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Final Thoughts

I don’t recommend this game because I was in pain playing it (not in the way the game intended). But if all my gripes mean nothing to you then by all means go ahead. There are so many raving reviews on this game, I’m the one in the minority.

What I CAN recommend, however, is this game here. With similar tone and story but with far more charm than Fata Morgana.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate this game, it hasn’t made me angry, but it was extremely taxing. I suppose the mystery was fun to unravel, but when I looked back, I just didn’t think it was worth it. IDK, maybe I’ll like it a bit more if I play the other stories. But for now I’ve had enough with this writer.