Huge, complex, and bizarre. There’s almost no way to describe this experience adequately, other than to say I know this story will stick with me for a long, long time. Takes the idea of a haunted house and goes absolutely wild with it.

I’m still reeling from the whole thing, honestly. It’s so structured and intentional and deep and broad and bleak and hopeful and strange. Equal parts gorgeous and goofy, sacred, profane, and stupidly mundane, All at once. Somehow.

The illustrations weren’t always to my personal taste, occasionally they even felt at odds with the text (Giselle CGs in particular) but that’s neither here nor there. The story itself is certainly art, well and truly. A slow, meticulous build that eventually grabbed me by the throat and would not let go. Pretty spectacular. Plus the soundtrack is like an alternate universe Dead Can Dance album, and some of the tracks haunted me for DAYS.

The text does occasionally get too long-winded for its own good. A bit of editing to shave down some meandering plot threads and verbal redundancies might have helped with the relentless-feeling read time, especially considering the already spiraling, recursive nature of the story. Furthermore, the translation (or the original text, hard to say) took a lot of liberties with weirdly casual speech for a “period” piece. But honestly, the lack of historical realism isn’t particularly important to the story’s themes, and if anything the inconsistency serves to elevate the sense of surreal displaced weirdness that permeates the entire novel. It doesn’t actually take place in any of those times, after all. So…Ignore everything I just wrote. It’s gonna take me a while to absorb and process this whole journey.

Edit: the prequel/sequel stories were not nearly as good, and ranged from incredibly boring to coffee shop AU, so your mileage may vary on that. I personally didn’t see the point: at worst I felt they cheapened the main story somewhat. My five stars are exclusively for the original game, not all the much weaker fluff they padded this special edition with.

This game was pretty cool. I thought the ways Beastia and Jacopo in their respected storylines struggled to accept unconditional love were effective, empathetical, and sad. The 4th wall breaking with the chat history was neat, the music was good, art was great, and the narratives twists and turns were mostly unexpected and were entertaining enough.

This is my first time with the medium of visual novels and I think I'll give a few more games a try but these are definitely more novel than video game and I'm pretty picky about my prose narratives.

I knew little about this visual novel and I'm thankful I wasn't spoiled. The storytelling is absolutely done well. I only had an understanding this was a mature VN. There are warnings of triggering subjects when you load the game. It is necessary since there are many, many instances of depressing, awful events. The only slight negative following the story was watching the series of inhumane events happening to the characters. Thankfully, it does balance out with kind, sweet moments.

The music is beautiful and haunting. All of the characters are well rounded; the antagonists show moments of humanity. Not an easy task when you're creating people doing monstrous acts. I am most impressed how the writers handled trauma. Most media shows a character suffered for either plot device or to "make them stronger." This game had discussions of how the characters processed their trauma. It is a very important topic, especially considering the actions and events they went through. Not something you could merely brush off.

A Requiem for Innocence:
The prequel focused on one character you meet in the main game. It's entirely in their point of view. The majority of this DLC is nothing new. If you played The House in Fata Morgana, you know who this is and you know what's going to happen. Thus the downside of prequels, especially in this case. Sadly I was bored by the first half, I kept putting off reading this for weeks. It's the same story, only more detailed.

The later half is more interesting because it is new information. There are two new characters that add background for the main character here. But in the end, it's a prequel. You know the entire time what is going to happen. The saving grace is the quality of this VN. The illustrations, the storytelling, and extremely well written characters.

Reincarnation + Stories:
This was the DLC chapter I was craving for Fata Morgana. Instead of the previous prequel, it is a continuation of the story. I don't want to spoil anything; just know, it's so, so good. I cried twice. This game is going to stay with me for years. Hands down, the best VN I have ever experienced. It is very dark and depressing; however, the ending made it all worth it.

The first ten hours was Reincarnation. The other ten was reading the side stories. There are extra backstory scenes for different characters, including some minor. Most do not have new illustrations to go with the text. There were a couple chapters I have read that weren't on the main menu. I found them through chapter selection. Those were very worth reading! Fantastic game.