The Mask games are easily my favorite story ever. While Mask of Deception was mostly slice of life, it really gave me a chance to get invested and understand the main cast. They’re all either funny, good, or both. And even among that cast there were a few that stood out among the rest. It was also the coziest reading experience I’ve ever had. The major plotline starts to pick up in the second half, but it never gets so serious that you lose heart. You’ll even get to see some familiar faces again. The world building goes crazy both for the world it is now and the world prior to it. But the ending to it is what swept me off my feet and put its hooks into me for Mask of Truth.

Mask of Truth on the other hand is the most emotionally packed story I’ve read. It hasn’t ditched its SoL heart entirely and frankly, it also has some of the best SoL I’ve ever read. What it has done is taken that cast that I loved from Deception and put them through the crucible. Not only does a civil war rage on, they’ve been dealt a crushing hand from Deception’s end. Everyone’s story either comes out just as good or much better than it was in the last game. The four people that ended up being my goats were Haku, Kuon, Nekone, and Anju with Haku being by far the best character in the games. Watching him go from that lazy, helpless, but caring bastard lost in this new land to a legend to be sung about was the best character journey I’ve ever been on. That laidback slow life he craved, he threw it all away to carry out the job left to him. The other 3 people I listed have some crazy struggles of their own with Kuon probably being the most interesting. The most emotional damage I’ve ever experienced from one character though goes to Nekone and her own relationship with Haku. It’s not even just her either. Everyone in her family has taken my kneecaps. All of the emotional catharsis in this game is fantastic and there’s just so much of it. All their tragedies, struggles, and triumphs have me broken by the end of it.

If there’s any real critique I can give the story is that it stumbles a bit near the end. Just a messy and rushed act as we approach the finish line. I almost lost faith that this would be a fumbled end. But the very ending portions of the game are done so well and everything preceding that act was so good I can let that go.

The music is competent with two real nice exceptions. There are 2 inserts in the game I really enjoy and one in particular that is the song I hear when I think about these games.

While I have basically no complaints about the story, I think the gameplay is very mediocre. It’s far too simple for me. The BP system is a pretty interesting idea for how to customize but it ended up just being like pumping attack and speed when I could afford it. There’s basically no reason to use tanks in this game. The passives you can equip also aren’t particularly interesting. It wasn’t bad, just not really the reason I played the game. One map was offensive though but the final map more than made up for it. I didn’t do the post game arenas at all though since the gameplay wasn’t for me.

Despite those problems, I’d still give this a 10/10. The story was just that strong. If you thought Uta 1 was decent, these should be right up your alley. If you didn’t play Uta 1, just expect a solid experience from Uta 1, but these 2 games are why I’m so thoroughly in love with the series.

THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME AGHHHHH

An actual masterpiece
This series will from now on hold a special place in my heart, such an amazing and satisfying journey. Honestly a perfect conclusion to the trilogy. I had a lot of fun playing it, at the same time there were many instances where I started crying at certain moments like the mother's embrace. I even went to re-play the last stretch at least 3 times and still hit me just as much as the first. My only criticisms are the final antagonist, he needed to be given more development and those 3 Woshis's minions, I don't care whether or not they were loyal to Woshis, I just don't give a shit about them at all or can empathize with, they were way too annoying. Aside from that this vn is perfection. Haku 🫶 love him so much, he definitely has the best development I've seen so far with Keiji's phenomenal performance as Haku's VA

Now that I've had months since October to ruminate, I'm finally ready to give my detailed thought on this.

This (Mask of Deception too maybe) is the closest thing to both a perfect VN and perfect video game that I've seen. The premise for this is genuinely insane, you literally cannot discuss it at all without spoilers, so I'll talk about other things.

Well, "perfect" here does not mean it is literally free from flaws. Following Mask of Deception's ending, you have an insanely ambitious setup with a concept that I am confident you will not find elsewhere. If you think about it, this whole situation seems similar to some other VNs that are also built off of a seemingly more underwhelming setup entry and lead to a bigger, almost unanimously considered "objectively" better, more ambitious, and are a climactic finale, such as White Album 2 Coda, Rewrite Terra, Fate/stay night Heaven's Feel, Muv-Luv Alternative, Umineko Episode 8, Aokana EXTRA2 and 9-nine Episode 4. But unlike those cases, a couple dozen hours into Uta 3, the game just does a 180 and decides, "no, no, we're going smaller again, sorry". And just in general, unlike those, Uta 3 doesn't really feel a pressure to live up to those expectations and goes sort of... as expected a lot of the time? You are also able to tell that there was cut content somewhere 3/4s into the game and that the story was meant to be longer, making some ideas like a certain antagonist feel little half-baked. And also, while it does go into warfare quite a bit, the strategy is generally vague and not super specific with its worldbuilding. You kind of just get told that you have archers and swordsmen, not stuff like what the bows are made from and what model the swords are, or something. If what you want is specific strategic detail for battles you're gonna have to go read Aokana, Baldr Sky, Muv-Luv or Muramasa. Lastly, some characters, like Kiwru, are criminally neglected by the story.

Despite all this, though, I still stand by my earlier claim. From what I've experienced, this is as close to perfection in every aspect as one gets.

The art is insanely gorgeous. The Utawarerumono Mask duology art is pure eye candy. The music is fantastic. Suara's voice is extremely calming and emotional (I know you'll cry on command from キミガタメ), and the Japan-inspired high fantasy music is great. The SRPG gameplay is cool and engaging, although I don't have much experience with that kind of battle system, but I got really into it. The characters... wow. Oshtor, Kuon and Anju are some of the best videogame/VN characters you'll see, but Haku is on another level. Definitely one of the best characters ever. If you're into stories where a normal dude goes through crazy journey of character development, this is definitely for you. Yes, some characters get neglected and the cast should've been a little smaller, but at worst they are fun and still have some arcs.

The game is just great in every aspect. I did say that a lot of it is just "expected Utawarerumono 2 follow-up", but it has no real low points either. I would go as far as to say that I enjoyed basically every hour of it.

It's been months since I finished, but I think about this series to this day. This rarely happens to me. I didn't expect much going into it and mostly wanted to try it due to wanting to see what the fuss is, but I was pleasantly surprised. Highly recommended.

The capstone of the trilogy and the payoff for everything that comes before it. Even better combat design, a setting as charming as ever, and satisfying conclusions to the narrative threads the series was weaving.

It’s good.

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Part 1 - Prelude to the Fallen
Part 2 - Mask of Deception

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I don’t believe I have too much to add on this final part, as the trajectory of the series was set with Mask of Deception and I can happily report that the launch was good.

Using the same technical foundation as its predecessor, there are few bits of polish and shine added but nothing major. Perhaps one thing to note is that—with their newly acquired confidence in their turn-based skirmish gameplay—there’s a lot more of it. New actions, new equipment options, more robust arenas, a set of trial missions, and overall the most full feeling gameplay experience yet.

That comes at no cost to the narrative, either, as it picks up right where Mask of Deception left off and goes in almost exactly the direction it promised. It doesn’t entirely lose the lighthearted charm of the previous game but—as I loved with Prelude—the weightier side of the story stays always in the background adding another layer of color to events.

It could be that in the last year I’ve finally become a sincere person. Whether I have or not, however, I found myself getting consistently swept right along into the struggles and triumphs of the cast.

And as a war story, it’s also quite adeptly put together at a technical level. It doesn’t really want you to focus on the hard details of the logistics and politics, but what it does show was sufficient enough that I could buy into decisions characters make and the strategies they employ. It’s a bit of a less is more approach, but for a story with as many elements as this, finding that balance between detail and illusion is the only way to make it work.

To levy some critique, I do think the last act suffers a bit on pacing and some of my callousness as a reader did make it hard to trust the vision in the moment, but the final conclusion was satisfying and felt true to the themes the series had been operating on since the start.

So, yes. I do recommend this game quite highly.

10/10.

Uma história as aparências simples, uma narrativa as aparências simples.
Muito elementos narrativos tradicionais realizados da maneira adequada, o quanto de build up teve para esse cara atingir o verdadeiro impacto emocional, foi excepcional.

Bons temas, acima de tudo a forma como foi executado é um tipo bem seguro de se realizar certos tipos de impacto ou progressão, mas acima de tudo foi efetivo, lágrimas não foram o bastante, o meu coração ficou muito tempo pensando sobre..... foi algo majestoso.

Uma conclusão tão satisfatória, ao seguir adiante me senti vazio por me despedir desse conto chamado utawarerumono, mas eu guardarei com um imenso carinho essa história e seus personagens.

Finalizando esse breve comentário, Kimi ga tame e sua letra, simplesmente maravilhoso.

Farewell uta.

I have too many disparate thoughts about Utawarerumono to really sort through, and I don't think its a perfect game either as an srpg or as a narrative, but what it does it just does so well. Its a game relatively without guile, it isn't trying to be smarter than its reader--but it still wants you to ponder, to think on the emotion. Unlike the first two games, there's a creeping sense of dread even during the slow parts of the game here--you know the happy days will come to an end, and every single piece of setting is tinged with that. And when war finally comes, it executes it quite well with wonderful if somewhat stock characters.

I loved how frank it can be with its emotion sometimes--characters like Atuy or Rulutieh who otherwise would be cast-off in other series here get really strong characterization and thought among the melancholy and joy, and more than most you can just see how much they grow. Haku and Kuon are of course the main stars, and they don't disappoint either, but this to me is such an achievement of the writing of the 2010s and why all those series built in a similar vein as this work.

Its also the very rare trans-positive homophobic series, which is funny in its own way.

"The sky above me looks like a vast ocean, speckled with stars. In the tranquil silence, a butterfly of light drifts by me."

Easily the best visual novel I've ever experienced. The impact this shit had on me was profound.

Grab a drink, some snacks, and mentally prepare yourself for some of the most heart-wrenching moments ever because I don't think I ever cried more at any piece of fiction than this series.

I'll have to think about it a bit longer, but Haku is definitely a contender for my favorite character in anything ever. His progression as a person throughout the duology is just so fucking peak from start to finish. Every single event in this game was either hilarious or emotionally impactful and Haku's character serves every scene perfectly. There really isn't another character quite like him. Also, a big shoutout to my boy Kiwru nobody suffered as much as he did!!!!!!

I'll keep this one short, but if you like visual novels you're doing yourself a major disservice if you haven't played this. This is most definitely peak fiction.

"A life of nothing but sleeping and eating? Sign me up. If you want to switch spots, then knock yourself out. Enjoy hard labor!"