This review contains spoilers
This review contains spoilers for the original Fata Morgana, as well as Requiem for Innocence.
TL;DR:
Base Fata — 5/10
Requiem — 7.5/10
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The original Fata Morgana VN has a nice artstyle, presentation and soundtrack, but is shallow in terms of themes and characterisation, in my opinion. Not only are characters sometimes defined solely by one emotion in doors 1-3, which eventually get recontextualised (ex. Maria in door 3 or everyone in door 2, and I don't care about recontextualisation here, it doesn't improve the door's quality for me), but even in doors that recall the pasts of the first versions of Jacopo, Morgana and company, as well as Michel and Giselle, this is still the case. There's a lot of tragedy porn there that feels like an outside force trying to make every situation that was already bad as bad as possible. In the case of doors 1-3 this is literally the case due to reincarnation, but in the cases of doors 5-7, it sure isn't. The villagers living next to Michel's mansion host Giselle, but of course they also become cult-like and organise a witch hunt on her, framing her as a scapegoat, including a guy who was nice to her now being mad because she didn't marry him. Michel's brothers are the only people to keep defending Michel, but of course the elder brother emotionlessly kills Michel. Morgana's backstory is appropriately tragic for the most part, considering it's a witch that haunted a mansion for centuries out of vengeance, though. But overall, it's very distracting, and it feels like the VN is trying to overemphasise to the reader how tragic it is and that they should start being sad right about now. Eventually, the VN does try to talk about how there are various sides to human beings (mostly in regards to how Yukimasa, Jacopo and Mell saw the events that led to Morgana's suffering), but nothing of the sort is done for the aforementioned villagers or the genuinely psychopathic Aimee, besides a short mention of how Michel thought that people would miss her if something happened to her and how she has various sides to her like everyone, but the VN didn't make it very believable. In general, I don't really feel like there was much subtlety in regards to characters and themes until door 8.
Doors 1-3 are very mediocre, which also ties into a bit of a tangent. You often see people who really love Fata say that "it isn't like other VNs", but starting slow with mediocrity which later leads to something much better is a classic VN experience. Having a gothic artstyle, as well as a gothic/cinematic/"fancy" soundtrack, instead of a more obviously anime one doesn't make it less true. Hell, the door 8 ending is "the VN ending of all time" if I've ever seen one. And speaking of "fanciness", Fata definitely wants you to think that it's not like other VNs or is fancy, given how the reader is almost intended to be trained like Pavlov's dog with how Giselle or Move the Time play every time there is an intended emotional moment. Fata Morgana felt like it was telling me to "please care" very often. You can also see this with how it often doesn't even use the VN medium to its advantage, acting like a book, with relatively long and frequent sections that have a static background with no sprites and just NVL text. Additionally, the VN sometimes pats itself on the back for how terrible and unexpected things are, even though I found a lot of the "twists" to be extremely predictable and not very shocking.
I have great respect for tastefully depicting explicitly LGBT characters, though. It isn't the usual "ummmm we're both girls, why are we kissing!?" anime moment that you usually see.
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A quick detour before the part I care the most about, but I also read the short stories that I believe were required to unlock the final RFI ending. One of them featured Imeon, and the other was the Michel/GIselle modern date after story.
Imeon is a cool character in theory, but the story bashes the reader over the head with what it's trying to say in its message, in such an unsubtle manner, that it was unenjoyable. It repeatedly might as well have said "hey, Imeon is a parallel to Michel. Do you see it? They're similar."
The date after-story was pointless. It was like something out of a generic fandisc. I think the main story ended well in door 8, and having a generic Michel/Giselle date was not a useful addition. Additionally, they gave Michel a genital organ so that he could have sex with Giselle in the modern times, which is terrible IMO because we had a nice non-sexual romance for once. What will the asexual, transgender and intersex readers think about this? I get that it's kind of a reward for the couple, but still, I wish they would've kept this as an example of a non-sexual romance that various people could look up to.
EDIT: Some of this opinion may be affected by a mistaken interpretation of mine of that after-story date between Michel and Giselle. I have yet to receive 100% confirmation on whether Michel is still intersex after the main story ends, so take this part with a grain of salt.
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Requiem for Innocence was a major improvement for me, and is undoubtedly my favourite part of Fata. Jacopo being a pedophile is weird and disgusting to read (and the VN doesn't even address it tastefully enough??? Why are Maria and his other friends not calling him out more, and why is he "waiting until she turns 16"??? What was even the point of making Jacopo a pedo in the story that couldn't be done another way, anyways?), but everything else is much better for me. Most of my favourites in the soundtrack are from RFI, and Jacopo and Morgana in RFI are my favourite characters in the entire story.
They go into more depth with the multiple POVs thing between Morgana, Jacopo, Mell and Yukimasa, as well as Maria. Jacopo is a layered character, as he struggles with doing what he thinks will benefit the most people, but eventually falls into despicable behaviour due to not knowing another way and unfortunate circumstances, among other reasons. Seeing this part of the story more fleshed out was mostly a joy to read. The real highlight though was the finale, where you have Jacopo (who communicates with Morgana through dialogue choices! Fata's actually using the medium to its advantage now) and Morgana being in a field, ending with the quote:
"Rather than showing you the world,
one day—
someday—
I'd like to bring you somewhere
where your body and spirit can rest easy.
Not as atonement for my sins...
but because I want to see it too."
And that is amazing. Definitely one of the more impactful endings I've seen in a visual novel. I also like how it doesn't go the standard route of Morgana simply going "uh, I actually fully forgive you and love you too!" (and thank God for that not happening, that would be creepy), and instead goes with a complex resolution to the two characters' history.
Overall, if someone wasn't all that impressed with the original, I would highly recommend reading RFI, and if one is already a Fata fan, it is a must-read.
TL;DR:
Base Fata — 5/10
Requiem — 7.5/10
——————————————————————————————————
The original Fata Morgana VN has a nice artstyle, presentation and soundtrack, but is shallow in terms of themes and characterisation, in my opinion. Not only are characters sometimes defined solely by one emotion in doors 1-3, which eventually get recontextualised (ex. Maria in door 3 or everyone in door 2, and I don't care about recontextualisation here, it doesn't improve the door's quality for me), but even in doors that recall the pasts of the first versions of Jacopo, Morgana and company, as well as Michel and Giselle, this is still the case. There's a lot of tragedy porn there that feels like an outside force trying to make every situation that was already bad as bad as possible. In the case of doors 1-3 this is literally the case due to reincarnation, but in the cases of doors 5-7, it sure isn't. The villagers living next to Michel's mansion host Giselle, but of course they also become cult-like and organise a witch hunt on her, framing her as a scapegoat, including a guy who was nice to her now being mad because she didn't marry him. Michel's brothers are the only people to keep defending Michel, but of course the elder brother emotionlessly kills Michel. Morgana's backstory is appropriately tragic for the most part, considering it's a witch that haunted a mansion for centuries out of vengeance, though. But overall, it's very distracting, and it feels like the VN is trying to overemphasise to the reader how tragic it is and that they should start being sad right about now. Eventually, the VN does try to talk about how there are various sides to human beings (mostly in regards to how Yukimasa, Jacopo and Mell saw the events that led to Morgana's suffering), but nothing of the sort is done for the aforementioned villagers or the genuinely psychopathic Aimee, besides a short mention of how Michel thought that people would miss her if something happened to her and how she has various sides to her like everyone, but the VN didn't make it very believable. In general, I don't really feel like there was much subtlety in regards to characters and themes until door 8.
Doors 1-3 are very mediocre, which also ties into a bit of a tangent. You often see people who really love Fata say that "it isn't like other VNs", but starting slow with mediocrity which later leads to something much better is a classic VN experience. Having a gothic artstyle, as well as a gothic/cinematic/"fancy" soundtrack, instead of a more obviously anime one doesn't make it less true. Hell, the door 8 ending is "the VN ending of all time" if I've ever seen one. And speaking of "fanciness", Fata definitely wants you to think that it's not like other VNs or is fancy, given how the reader is almost intended to be trained like Pavlov's dog with how Giselle or Move the Time play every time there is an intended emotional moment. Fata Morgana felt like it was telling me to "please care" very often. You can also see this with how it often doesn't even use the VN medium to its advantage, acting like a book, with relatively long and frequent sections that have a static background with no sprites and just NVL text. Additionally, the VN sometimes pats itself on the back for how terrible and unexpected things are, even though I found a lot of the "twists" to be extremely predictable and not very shocking.
I have great respect for tastefully depicting explicitly LGBT characters, though. It isn't the usual "ummmm we're both girls, why are we kissing!?" anime moment that you usually see.
——————————————————————————————————
A quick detour before the part I care the most about, but I also read the short stories that I believe were required to unlock the final RFI ending. One of them featured Imeon, and the other was the Michel/GIselle modern date after story.
Imeon is a cool character in theory, but the story bashes the reader over the head with what it's trying to say in its message, in such an unsubtle manner, that it was unenjoyable. It repeatedly might as well have said "hey, Imeon is a parallel to Michel. Do you see it? They're similar."
The date after-story was pointless. It was like something out of a generic fandisc. I think the main story ended well in door 8, and having a generic Michel/Giselle date was not a useful addition. Additionally, they gave Michel a genital organ so that he could have sex with Giselle in the modern times, which is terrible IMO because we had a nice non-sexual romance for once. What will the asexual, transgender and intersex readers think about this? I get that it's kind of a reward for the couple, but still, I wish they would've kept this as an example of a non-sexual romance that various people could look up to.
EDIT: Some of this opinion may be affected by a mistaken interpretation of mine of that after-story date between Michel and Giselle. I have yet to receive 100% confirmation on whether Michel is still intersex after the main story ends, so take this part with a grain of salt.
——————————————————————————————————
Requiem for Innocence was a major improvement for me, and is undoubtedly my favourite part of Fata. Jacopo being a pedophile is weird and disgusting to read (and the VN doesn't even address it tastefully enough??? Why are Maria and his other friends not calling him out more, and why is he "waiting until she turns 16"??? What was even the point of making Jacopo a pedo in the story that couldn't be done another way, anyways?), but everything else is much better for me. Most of my favourites in the soundtrack are from RFI, and Jacopo and Morgana in RFI are my favourite characters in the entire story.
They go into more depth with the multiple POVs thing between Morgana, Jacopo, Mell and Yukimasa, as well as Maria. Jacopo is a layered character, as he struggles with doing what he thinks will benefit the most people, but eventually falls into despicable behaviour due to not knowing another way and unfortunate circumstances, among other reasons. Seeing this part of the story more fleshed out was mostly a joy to read. The real highlight though was the finale, where you have Jacopo (who communicates with Morgana through dialogue choices! Fata's actually using the medium to its advantage now) and Morgana being in a field, ending with the quote:
"Rather than showing you the world,
one day—
someday—
I'd like to bring you somewhere
where your body and spirit can rest easy.
Not as atonement for my sins...
but because I want to see it too."
And that is amazing. Definitely one of the more impactful endings I've seen in a visual novel. I also like how it doesn't go the standard route of Morgana simply going "uh, I actually fully forgive you and love you too!" (and thank God for that not happening, that would be creepy), and instead goes with a complex resolution to the two characters' history.
Overall, if someone wasn't all that impressed with the original, I would highly recommend reading RFI, and if one is already a Fata fan, it is a must-read.