Thoughts on The House in Fata Morgana visual novel?

Edocchi said:
I'd have probably appreciated Fatamoru a bit if I read it as my first or second VN when I hadn't been exposed to the amazing world of eroge.
It kinda feels like EVN (just my personal distaste) and what makes it worse is that the text is brimming with anachronistic dialogues. I can tell you that the original prose is really bad, lacking any expressive language and fascinating perspectives. The localized version actually has better flowing prose, though advancing the text still feels like a chore at many points.
Aside from that, I just found it really hard to care about anything that happened in the game, especially since the pacing is pretty awful throughout. The dreary atmosphere doesn't really jibe well with me, the setting isn't well-fleshed and it feel empty. It failed to keep my interest to know more about the mansion and uncover the truth, which appeared to be the main intrigue of the VN.

animejas said:


Oh interesting, I pretty much feel the opposite for the issues you've pointed out. For me the prose itself was great in English, dialogue was really well done. I don't know how it is originally, but I felt the staff responsible for translating it did well for me. I'm not a visual novel veteran by any means, only playing a couple of them but I found this to be great despite not being too lengthy, unlike something like Umineko which is much, much, much more longer.

Pacing wise I felt it was really good too except a couple chapters, which I will admit did feel too long, especially early on when you're trying to get into different kinds of stories without a full on connection laid out. I was pretty interested in everything else about it, especially the atmosphere, setting, cast, plot, etc. Shame you weren't into it much, but I can see why. For me, I can't really see many stories being better than this from the Japanese medium (unless there are other visual novels that somehow surpass this which I haven't tried yet, which I doubt will for me personally).

Edocchi said:
Also.. how do I put it. The story is well-constructed, but it feels too "clean", too tidy for my taste. That's what makes it boring for me personally. A similar example in anime/manga would be something like Monster. Everything has a specific purpose in the story, and the characters all go through exactly the struggles and development that the reader would expect them to. But, that's exactly why both Fata & Monster are popular, that's the mainstream appeal. It's easy to understand and won't challenge anyone's worldview, while still being superficially "different" enough that it makes people feel like they've found something off the beaten path that speaks to them personally (even though it's well-known and everyone has more or less the same reaction to it). It looks perfect on the paper/surface so average person will think it's perfect. It has things that make a story good and execute em pretty well, but for me that's just "good" in the most traditional sense (neat writing etc) like the most monotonous definition of good, it's just not enough to make me feel something. Tbf, I dislike works that play too clean or too safe like that, they tend to appeal to the lowest common denominator. After indulging a lot in this medium and stumbled across hidden gems and some life-changing titles, I felt like popular stuff like Fatamoru and Steins;Gate just have no chance to impress me because I know they won't offer enough of what niche themes I want to see. But forget about themes, I wouldn't care that far to think about that if the more important thing like the dialogue or the setting has many amateurish flaws to begin with. Back to the comparison, unlike Monster which has well-realized setting that I could still appreciate, Fatamoru's feels like a pseudo-historical setting since all of the characters speak like japanese teenagers, it honestly becomes rather obnoxious to read. If this is an LN I'd drop it pretty early. Limited by its meager vocabulary, the dialogue not only feels anachronistic, it feels too casual for the subject material and only ends up making the already unbelievable setting even harder to take seriously.
Also @velvetPhos @Reisquin I feel I haven't answered properly when you guys asked my opinon about Fatamoru, so in case you still want to know my opinion after reread. If you like Fatamoru better leave the experience as it is and stay away from the jp ver

Frostwork said:
P.S.: It's not hentai, I hope? I don't wanna play that stuff.