Board 8 > The House In Fata Morgana (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've started to play this VN over the past couple of days. I know I've seen it recommended a lot, both here and other places so I've been interested in it for a while. So far it's good, it's not really what I expected but then again I didn't really expect anything.

I'm in the middle of the second section now. The first one was pretty good. I've never seen Downton Abbey, but this first section felt like what I assume that show is for a while. One of the things I know is that this game has some sad moments in it, so I kinda knew something bad was on the horizon once Nellie got so jealous and she ruined everything. I like Bestia, but I'm kinda ready for this section to end. As soon as that merchants girlfriend appeared a second time in the story, I knew I would have to see her whole journey to the mansion so the whole thing has been going on kinda long. Especially since it seems like this is going to end with either her, Javi or Bestia or all of them dying at this point I'm just waiting for the confrontation.

By the way, not giving some of these characters names is getting a little silly. The Maid and the Girl With White Hair make sense as I expect those names to be revealed later. But couldn't The Merchant have a real name? It's weird seeing Pauline never actually mention his name.

Anyway, if I have a prediction its that either The Maid, the Master, or the Girl with White Hair (or all of them) are vampires. I was thinking the Girl was the Master, but now it wouldn't make sense with the reveal that she's blind.
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I should mention the music has been really good!
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Tag. This makes the fourth person I know of on this board to read this VN!

Chapter 2 is one that's big with a lot of people, but personally I didn't care much about it comparatively. Still solid, but definitely my least favorite. One interesting thing I've noticed about this VN is that most people seem to like it, but there's very little agreement as to what parts of the VN are the good parts.

There's more I could comment on but I think I'll refrain from doing so until you get father in.
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Oh also I really like the music as well. It's sort of frustrating because I do think it's good, but it was also really hard to use for VGM contests/rankings on here because the music is almost all atmospheric in nature.
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This VN is very good.

I don't think there are any significant characters whose names are not revealed at some point.
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I completed chapter 2. Well, what happened at the end made some of the things I talked about look a little silly now! That final part really raised the quality of the section for me, it's probably my favorite right now (favorite out of 2 so that's not really high praise...). Although, I feel like what was revealed there contradicts something that happened earlier. I got that same feeling in the first chapter, something in the reveal goes against what I remember happening at the start. I could just be stupid and have a bad memory though!
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I think I made my first actual decision in the game. I reached out to the mirror and got a small scene with this Micheal guy, who has a lot of angelic imagery around him. Chapter 3 has some REALLY good music.
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pyresword posted...

This makes the fourth person I know of on this board to read this VN!

All four of us are here now, then!

I'm glad that you seem to be enjoying it so far.
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Robazoid posted...

pyresword posted...

This makes the fourth person I know of on this board to read this VN!

All four of us are here now, then!

I'm glad that you seem to be enjoying it so far.

Make that five.

Also, OP, I have an idea as to what you're confused about. Reading this might clear your confusion:http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1200245290

Chapter 2 was great. Chapter 3 enrages me so much, but in a good way? It's extremely memorable to me, in any case, as opposed to 1 and 4 which are sorta blurry to me at this point.
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Eerieka posted...

Chapter 2 was great. Chapter 3 enrages me so much, but in a good way? It's extremely memorable to me, in any case, as opposed to 1 and 4 which are sorta blurry to me at this point.

I agree what happened on the "surface" in door 4 was quite forgettable, but what happened beneath the "surface"... well, I'll let the OP discover for himself.

jl260 posted...

Robazoid posted...

pyresword posted...

This makes the fourth person I know of on this board to read this VN!

All four of us are here now, then!

I'm glad that you seem to be enjoying it so far.

Make that five.

Also, OP, I have an idea as to what you're confused about. Reading this might clear your confusion:http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1200245290

That IS what confused me! I figured it had to be something like that, but I didn't know for sure. That's the kind of tricks VNs like Ever17 would pull.

The thing that confused me in Chapter 1 (which I am probably wrong on) is that I remember the first scene being young Mell and Nellie posing for the painting.
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And Chapter 3 is interesting so far. This guy is a dick, but either it will turn out he's the greatest man to ever live or he'll become a human trash can.
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I will say. the White Haired Girl looks a little goofy in some of this art
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GANON1025 posted...

And Chapter 3 is interesting so far. This guy is a dick, but either it will turn out he's the greatest man to ever live or he'll become a human trash can.

Jacopo is such a scumbag that he has forever tainted the name Jacopo and almost ruined the name Jacob by association.

Not that I know any others either in real life or fiction, but still...
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I like Jacopo! (As a character)

I actually really like chapter 3 as a whole. One of the better chapters imo, though I think that's an uncommon opinion.
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Recent events have lead me to believe that Jacopo may not be as bad as I first thought
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Is the mansion moving, or am I misinterpreting where it is located?
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Yeah, it does move. I don't remember the specifics that well as I think the geography is more precise, but it was definitely in Europe for the first door and it's in America for the third.
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That's what I thought.

Completed Chapter 3. That was a rough one, but like in a good way. I guess it didn't end "happily" but all things considered it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going.
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First door was in England. Second door was in coastal Spain.

I do not trust this The Maid at all.
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Are you in the fourth chapter now? Make sure to check the dialogue backlog occasionally.
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I am! Also had my second choice, wherein I got the key to the master bedroom. It feels like the scene I saw there is connected to this chapter.
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Oh wow, there's definitely some weird things going on in the backlog. It's a little creepy. I hope there's no jumpscare skeletons or something to spook me
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It's better when you have no forewarning, but then it is also pretty easy to miss otherwise. It was quite the surprise to me when I read it and marked when I started getting more invested in the plot.
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I haven't been checking the backlog, so I would never had known anything was going on
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Seems like much has been revealed, now. And I'm left at an interesting choice..
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Hah, the reveal about the fourth chapter was very good, and makes a lot of sense. Looks like there's a fifth one now, I'm really eager to see what happens the next time I play!
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Well things certainly ARE different in the fifth chapter. "Is it true that you don't have..." , I think things are becoming clearer.
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bump
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Hope to get more into this today
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Well, this session was a bit of a rollercoaster! I left things every the sequence where Michel and Giselle admit their love for each other. Since everything when so nicely, I almost scared to see what depths of tragedy await...
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I'm up to the Sixth Door now. This is getting intense...
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Door 5 probably my favorite part of the game. I really love the way the relationship between Michel and Giselle evolves.
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The Sixth Door has been very good so far. I wonder if the witch's story will ever get told. It's a piece of the story that is still missing
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To get into more details about my thoughts of my recent time with the story:

Door 5 was really good. I agree that Giselle's and Michel's story was very well done, and for being the most important relationship in the game (at least it is from where I'm at in the story) they nail it. The twist with Door 4 was well done, although this does leave Door 4 as being somewhat lacking since it is a fake version of 5.

Door 6 was done well also. Seeing events playing out from the Maid's perspective was interesting, and I think they did a good job relaying the dread and horror of her continued existence in the mansion.

Currently, I'm at the point where the witch took Giselle, and Michel had a short flashback. I'm surprised Michel's secret hasn't been revealed yet, it seems like the best time for that revelation has passed and now there will be no good time to do it. If I had to guess, I would say that Michel was born a woman and was raised a man. I'm also wondering if the witch's backstory will be explained/explored, it seems with her taking action like this it would be a good time to do so.
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Oh, there's also that main in the painting as well. I figure he's connected to the witch, somehow.
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Wow, there's a 7th Door. My opinion on The Witch and Giselle have changed quite a bit, now.
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Remember how in the first 3 doors, the White-Haired Girl's name would display as xxxxxxxx every time it's mentioned? I personally think that this is actually sneaky foreshadowing for that big plot twist regarding Michel. We were viewing the first 3 doors with Michel as the spectator, and Michel's traumatized mind basically blocked out the name "Michelle" every time it was uttered due to the fact that it was associated with a woman who basically looked like a female version of him.

That would make a lot of sense
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The more I think about it, the more that scene in the top of the tower is so powerful. The whole VN has been building up this notion of living through, like REALLY living through peoples' tragedies. We see that really manifest with Michel and the Witch, there Michel takes on the Witch's physical torment has he learns her story. Any maybe it's just me, but Giselle's betrayal in the top of the tower felt a lot stronger then many of the other things we've seen, like I could REALLY feel Michel's emotions there.
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OK, now I'm getting a little sick of this. Door 7 has tipped the scales of tragedy and misery way too far. Like, it's veering into some weird sadistic pleasure in torturing characters instead of being an interesting story. Obviously this VN won't have a happy ending, but it has gone so far into being evil that it's a bit unbearable.
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I think I know what part you're on! There was a section there that went too far for me too. Still, I hope you stick with it.
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I actually thought there were parts that went to far also, but they were parts you'd already passed interestingly. I wasn't a huge fan of the stuff towards the end of door 6, but nothing indoor 7 really bothered me from that perspective.

I also hope you stick with it though because the finale is pretty great, and I don't think it will continue to exhibit the problems which you have with the part you're on now.
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I can see what you're saying about Door 6. Here's the difference for me:

I expected the Witch's story to be really bad. I also expected it to be the capstone of the game. I knew Michel's secret had to be revealed, but I didn't expect him to have yet another door. Michel has now had three doors cataloging his suffering. It's a lot for someone who doesn't deserve it. There's no hope in his past, present or future now that Giselle has turned against him so it's all very bleak. Aimee's torture of Michel veered into the "sadistic for no reason" instead of it feeling like building on a story. It felt like someone's off-putting fanfiction of those events, it just felt weird and not in the right way.

I think comeuppance is a big part of making the past stories more manageable. While the Witch had it bad we got to see comeuppance and then some for the people in her story. None of the Bollingers, the parents the brothers or aimee will get what's coming to them. And even if that was a consideration, they're long dead anyway so they got away with it.
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Yeah, the Aimee part is the one that went too far to me. The whole game is fairly grim but that section felt mean-spirited just for the sake of it. Still, that part isn't what I think about when looking back at the story as a whole so hopefully you can look past it as well.

I'm afraid to say more because it's been awhile and I forget what events happened behind which doors. I'll post more thoughts once you're finished!
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I definitely intend to finish it, I just hope the story hits more than it misses.
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While I don't really have a problem with Aimee as a character (two-faced, manipulative noblewomen who use underhanded tactics to get what they want in an arranged marriage isn't unthinkable in that era, considering they had very little control over other aspects of their lives), it feels like those torture scenes served more to justify the actions and attitudes of Michel in Door 5 by traumatizing him to the point where he refuses to open his heart to anyone.

The portrayal of his mother's mental breakdown and despair was much more well done imo.

I finished Door 7. That was miserable! It kept getting worse and worse for Michel. I mean, we knew some of it. But again, Michel having to watch his own dead body be publicly humiliated and crucified by his own brother steered back into the uncomfortable nastiness I was worried about. Seeing Michel's and Morgana's interactions were interesting at least. I guess there was a bit of hope there with that scene between Michel and the real Giselle, but of course things couldn't end on a happy note and there is yet more to see in the "final" door.
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