A visual novel with a plot spanning centuries, The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition is a game that requires focus. If you like twisting, suspenseful stories that share a setting and themes of love, betrayal and murder, it’ll be worth the multiple day long commitment.

This is not a game that requires much interaction from the player. It leans heavily into the novel aspect of the visual novel genre. There are minor choices to make, but mostly you are carried through the story with little input.

This is not necessarily to the detriment of the game. It’s fairly common for the genre and is even written cleverly into the plot. The story is pieced together, presented to you as memories by the House. You don’t participate, but observe as a spirit. This gives a fair reason for the lack of interaction, but it’s worth noting so you don’t go in expecting to make a huge impact on the narrative.

You awaken in the House with no recollection of who you are, but a helpful Maid by your side to guide you, chapter by chapter, through the recovery of your past. The first four chapters are made up of memories of the House from different time periods starring mysteriously recurring characters. These help trigger your memory, but your recollections throw much of what you’ve learned into confusion.

For a further ten chapters, you explore more of the history of the House and the time your spirit spent there in various incarnations throughout the centuries. You untangle how the House’s curse has ensnared you, your lover and the Maid guiding you through time.

The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition also features prequel and sequel chapters to the main story. These offer further detail about the origin of the curse that plagues the characters and the lives their spirits moved onto in the present day.

It’s a long, dramatic story that encapsulates love and loss and murder and curses. At times it is moving and sweet, but more often it is tragic.

The game as a whole is wonderfully constructed. The art style is gorgeous, with incredibly detailed and beautifully designed backdrops that see the House as it is in various historical styles. The soundtrack is rich and matches the visuals perfectly. The writing fits equally well with the flowery aesthetic. You can that see how each stylistic choice fits comfortably with every other, making for a fantastically executed game.

The chapters that make up the anthology tell very different stories. I wouldn’t say they fluctuate in quality as much as that the contrasting styles between chapters make for an inconsistent experience. This gives the game a fair amount of variety over the days of content, but it may mean you spend four hours reading a story that bores you just to get to one you enjoy. Personally, I preferred the darker stories about madness and magic to those about noble children looking for suitable families to marry into.

Overall though, I can see why The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition was so well received by visual novel enthusiasts. Clearly a lot of intelligence and creativity has gone into crafting the game and it will absolutely pay off for fans of the genre.