The House in Fata Morgana
Full review (including score):
Written review below!
The rundown:
Pros:
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Unique art style
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Great use of atmosphere
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Excellent storyline
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God-tier soundtrack
Cons:
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Rough first few chapters
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Lossy soundtrack compression
The House in Fata Morgana proved to be quite the journey for me. It took me nearly three months of on-and-off playing to finally clear, but in the end, it was totally worth it. Not only does the game provide an excellent story with a great sense of atmosphere, but it also does so with a unique art style and a soundtrack that quickly became one of my favorites.
– Real player with 65.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Great Soundtrack Visual Novel Games.
Introduction
The House in Fata Morgana was an incredible surprise for me, as visuals novel are not something I would actively seek to play. However, this game is the one that might change my mind, and I definitely want to play more similar games like that in the future. The game’s story is amazingly written and has several interesting characters and thrilling plots, accompanied by an astonishing soundtrack and a beautiful art style.
Story
At the start, you wake up at a mysterious mansion with no memory of yourself whatsoever. However, you are not alone here. A woman, who calls herself The Maid, claims you should know each other, as you have been here before. In pursuit of regaining your memory, you follow The Maid through the mansion, where you witness multiple tragedies that happened to its previous residents throughout the years. What secrets do their stories hide? Why are you connected to this place? That is something you need to discover by yourself.
– Real player with 44.4 hrs in game
The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence
I just finished REQUIEM, it’s 3:35 am, and I’m feeling very emotional right now. Take what I’m saying with a grain of salt because I’m high off the story as I write this. Who knows how I’ll feel once it has sinked in proper.
That being said, I think REQUIEM is an excellent followup to the original. I also feel like it IS required of the original.
I didn’t think so initially, the first half of the main episode had me kind of dumbfounded, and it felt weird, dull, and slightly repetitive.
So, why the change of heart?
– Real player with 33.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Great Soundtrack Visual Novel Games.
The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence is a prequel to The House in Fata Morgana though it definitely should be played after the main game.
I’ve finished The House in Fata Morgana quite recently. And frankly speaking, I was a bit reluctant to start the prequel immediately. I dislike any spoilers, so I thought it was not going to be that exciting reading a novel knowing the main events and the outcome. I WAS SO WRONG! If you’ve read the main game and hesitate if you should play Requiem or not, just don’t! It’s totally worth it.
– Real player with 30.0 hrs in game
D1896
This is a pretty tough, albeit short game driven by strict platforming, difficult combat that requires precise timing and positioning, a challenging puzzle segment, and a story delivered via dialogue between NPCs. This game is apparently the 2nd in a trilogy, but my playing it 1st by mistake didn’t detract from my experience.
The art and presentation of the game are both really, really cool and I’m glad I was able to stick with it through to the end. It had this almost body horror, mystical fever dream kind of feeling to it. I highly recommend giving it a go if that sounds interesting to you.
– Real player with 19.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Great Soundtrack Difficult Games.
Brutal game with great narrative that makes me want to come back for more.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
Starlight of Aeons
Negatives:
Main program is flagged as a malware by Windows Defender so you have to get around that to install this.
No full screen support
No text speed option
No framerate lock
4 hr kinetic novel with full Chinese VA (none on 3rd story, “1/30000 Days to Love” though). There are 3 stories, but the first 2 just make one story together. Good writing/narrative, characters, and art. Great soundtrack. Philosophical.
– Real player with 7.4 hrs in game
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– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
Cendric
Don’t bother buying this game, its a mediocre platformer with a mediocre story, mediocre controls and gimmicks that will have you angry as hell
the only plus side is while the game is cheating thousands of bullshit deaths to pad game time, you dont lose anything expect what items you use in between deaths.
The game has basically nothing to it, and unless the dreadful controls and the insta death gimmicks are removed it just isnt worth playing, the story is also way too short, the side quests are dull and feel forced on you rather than being “side” quests. There is no leveling system, damage and defence is modified by permenant use consumables or equipment, not that it matters much, the enemies are scaled so high that you will garenteed need to use a potion every two or three enemies assuming you dont touch the outermost pixel of the side of a set of spikes and die, wasting any consumables you used in the fight, i eventually stopped bothering to use them, and just sold them, by the halfway point of the game i was bored, had 5000 gold and nothing to buy with it, this game need alot more of pretty much everything.
– Real player with 42.3 hrs in game
Edit: I beat it in 17 hours. That was doing every single quest I found. Everything I said below is still true, but be aware that some sections of this game are extremely tough (especially
! tower 3 & 4). I think those parts are a little too unforgiving with the slightly clunky keyboard controls. Those sections took many tries and many near-ragequits as I learned the exact pixel to jump from or the precise moment to start running past a swinging blade.
Something that may help is to
! use xpadder and a controller for the towers, since magic is disabled anyway. It’s all running, jumping and the occasional melee swing.
– Real player with 40.1 hrs in game
Slain: Back from Hell
Hail the Great Horned Metal God!: Headbang after every single boss has been defeated.
Achievement in ‘Slain: Back from Hell‘
Introduction
Several months after the initial release you can definitely claim that ‘Slain: Back from Hell‘ has done an interesting evolution: back in march critics totally ‘slayed‘ the game, branding it as a bug-ridden mess with bulky gameplay and a massive lack of variation. Overall it was more a lame attempt on side-scrolling-arcade-games from the 80’s and 90’s than a great memorial.
– Real player with 15.4 hrs in game
I stood up, controller gripped in my white knuckled fist, ready to hurl the accursed thing into the television, the ground….anywhere that might produce the catharsis that comes from rage-induced destruction. Then, as I calmed myself, I looked back to the screen where I faced the bold, bloodstained lettering I would come to know so well while playing Slain: Back from Hell, which simply read, “You have been Slain”
So, without further ado, allow me to introduce you to Slain: Back From Hell:
Story
– Real player with 9.5 hrs in game
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2
Its Soul Reaver lite
While not a bad game, its definitely not as good as it’s predecessor in a lot of respects.
The Good:
Superb voice acting, nice story, the puzzles are more complex and involved yet overall pretty good and offer a bit more clues to solve them, which is a marked improvement to the previous game.
The Not-so-good:
-The combat - In comparison to SR1 it feels distant, with little weight or consequence behind your punches, making it rather unsatisfying.
Furthermore, by the endgame, when fighting 4+ opponents, they will ALL attack at the same time, and while realistic and “challenging” it really comes out as cheap, specially when
! some of those enemies would naturally attack each other, but as soon as they detect you, ALL of them go for your ass instead. . Your Soul Reaver blade can be used from the start of the game and is a bit OP, that however is countered by a bar which fills the more you use the blade and kill with it, and once filled takes away some of your health, thus forcing you to mix its use with regular weapons, which at least brings some depth to an otherwise humdrum combat system. Speaking of the blade, it can be infused throughout the story with different elements (light, dark, wind & fire) but disappointingly only come into play in puzzles; yet another sign that the combat is undercooked at best.
– Real player with 20.1 hrs in game
I was finally able to get the game working courtesy of this excellent patch right here .
“But suppose your throw a coin enough times – suppose one day it lands on its edge.”
The opening to Soul Reaver is seared into my memory.
No matter how many times I watch the introductory cutscene, the booming synth pulls me right back into the Gothic tableau of the Legacy of Kain universe, as if I were discovering it anew. With slick narrative efficiency, it sets in motion a tale of vengeance that spills out across time, daring its protagonists to challenge the apparent indomitability of fate.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
A Chair in a Room : Greenwater
My oh my. This is what I am looking for. I am a big fan of the scare, creep, unsettling type of games. When I got the Vive I would thing to myself, “This would be a great platform for survival horror, overall story telling with a fear filled bend to it.”
This has arrived. This is the first to come along for me and with this quality title so soon in the lifecycle of VR I CANNOT WAIT to see what is in store for the future.
The sound, environments, story, and perfect placement of things that simply either creep you out, unsettle you, or straight up make you scream is superb. It does not beat you over the head with constant thing jumping in your face or anything like that. The creators of this game know the value of subtle well placed situations to make you tense and crazed.
– Real player with 20.9 hrs in game
Here it is (if you want it), one of the best games on the Vive to date. It’s roomscale perfection, and one of the fisrt/best titles that ‘scales’ to your playspace. If yours is too small, you are allowed teleportation, but I did not try that, and if you have no room, get a bigger apartment. It’s truly, certifiably, immersively scary. All the environments look great, it renders well. Of all the VR horror games, it surly is the most frightening, and suspenseful, and I am an advanced level 10 journeyman in Virtual Reality, so I should know. I will never forget the sound it makes after a jumpscare scene…
– Real player with 19.2 hrs in game
Deathsmiles
La la la… Halloween party! La la la… Let’s Trick-or-treat!
~HALLOWEEN JUNKY ORCHESTRA
If you’re not the bullet hell enthusiast, then you may stop reading this review right now. Just because, like any other bullet hell game out there, this one is not for you. At least, not yet. Bullet hell games are known to be (way) harder than regular SHMUPs and, even though this one is not the hardest one of the kind, you’ll still die a lot without having much fun. Sure, there are difficulty levels here, but… let’s just say that as long as you’re not an experienced SHMUP player, you’re not ready for this. You have been warned. Now, if you are a fan of such entertainment, then, I guess, one word will be enough for you to get the idea about what do we have here. The word is – cave. CAVE Interactive. Creators of the DoDonPachi, Ketsui and Mushihimesama series.
– Real player with 54.9 hrs in game
Deathsmiles is one of the few horizontal shooters by CAVE. Due to its unique nonlinear nature, it also happens to be one of their easier offerings, and therefore suitable for players new to the genre. It debuted in Japanese arcades in 2007, and was later released on iOS, Android, and Xbox 360. Thanks to Degica, it has now been released on PC as well. The Steam release includes normal, arcade, and 1.1 versions of both the original and MBL (Mega Black Label).
As the name suggests, the arcade versions have the same graphical appearance as the original arcade release. I could be mistaken, but as far as I know, normal mode is exactly the same as arcade mode except it features upgraded graphics. I purchased the game exclusively for the original versions of normal/arcade mode so I can’t say I have the knowledge to speak at length about 1.1 or MBL. From what I know, in 1.1 you have a greater degree of control over the character’s familiar. MBL is a different version of the game that features an additional playable character. What I do know, however, is that some or all of the modes of MBL are either missing slowdown or don’t have it at all. If you’re buying the game just to play anything other than the original version, I highly suggest exercising caution and doing some research. That said, the remainder of this review will be about the normal original version of the game.
– Real player with 24.8 hrs in game
Beyond the Sky
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I fell in love with Beyond the Sky literally in the first few minutes of the game. With all that I was somewhat wary of the appearance of the main character in the screenshots, the original graphics, but when the game started, it all became clear and correct at once. Wonderful and skillful presentation of the material, a very correct approach to the presentation of the “dark” fairy tale / The last time the fairy tale so fascinated me in “King’s Quest” Chapter 1, it is very noticeable that the developers are guided by the old-school style of plotting the fairy tale, by playing around in the new fashionable trends.
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game
BRAVO! Wow, I thoroughly enjoyed this game. I just finished it and started to tear up at the end. The story, art, music and puzzles work marvelously together. I am so impressed by how well thought out the entire game was. The puzzles were logical and challenging. I loved that I had to write things down with a pen and paper and really use my brain! Thank you for this breath of fresh air, please make more games like this!!!
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game