I kept on saying I will write something about Seventh Lair but never got around to it. So, don't be fooled into thinking that you must've played Fata Morgana because of the same cast: it's more closer to say two completely different films with the same actors taking up same character names per actor, that's it. In fact I suspect the only reason it reused the Fata Morgana skins was because the dev can't afford another set of sprites, so they full on trolled by giving them the same names.

Please be warned I will be freely spoilery about both Seventh Lair and The House in Fata Morgana from this point and onwards.

The cast also came from similarish background: Michel, Giselle, and Imeon are modern French (which I loved it because my French mates are my kind of weebs), Yukimasa and Pauline are Dutch, Nellie and her imaginary friend Mell are English. I'm not entirely sure if Jacopo is Italian here, and Morgana exists outside of nationality or human realm so whatever.

In some ways their personalities do match up as well, but it's just faint enough that without reused sprites I'd struggle to figure out who's be the counter part in each Fata Morgana.

I don't think I've ever used the phrase "I think I'm playing as a cis protagonist though I'm not super sure" before, here is one of those. And the only reason I'm saying this is because while Michel was very very comfortable with his best friend Imeon turned out to be a trans man (he's more upset that Imeon was a closeted successful game dev that he didn't declare), yet Michel seemed to be utterly clueless about what's involved regarding to the daily struggles of a trans man. In Fata Morgana Michel himself was the intersex transman, while Imeon was a cis woman who briefly claimed to be male for situational circumstances. I always loved their brief friendship in Fata Morgana, and tbh I felt more satisfaction in seeing Michel and Imeon being besties than the whole Michel Giselle romance.

The weakest aspect of Seventh Lair imo is Giselle is so boring in here. She's sweet and nice but that's it. Given the context though, it's not so much about Giselle but rather the way Michel obsessed with Giselle. Even when they were a couple, I always had this uncomfortable sense of, would their relationship work when Michel was more interested in the idea of Giselle while he didn't really had the time to get to know her. But also, it makes sense given how many times we've seen game dev relationships really are this dysfunctional irl?

And here's where we get back to Michel again. I'm saying this as a fan of Fata Morgana Michel: he's my purest cinnamon bun, but let's be real. Even without the bastard of a family and the whole trans thing, he'd still be The Most Awkward dude because that's who he was. In Seventh Lair he's awkward nerd dev thing really got turned up to 11. Despite of his parasocial tendencies, his vanity, and imposter syndrome; it's worthwhile to note that he essentially programmed a functional LLM ChatGPT all by himself in 2012. He's kinda a game creating genius, while a PR nightmare at the same time.

I'm kinda devastated on how much the Hevens Forum really woke up something within me. The forced nostalgia of Hypnospace Outlaw only managed to irritate me, while Heven felt so real. I'm outraged that I feel nostalgia about the very kind of gamerbruh that I left behind, and in amazing irony I have to point out that in 2024 I can't even find Novect's official site via search engines anymore as all front pages were bought by SEOs of clickbaiter sites and Steam. So here, this was the past we don't forget and the future that will not remember. (https://novect.net/royaume_en/royaume.html)

Yukimasa and Pauline are destined to forever be cursed codependent couple until end of time, in here no exception. I love how much emphasis that Novect went in on how Fata Morgana's Yukimasa was both aroace and serial murderer, and these things have no correlations whatsoever. An alt timeline in Fata Morgana was an aroace Yukimasa who was a perfectly law abiding member of society. In Seventh Lair he's explicitly very-allosexual and very-alloromantic, while still a serial murderer. I want more of Pauline, there were never really enough of Pauline in every versions of this series. Those two are forever cursed.

Nellie here had shown to be really quite smart, something that the Fata Morgana Nellie never really had a chance to shine in as she was just an obsessive incestrous sister there. I feel like, the way Mell was made to be Nellie's imaginary brother here was a direct answer to the Mell that intentionally tried to manipulate his little sister into being overly possessive of him in Fata Morgana. Nellie deserved to be her own person all along.

Then Jacopo. Hoooo boy. Here's a lot. I've always described Fata Morgana as at its core an East Asian story cosplaying a European gothic tale. Jacopo here felt to me more like your East Asian youth than anyone else. I don't even identify as a westerner and I'm already too westernised to fully get this obsession of full time job in a large company, but talking to my cousins I also get the unbelievable pressure they have to meet this standard. In fact I think it's hella ironic because I'm not westernised enough to truly understand why people take pride in born in a large estate and how superior they are for never have to have a real job either. Then the thing of Jacopo felt his biggest secret was he was on antidepressants: in 2012 I'd like to think that European youths are not marginalised for this but I wouldn't know. Interestingly, something the game didn't quite ever mention again was that Jacopo was also on low dose antipsychotic: could well just be a mood stabliser but I'd say 2012 world was way less understanding about that.

I don't really feel like I want to go into the plot much. The plot was adequate, I think it's intentionally less of a big deal than the dynamics between the casts. The game knows what it wanted to really shine this time around, and the plot existed to be a catalyst rather than the centre piece. That's fine by me.

#VideoGames #VideoGames #Game #Games #SeventhLair #VN #VNs #VisualNovel #VisualNovels

Games/VN that didn't land GOTY/WOW ALL TIME CLASSIC but deserve a mention:

Cris Tales: mostly made for people who are nostalgic for Golden Sun era JRPGs, made by Colombian studio whose Colombian roots are gently planted then gloriously flowered through. The art is solidly one of my favourite of all time. I still strongly recommend everyone to buy this, I think the studio deserves all the success. Unfortunately the quality of life stuff, like the 10 seconds loading time every random battle, and poorly thought out boss fights made me not fully love it. Think of the game play as what happens if Yoko Taro wasn't supervised by someone else.

Octopath Travelers: entirely made for people who are nostalgic for FFIV era JRPG, made by SE. Pretty much streamlined all the quality of life stuff, unbelievably beautiful, with surprisingly complex combat. Poor fit for me because I found that era of JRPG meh.

MoonRPG: trollishly made for people who are sick of the nostalgia for early Dragon Quests, made by ex Enix staff. Made in 1997, somehow managed to be more clever than just about every 00s/10s "ironic" JRPG subversions. I absolutely cannot play any games where you race against seconds of clock, so I had to tap out. Hella good game.

Death Mark: a fairly it's-what-you-expect Japanese urban horror. Amazing atmosphere, surprisingly willing yo address stuff like violence against women and transphobia, and in a sort of Asian way of, if we can't convince people to stop being shit because it's bad thing to do, what if we just scare them into not behaving like shit so they are not haunted by angry ghosts of their victims? I'm put off by the weird sexualised women victims pictures though. One way to defeat your own purpose.

Paranormasight: a fairly it's-what-you-expect urban horror. The way it treated image/videos was incredible, a high school aged expert was respected appropriately, though I really hated one key character to the point of unable to fully love this game. (Yes yet another awful abusive man who is treated as the victim because boo hoo he felt bad for being an awful abusive man). Special shout out that this is an urban horror about ghosts killing randoms in Sumida region, made with support by Sumida council to boost tourism. Yes yes I totally went to Sumida for this. Was not killed.

Corpse Factory: I'm usually a little put off by "Japanese VN" made in Melbourne by whitefellas, here it's ok with me because I do get the sense that the creators genuinely do care about Japanese VNs instead of How To Draw Manga kind of incompetent misappropriation. It's intentionally depressing through and through, think of something almost touching Aku no Hara without truly elevate into that level of WELL DONE AND I'M NOPING OUT. Still worth a try imo.

Monark: it's basically Persona but dialed up the validly depressed teenagers to 100, so maybe a more accurate term is SMT wearing Persona skin? As a story, I preferred this over any of the SMTs. As a game, holy jpeg grinding.

Omori: I lasted around an hour before this game depressed me so much that I want to die, and I was still at the wholesome part. This is the appeal, but eh. Here's your ten star I will never touch it again.

Rain Code: I would've enjoyed it so much more if I'm not already a Danganronpa fan. V3 blew my mind. Rain Code is too much reusing the same plot twist that's been used in Danganronpa already. The town design is hella gorgeous.

A Requiem for Innocence/Assento Dele: look, they are good. Imeon is now one of my favourites of this series (admittedly it's also because most characters are pretty much too fucked up to exist), Ceren is a close second (admittedly its also because she out-fucked up everyone else against my expectation); I'm glad I got to know Morgana more, it's kinda just a bit extra reading material if my expectations were House in Fata Morgana.

The Good Life: I try to advance it every year, then I remembered that in order for me to continue the fairly enjoyable eccentric story, I'm forced to emulate daily struggle of spending hours to earn 20 pounds so I don't die of starvation.

Tales of Berseria: would be GOTY material by a lot, if I didn't had to stop half way due to life circumstances.

#VideoGames #VideoGames #Game #Games #2023Summary #VideoGameOfTheYear #GameOfTheYear #VN #VNs #VisualNovel #VisualNovels #GOTY

#CrisTales #OctopathTravelers #MoonRPG #DeathMark #Paranomasight #CorpseFactory #Monark #Omori #RainCode #TheHouseinFataMorgana #ARequiemForInnocence #AssentoDele #TheGoodLife #TalesOfBerseria