The House in Fata Morgana OST review by Lolinia – Developers: Novectacle – Publishers: MangaGamer – Genre: Original Soundtrack
Music is a gift upon the world. Whether you’re a fan of the Baroque period or head-rock to Skrillex, music speaks to our minds, bodies, and souls. It elates us; it depresses us; it encourages us. Music is a language that speaks to our emotions. Music is a form of expression when words are not enough. Music takes us from a simple farmland in Nowhere, Country-of-Origin and turns us into courageous heroes, dastardly villains, and the occasional pot-hitting gorilla and horn-tooting elephant. Music entrances us, elevates us, exhilarates us, enchants us, and excites us. Music is simply intoxicating. So, when a visual novel incorporates music as a part of its storytelling, not merely as background, it better encompass all those feelings and, I must say, the soundtrack for The House in Fata Morgana does that excellently.
From the moment the title screen is up, Fata Morgana is an onslaught of intense sound and musical engineering. As you read, it evokes such passion from the depths of your mind. Or, at least, that’s what it did for me. If you want to know more about my experience with the game itself, you can read my review of Fata Morgana by clicking here. This is a review of my experience with the music alone. With that said, let’s grab the hand of the Maid once more and delve into what made me want the soundtrack for The House in Fata Morgana.
Like I’ve said plenty of times before, I really enjoy visual novels. This one in particular was a very powerful, story-driven masterpiece, in my opinion. Certain pieces of the music enraptured my ears and made it into my nighttime dreams. Now that I own the soundtrack outside of the game, I listen to the music constantly. Even unconscious when sleeping, I have the music playing softly on speakers as it helps me sleep. Even now, as I write this review and the review that came before it, I’ve been listening to this music for five (almost six) hours, already. With 60+ tracks across four CDs, I would be hard-pressed to try to go through every single piece and review it. Therefore, I will pick a few of my favorite tracks and tell you about it and why I like it.
- Gao – Cicio
Cicio is, by far, my favorite track. With its smooth piano and gentle female vocalist, Cicio is a very relaxing track. It makes me remember warm times with family. Though some memories may be bittersweet, they still are very endearing memories. Cicio is simple in that it only contains piano and vocals. No drum beating it up in the background or trumpet emphasizing the song. Just piano and vocals. It’s a very simple, yet incredibly powerful song.
- Mellok’n – The House in Fata Morgana
The House in Fata Morgana is the namesake song. It does come up rather regularly in the main game. Unlike Cicio, The House in Fata Morgana has many instruments in it as well as a vocalist. It is a very calming, yet slightly eerie-sounding song. At the same time as it sounds eerie, it also has a tiny bit of heroic sounds in it that makes it sound very inspiring towards the end. I enjoyed it very much and it makes a fine namesake song.
- Mellok’n – Skia Oura
Skia Oura is relaxing to the utmost. Its piercing guitar is the main focus, as well as the background sounds of birds chirping. While it does have vocals to it, the vocalist is not present throughout the entire song. In fact, she’s barely in it at all. The real power in Skia Oura is in the guitar. Its twang and the birds’ chirpings make this a “feel at home” song. I feel as if this song was meant to be listened to while sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch while watching your children play in the yard. Sitting there, you remember back upon your youth, when you met your partner. Looking at your children, you are reminded why said partner is no longer at your side, but have much hope in their own lives that you can’t help smiling. That is the feeling that I get from Skia Oura. Another one of those possibly bittersweet songs. (It doesn’t help that before I got the lyrics, I thought the vocalist was saying “I’ll be fine” in a weird accent.)
- Yusuke Tsutsumi – Everybody’s Crying
This song… it is truly the epitome of a song of sadness. Even the name is a representation of it. It is a song of longing. A song of deep emotion. A song of true depression. With many instruments, including what I assume to be violin(s), and a vocalist, this song really brings home some of the events in The House in Fata Morgana and tie them all together to the fact that everyone truly is crying, lamenting, and in deep sorrow. It is a song that ties all tragedies together.
- Gao – Serie de Fragmento
Serie de Fragmento felt like a song of afterthought to me. A song that says, “Hey… you fucked up. And you know that. So, chin up, bucko. Move on and maybe next time won’t be so bad.” It’s a song of regret, but it moves forward, like you must do. Like all of us must do. We all have to keep moving forward. One step. One small step at a time. Trudge through it. This song’s most emphatic instruments would be the piano and the synthesizer at the beginning and end of the song. With no vocals, this instrumental piece is deeply moving to me.
- Mellok’n – Ephemera
Ephemera is reminiscent of childhood. A time in our life where most of us are happy and active all the time. When we want something, our feet run off as fast claps from a hand. At the same time, this song as a clearly vintage sound to it. At the start of the song, it uses sound to imitate being played off an old vinyl record. With the child vocalist (or child-sounding) and the many claps as the main point in this song, it’s a very up-tempo song that makes you want to clap alongside it.
- Yusuke Tsutsumi – This Mutilated Body
To me, this song felt like a song of self-loathing. Self-pity. Deep-rooted self-hatred. It felt as if saying, “This body… this person I am… I hate it with every ounce of my strength. How I wish to God that I could change or not have been born this way! Why am I so cursed! I HATE THIS!” It is another song of true sadness, but more on the lines of inner turmoil. A seething fire of rage against no one but your own self. That is what this song felt like to me. With a vocalist merely vocalizing moans of “Oooh” and “Ah”, the song has a very haunting tone to it. The piano and violins do a great job of building up tension throughout the piece.
- Takaki Moriya – Ciao Carina
Ciao Carina is an upbeat song. Almost so much so that it didn’t feel like it was supposed to be part of the soundtrack of Fata Morgana. In the game, it is first introduced when you walk into the third door of 1863 and meet Jacopo. Just like Jacopo, the song has a somewhat smug attitude to its jazzy swing. It makes me think it would be perfect in a jazz club in the 1950s, but still feels like it fits in a time period of nearly 100 years earlier.
With all of that said, I do believe it’s time for me to wrap up this review of the soundtrack to The House in Fata Morgana. I hope everyone has enjoyed the music and reading my thoughts on the music of the game. As I probably neglected to mention in the first paragraph, music is an art form that is always up to one’s own self to see what it means to them. Your interpretation may not be the same as mine and I’m good with that. What matters is that the music is very good. If you never plan to listen to the music outside of playing the game, that’s fine, but if you do, I highly recommend getting the OST to The House in Fata Morgana.
For the price of $11.99 USD on Steam, I highly recommend it. Four discs’ worth of music for twelve bucks? Hell yes. You will need to have already owned the main game to get the OST, but if you don’t have it, you can save a little change by buying both at the same time in the Deluxe Edition. I do hope that you enjoy the ride that is The House in Fata Morgana. There are many, many more tracks that were not discussed in this article. Discover them for yourself with the OST, as there are a ton of fantastic songs in it! Thanks for reading.
-Lolinia
This has been a We Touch Games review
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