Cult Visual Novel The House in Fata Morgana on its Way to Switch

Visual novel fans rejoiced Monday as developer Novectacle announced a much-teased Switch port of The House in Fata Morgana. Beloved for its literary, gothic prose, the game is en route to being available on every major platform.

It’s time to record your name on Switch as our supporter!
As we promised before, we’re going to credit who have chosen StrongZ and above plans on our work! We are now porting Fata into Switch, so I would love to record your name on the end credit roll.https://t.co/gR1FyGagpSpic.twitter.com/kt27VRX2qe

— Novectacle (@Novectacle_EN) January 6, 2020

Fata Morgana has a pretty interesting history. Released on New Year’s Eve 2012 in Japan for PC, the game’s sales were abysmally low. Crowdfunding for a translation was considered and later scrapped. The translation was later picked up by localizer MangaGamer, famous for their releases of the When They Cry series, and quietly released in 2016 to middling attention. The game has since attained certified cult status through word of mouth and Twitter.

The game notably eschews typical conventions of Japanese visual novel-style games such as Danganronpa and Persona 5, shying away from high-octane anime designs and opting instead for a painterly, Romantic era-inspired style. The storyline takes more inspiration from tragic works by Brontë or Shakespeare as well as brainy films like Millennium Actress than it does from JRPG epics or high fantasy. Fans of Guillermo del Toro will notice his specific brand of goth-fairytale fusion. The game’s time-bending period drama takes the player through centuries of history and numerous, shockingly resonant twists to culminate in a unique tale of humanity. Fans of the recent philosophical opus Disco Elysium will want to hop on this one.

The game’s enhanced, Limited Run version, Dreams of the Revenant Edition, sold out on their website immediately, selling almost 5,000 units between the standard and collector’s editions. The Nintendo Switch has recently been receiving ports of visual novel giants, including Steins;Gate Elite and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, and Fata Morgana’s inclusion might point to a broadening audience for the niche genre on the Switch platform. Dreams of the Revenant Edition, which is sure to be the version ported to Switch, includes the game’s prequel Requiem for Innocence, a side game previously unreleased in the West titled Reincarnation, and additional text-only side stories. The collector’s edition released through Limited Run is also packaged with a much coveted art book, as well as a comprehensive, six-disc CD collection of the game’s 65 tracks and a double-sided poster.

No word yet on whether Limited Run will be releasing a collector’s box set for the Switch version.