Dies Irae ~Amantes Amentes~ Video Game Review – 80/100

In the Visual novel fandom there are certain titles referred to Kamige.(God(ly) games) I previously thought the term referred to the best the medium has to offer but in recent times come to realise that a game can be referred to as a Kamige while not necessarily being the best. So Kamige as I understand it are Visual novels which stand out from the rabble and sadly many of these cannot be experienced by those of us who don’t speak Japanese. Fortunately due to the efforts of localization companies we now have several Kamige on the way. Baldr Sky, Subahibi and more are coming. Thus the first to grace our shores is Dies Irae and believe me that it wasn’t easy. As a backer of the kickstarter I watched this thing go through hell to reach our shores, from horrible mismanagement of the kickstarter to the embarrassing moment where Dies Irae had yet to reach it’s goal when a Nekopara anime kickstarter running at the same time raised one million in funds. It was dark days, truly dark days, but now we have it. A title once called untranslatable and forever out of gasp is in my hands. Now having played it, what do I think of Dies irae?

Dies Irae has four main routes and five side stories and while this version has the option to lock you into a girl’s route before starting a new game, I highly recommend that you don’t make use of it. I used these buttons to lock me into each girl’s route and encountered a glitch where I couldn’t unlock the final side story due to having missed dialogue in choices. So I recommend you use the common route button and get to the girls routes using a walkthrough. On that note as a very important rule of this visual novel is that while you can chose any girls route from the start, you should complete the girl’s routes in the following order: Kasumi, Kei, Marie, Rea. The reason for this is that later routes expect you to know knowledge from previous routes and playing them out of order can leave you confused as to just what is even going on. More importantly is that Rea’s route is clearly the finale of the entire story so playing it first would lose it’s impact. The strict route structure is a bit of pain, in particular as the quality of the story goes from worst to best. However it is interesting to see events of earlier routes subconsciously affect events of later routes. Things which previously didn’t make much sense or felt out of nowhere take on new meaning when you take into account the matter of eternal recurrence. But alas, what is the story of Dies Irae? It’s difficult to go into detail without spoilers but lets say it starts with a matter regarding a serial killer which evolves into a full blown battle which pits our main protagonist Ren against a group of superpowered nazi’s from the remnants of World War II known as the Obsidian Round Table.

The story has 13 chapters where the first 6 or 7 are of the common route which is free to play on steam. From there it deveres into one of four main heroine routes, which with their own outcome and storyline. The story has been called a hybrid of Hellsing combined with Fate/Stay Night and to a degree that is true. The psychopathic Nazi’s are certainly reminiscent of Hellsing as well as the relevance of rule of cool above all else. For make no mistake when i say that Dies’ Irae story is ridiculous and logically falls apart if you aren’t willing to roll with it. For example, in this visual novel hundreds of people die and yet at no points does the government or army interfere with whats going on. The explanation to write this off is that when these Nazi’s kill someone they devour them completely, leaving no trace. However if hundreds of missing persons reports were coming in within a week then people would be asking questions. At one point even an entire school’s student population is wiped out and yet there is not a single word of the aftermath. It’s clear than on this aspect you are just not supposed to think about it too much. Now the Fate/Stay Night resemblance comes in some of the characters, the general story setup and weapons which happen to be famous historical instruments. Indeed there is a cavalcade of references and I am sure quite a number slipped over my head.

The common route is mainly there to set the stage and things don’t really get moving until you get into a heroines route. As stated before, there is a strict recomended order to these routes you should follow so I will give my impressions of each. Kasumi’s route is ultimately the weakest of the four as for the most part you won’t have a clear picture of what exactly is going on and Kasumi’s character just comes across as lacking. I understand that she serves a purpose in symbolising the ordinary life that Ren desperately wishes to reclaim but as a result she is doomed to the role of damsel in distress. She gets the most screentime in the common route and her basic personality could get on peoples nerves if you are not into genki girls. The route just lacks closure as half the villains don’t even show up and the route as a whole thing ends inconclusively. It’s more or less a route to set the groundwork for the other routes. Kei’s route fares better but as a heroine I found her to be a lesser Rin Tohsaka. Her basic quirk is being a tsundere and the only thing that really separates her from that is her connection with the villains. I never found her compelling or likeable as a protagonist and as an antagonist. Her attraction to Ren seems forced at best as it’s the old “They fight so that means they are madly in love” song and dance.

Much like Kasumi’s her route also ends inconclusively but works better as it has more exciting fights and a finale with more at stake. Marie’s route is a contender for best route as it has a much more conclusive finale and some truly outstanding moments. Marie as a heroine though again came up short as her personality was non existent up until a certain point where she made a jarring change into another character completely. I am willing to give her a pass though as I have a serious thing for long haired blondes and she’s right in my strike zone. Finally Rea’s route acts as a fitting finale for the entire visual novel as it’s undeniable the most epic ending of the routes. Rea possesses the best personality of the main heroines but doesn’t get much in terms of romantic development which makes her romance the weakest. I would place this route below Maries as it takes a bit too long to get started and while the finale had some truly phenomenal set up, the final conclusion was a bit of a let down. Disappointing as Rea’ route is the only one with two endings and both concluded rather abruptly. Overall Kasumi’s was the weakest, while Kei’s was third best and Marie’s and Rea’s close in terms of enjoyment.

Dies Irae is very much a story supported by its strong character cast as it possesses one of the strongest villain casts I can think of. Each member of the Obsidian Round Table has great characterization from the psychotically bloodthirsty Willhelm, to the playful sadistic Rusalka, to the emotional manipulative Trifa, to the steadfast loyal Eleonore, to the utterly batshit insane Schreiber…each one monstrous in their own right coming with their own personal desires and history. All lead by the lording charismatic Reinhard and the enigmatic Mercurius. It’s is not an exaggeration to say some of the best parts of this Visual Novel are due to the quality of its villains. So it’s such a shame that the protagonist team fall very short in comparison. The main protagonist Ren’s motivation mostly boils down to him wanting to return to a mundane uneventful life and I find he mostly contributes false bravado and typical shounen one liners. However much like Eren Jaeger of Attack on Titan, I find he fails more than he succeeds and even when he succeeds it seems less do to his own efforts and more due to random Deus Ex Machina. Aside from him and the heroines though we have the saving grace of the protagonist team and their names are Shirou and Ellie. These two are the best. Both are thrill seekers who entered this whole affair just for the excitement of it. They have no powers and face off against ridiculously powerful monsters with nothing but balls to the wall recklessness and ingenuity which makes their fights some of the best in the story. Shirou once remarks that he should have been the main protagonist and he’s certainly right as he is Ren’s polar opposite. He seeks to break away from the mundanity of life and seek the new and exciting regardless of how insane it may be. He’s a man who first introduces himself to this story by proposing a fistfight to the death with Ren just for the heck of it. He’s absolutely out of his mind and boy do I love him for it. His foil Ellie is equally mad and when these two get together they can make for some comic gold. As a result despite the main protagonist and heroines being lackluster, it’s made up by the strength of the rest of the cast.

The writer Masada Takashi has a writing prose which could be hit or miss with people. There are points when it really comes together and excels the story but his long winded descriptions can bog down the action scenes as dialogue is separated with paragraphs overly descriptive text. At times as well it can be hard to understand which is most evident during the conversations between Reinhard and Mercurius. But mayfair, perhaps my consciousness is trapped in the ghetto, ravaged by the chase of delights temporal and fleeting through the vast base of mundanity and hardship. For much like Bey and Hrozvitnir, casting aside chaining morality to obtain ubermensh feels a delusion worthy of dissolution. Memento Mori, for I fear the Reaper and seek the eternal. Well..if you just read those last few sentences with a giant question mark over your head then congratulations. You now know what it’s like to read a conversation between Reinhard and Mercurius. Honestly there were times I just had to stop reading just to try and comprehend just what these two were even talking about. In essence the overly dramatic prose can resemble the ramblings of the various chuunibyou characters in anime for as well acclaimed as this visual novel is, it’s is still a chuuni visual novel. Characters tend to debate more than they fight and every superpower unveil is preceded by a nonsense chant in german.

Many of the lines in this you could get a chuunibyou character to speak and it wouldn’t sound all that different from their usual made up nonsense. The artwork is quite excellent despite it being a product from ten years ago and it certainly gives the impression that the artist was aiming to make characters look as cool as possible. Sadly this is offset by the interface as while the general options are fine, the big problem is the text box with the terrible purple and red gradient. I have no idea whose bright idea it was to make it that colour but there’s no window colour options so you are stuck with it. Might not be too bad if it just stuck to the bottom of the screen but when the perspective shifts to other characters than Ren then the box covers the entire screen and obscures the artwork. Therefore I wholeheartedly recommend that you turn down the window transparency on this thing. Music overall was fine though I admit to it not really being to me tastes. One or two songs stood out for me but otherwise I would deem the soundtrack passable. However I do think that other would disagree with me on that greatly and I can see why.

Thus I find my feelings mixed when I completed it. For every great thing Dies Irae accomplishes, it comes with something bad to counter it. It has a magnificent cast of villains but the heroes characterization is lacking. The action set pieces are epic confrontations but more often than not end in deus ex machina or anticlimax. The writer’s prose can be enlightening and poetic but also incomprehensible and intrusive at times. It doesn’t go out of it’s way to treat the reader like an idiot but lack of explanation can leave the reader confused to what is going on even in the late stages. Each route builds upon the other in a interesting way but the visual novel is massively long with the opening routes being the weakest. There are things I truly love about Dies Irae but just the same there are things I really hate about it. Thus when completing it I found myself in two minds over whether it truly was a great game or a disappointing one. In conclusion I have found that it was a worthwhile and unique story to experience though at times tiresome to get through. The game is currently on Steam and you can play the common route for free to see if the story catches you. Then you can buy the rest of the game through the DLC. For those with the time to read it I say it is worth your time though like myself you may find yourself not quite satisfied with the result.