Dies irae Final Final Complete Version Finally Released

On December 25th (Merry Christmas!), Light released the final (and supposedly complete) version of its Dies irae game, Dies irae ~Acta est Fabula~.

The complete version comes with two new routes, including the long-awaited Kei route (yay!), but is still missing a Rusalka route (boo!), which can't really be helped on some levels. However, due to the various release of this game, it seems which version contains what is becoming a bit confusing... so here is a small post that will hopefully clear things up.

First of all, let's take a look at all the versions of the game currently out there:

• Dies irae Also sprach Zarathustra, the original game that was released in 2007.

  It was a highly anticipated release by Light, the game, having been in development since 2006, declared itself as a 学園伝奇バトルオペラADV, or "School Romance Battle Opera Adventure." Unfortunately, the ambitious project was met with a storm of criticism upon its late-2007 release, with the main complaint being omission of expected content and story (here's a lesson in advertising, Light never said what appeared in the ads were going to end up in the game, did they?). Of course, being a company that is trying to make money, and sometimes even trying to make its fans happy, Light needed to do something, which lead to...

• Dies irae Also sprach Zarathustra -die Wiederkunft-, which was released in mid-2009 to make fans happy... or did it?

  This version came with two rewritten scenarios (Kasumi and Marie) from the 2007 version... all was good... but wait, where are the Rea and (most importantly) Kei routes?! Wait, apparently this isn't the complete version. In a commercially brilliant move, Light had announced that a "complete" version will be released in December of 2009, and so comes...

• Dies irae ~Acta est Fabula~. So, this is the final, final version, right?

  But wait, as with everything else in this world, things aren't that simple. A 3GB+ patch (can we get any bigger?) can be downloaded from Light's website, and there is also to be a Dies irae Also sprach Zarathustra ~Acta est Fabula~ -Scharlachrot Grun-, or Append. So what's with all the different versions?

The complete version, Dies irae ~Acta est Fabula~, contains the two re-written routes from die Wiederkunft as well as two new routes (Rea + Kei).

The Append version will update die Wiederkunft, which was released earlier this year, and will append the two new routes (Rea + Kei) to the game.

Finally, Light released a patch that will patch the original 2007 version of the game by adding the Rea and Kei routes as well as upgrading the original two routes to their new version found in later iterations of the game.

Did that make any sense? Basically, the original story found in the 2007 game is gone, thrown out the window, and the "complete" version contains the updated Kasumi and Marie routes, as well as the new Rea and Kei routes. If you're still confused, here's a diagram:

The one you need to pay attention to is the first table. What it says is the following:

Phew, hope that cleared things up.

Of course, the game is still far from complete... after all, we still need a Rusalka route, until then, we can only dream...