Every time I get excited about a dark R18 otome game getting an English release it turns out to be a bad MTL -_- oh well
I'd say check it out if you can read the original Chinese (hell maybe the Japanese TL is ok too, I can't tell) and if you're specifically into somno, as that seems to be a rare kink for otoges. But the English translation is sadly unfappable. #kteareviews #visualnovel #otomegame
I actually did find an English translated Korean indie VN on Stove that doesn't seem to be available anywhere else, a free, very short horror game called "No Gaze."
https://store.onstove.com/ko/games/4358
Worth checking out if that's your jam! The story is pretty typical as these "students disappearing in a creepy school at night" things go, but it does some neat things with art and the interface. The fact that the video feed on your phone of your friend walking around the school is actually animated with the camera moving around the hallway seems like such a simple detail, but I found it really surprising and effective.
Ending spoilers in next post, because I am kinda confused there and I'd love if someone else played this and could discuss it with me!
So I guess I'll post this review here instead, since this game's neat and I wanna promote it while the launch sale is still on. (Yeah I get the irony of saying "steam sucks, buy this game on steam," but it's not the developer's fault, so.)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2951710/___PinYuAn_Tales/
Played this using machine translation (https://www.reddit.com/r/vns/comments/ru4yj3/how_to_text_hook_translate_renpy_games/) as it's only available in Simplified Chinese. There are a few text messages and other images that can't be translated, but overall the writing seems pretty straightforward and it was easy enough to follow.
An episodic paranormal investigation visual novel set in Shanghai. Each individual case is pretty short, but I liked how they built on each other to an ending that felt sufficiently foreshadowed and thematically satisfying. The BL content is very low, but it's labeled as "bromance" so that's about what I expected. There's just a bit of subtext as well as hints of a future relationship in the happy end. The sound design could be more interesting, but the artwork is gorgeous, especially in some of the gory bad endings.
Hope this game gets an actual English translation, but even if not, I'm looking forward to more from this developer in the future!
PinYuAn Tales is a AVG with thematic elements of weirdness and sidekick adventures. After Bai Qiming is laid off from his company, he starts to conduct psychic live broadcasting activities, and during one of the broadcasts, he meets a strange young man, and the story of the two of them unfolds.
Welp it's short so I finished it already, unfortunately cannot recommend. The art's nice but the story and translation are just kind of a mess. It's inconsistent and so many ideas are picked up and dropped seemingly at random, but it also doesn't manage to get to a potentially enjoyable so-bad-it's-good territory. Maybe worth checking out for omegaverse fans, since there's so few OV VNs and it's interesting to see how non-English language fandom plays with the tropes, but not really on its own merits.
(Reposted since I didn't realize it wasn't public, which defeats the purpose of organizing my reviews by hashtag orz)
Finished "Kami-sama's Personal Servant," another BL game from the same Taiwanese indie developers as Chirality, so here's another disjointed review. https://fandom.ink/@kimchitea/112482530888097884
Attached: 1 image Just finished playing Chirality, a recently released Taiwanese #blgame, so here's a disjointed review... #boyslove #visualnovel
Finished this. Kinda meh. "Seven different endings" is kinda misleading; it's a linear plot with a few choices that either continue the story or lead to an abrupt dead end. Episodic mystery story that I think struggled to come together thematically, and the shades of copaganda were annoying. (cont'd)
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