Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS

So completing this visual novel was more of a chore than I hoped for it to be for several reasons... But I will state some good things about it:

The music is pretty good for the most part, but it tended to get repetitive when you go through different scenes throughout the game and some scenes had music that didn't quite fit the moments for me personally.
I like that there were 14 endings, which makes replaying the game a bit more interesting ONLY if the endings were worth going for.
The art was nice and the character designs were interesting enough to keep me interested in who was who.

Now the bad stuff:

Translation for this game (or the original Chinese writing for the story) was ROUGH... Constant repetitive sentences within a 10-15 minute scene makes reading through dialogue pretty unbearable--and imagine having to replay through the story for multiple endings and hoping a new kind of dialogue sounds remotely decent just to be begging for the moment to be over after a few minutes because the scene just wants to drag out its point.
The characters were so one dimensional to me to a point where I didn't have anyone who I really strongly felt close to in terms of caring about them. I'm all for having simple motivations for things, but the way these characters were driven for the weirdest stuff for simple things just lost me on caring about anything they they're trying to achieve for. Main character cares about his childhood friend, likes her even, but even he gets annoying to a point of being a sexist jerk who has these outdated expectations on what a "good girl" has to be. But he can have "naughty" thoughts about other characters and we're just supposed to be cool with that. A side character is abusive to his partner, but she accepts it "out of love"... again--I'm normally okay with complex dynamics of relationships, but the partnership felt so unrealistic and toxic to a point where I'm wondering why the woman hasn't left this POS. There's just so much let down when it came to these characters in this game, it was only out of spite that I completed the game in the first place.
Now the endings... at first I thought the endings were pretty interesting when it came to the different ways our main character can get instantly killed off or messed with in this illusion world, but once that became the theme for 8 out of 14 endings... the novelty wore off very quickly. The only ending I remotely liked was the Final Redemption-Nanami ending-at least our main guy is able to move on from trying to go on a soul searching, world bending journey for someone who is most likely not going to be saved based on several warnings according to other characters... Otherwise, its pessimism all around with missed out potential on other characters.

So... That's a condensed way for me to describe things about this game that genuinely get to me. I'd say there are better VNs out there that go over complex and dark subject matter all the while it actually becomes decent or even great with it's execution.

didn't expect the story to be this good lol.

shout out to my men solano ren & mikami hisashi QAQ

From gothic dresses to maid outfits, the detail put into the characters and their expressions is phenomenal

Notch/10

Blows A**.
Kinda had high hopes because of the positive rating. Played for like 3-4 hours with the constant hope that the story would pick up or just get somewhat compelling, but man... that sure didn't happen.
Naturally, refunding was off the table by that point.
So why is the rating so good? Well, weirdly, most of the recent reviews are from private Lvl 0 accounts.
What a weird coincidence.
Only good part about having this game is the fact that the backgrounds for this game from the points shop are quite pretty.
Don't bother with this.


BUT... if you really must... then play it within the eligible time for a refund, get a feel for it, and if you feel like the quality experienced in the beginning is exactly the type you want from a story, then carry on, but if you hope for the story to pick up or get better... don't bother.

I expected nothing of this game, and i was surprised by it. I like

awesome

amazing dark story.

Just.... what the hell is going on? The story makes literally no sense at all.

A visual Novel That has supernatural theme's and plenty of Gory scenes, there are some scene's in this that are left up to the imagination because some scene's have blacked out backgrounds, definitely not family friendly and NSFW, it does have some heart touching moments in the story. this game does have multiple endings, depending on the choices made during the this visual novel, some are very hard to figure out, without a guide depending on the person. This is nice for those who like some supernatural horror, Mystery and trying to help your childhood friend.

Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS is wonderful visual novel, interesting idea, great art work, beautiful soundtrack, nice and long story, sometimes maybe a little boring to be honest...
it's fantasy story and sometimes put player in another world, horrifying world of fake dreams.
a lot of people screaming about translation but it's fine and not difficult to understand story and dialogues, yes some words repeat over and over again and annoy you but still this game have a lot more good points so i guess it deserve forgiveness.
personally i love this game and really recommend it especially if you like this type of strange feelings! <3

I was expecting a horror, but I got a teenage melodrama. For the first time in my life, I regretted that I had bought a game (a visual novel, in this case) and it even managed to throw the thought into my head that I would never read visual novels again in my life. What quality do you think this game is?

I don't want to offend the author, but throughout the game there was a feeling that the game was written by a twenty-year-old dude with a lack of female attention and attention in general. The protagonist is making himself a showy hero with signs of ******toxicosis. Communication with girls and what he thought about them sent me in stupor and made me feel a kind of disgust. It was weird.

The game is ultra slow, as if it was written with the aim of delaying for as many hours as possible, while diluting for a third of a game with unnecessary conversations about life. I don’t understand, I want to find the killer here or to push the conversation about life?
From time to time there were good and interesting moments, but they seemed not to be drawn out to the end.
The story with abusive relationships is generally some kind of trash, during reading which my ass burned, I wanted to send this thing to hell. Even considering the character's backstory. And how the main character then beat this dude, well, this is truly an epic, I think the glow from my window could be seen several kilometers away.

As for the art, personally I didn't get enough depth in the drawings and I think it really badly needed additional art for some scenes.
Ah, those scratches on the arms and body. Wonderful. Horror. Girls are murdered bloodthirsty.. And scratches. Imagination!

The soundtrack was good.

Annoyed by the inability to exit the menu using "esc". Like, from the game I can go to the menu using "esc", but not back? What?

By the end, I had no strength left to read THIS. If there was an opportunity to return the money with the given time, I would do it without hesitation.

The line between fake and real has never been so thin; a series of murders is rampaging in a quiet island town that leads to something darker, wrapping you up in a bloody embrace made of horrors, secrets and desmembered body parts. As an Higurashi enjoyer, thanks for the fish. 7.5/10

Alright so let me get started on...whatever this is.
CONS
A lot of the reviews claim the translation is faulty,but it really isn't that bad.There aren't many mistakes throughout a 10 hour novel.The problem is how REPETITIVE the dialogues are.Most times you will end up reading for 10 minutes the same conversation over and over again.The story is all over the place and there are many plot holes.Halfway through the story i still didn't know what the hell was going on.The characters were being very evasive and vague.
PROS
I like the art and background music.
I do think this story holds tremendous potential.The premise of the story is nice;it just needed a more concise direction.Towards the end of the story,in chapter 9,the miduki's family head background story came to light.Throughout those 20 minutes,i found myself captivated by that story.The art,the story telling,the background music...oh man.Best part of the entire novel.
OVERALL
The novel is a bit lackluster,but it was still a decent read for me.7 on 10.Don't buy it unless it's on sale.

Wonderful plot. Great music, thats about it. The dialogue feels stiff and you cant get immersed. The main characters an asshole, and Even though it was made in 2011, the animation techniques and quality overall is very chinsey. F.E Whenever theres a thrash animation to emphasize action, the screens catch and overlay if played in fullscreen.

This game would have been great if the writer had put some soul into the product. Animations are a great way to immerse yourself into the action so the higher the quality the more enjoyment factor you'd get.

Atleast the badges and backgrounds are decent.

With the quality and boring texts this game is about an 5/10 for me

"Conflicted" is a mild way to describe the bubbling cauldron full of mixed feelings this game left me with, after one full playthrough wich lasted 8 hours. The initial review I wrote on Steam mostly focused on the disappointment I felt. After I spent another 10+ hours on this game, I did notice some more praiseworthy aspects of the game that had not been featured (much) during the first playthrough. So I re-wrote part of this review to reflect the new experiences as well.

I will avoid spoilers and keep a discussion of this game's themes general.

Structure
The game consists of two parts, rather pompously titled the "Alpha" and the "Omega" stories. At quite a few points during both parts of the story the player is asked about his (or her, although the main character is always a guy) attitude or state of mind regarding certain characters or events. And in the Omega story, the choices the player makes will have consequences. Although there are also some more regular choices, such as if you want to explore further in a certain direction or not. But the choices that seemed to inquire after the player's attitudes towards something were more frequent, at least in my mind. And that is my first gripe with this game: how can your attitude or state of mind about what you encounter in the game be "wrong"? I simply answered honestly every time the game asked me how I felt about something, and this led me to a Bad Ending that could have been accompanied by an achievement titled "Too Stupid To Live" judging by the dressing down the main character got at the end. After more playthroughs (and reading through the excellent guides provided in the community hub), I realized that there is no way for the player to solve the mystery on their own. The player always fails the investigation and always gets a dressing down for it...

"Elementary, my dear Watson"
During the deduction show that is provided in part II, all the so-called "clues" that the player should have noticed during part I are pointed out. Unfortunately, just about all of these clues barely qualify as circumstantial evidence, let alone as hard evidence that proves anyone's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The person revealing the clues tries to undercut this criticism by saying that these aren't the sort of clues that you would encounter in a detective novel, because real life isn't like that. Perhaps not, but neither would these "clues" be enough to convict anyone in real life. They might not even be sufficient to warrant further questioning at the police station (not that there are any police in this game, which is another dubious point that the player is expected to swallow).

Themes
This game seems to have a hard time deciding just what its theme is supposed to be. At first, much emphasis is placed on the fact that the town's glory days are over and how decay has set in. The player character is rather bitter about his chances on the island and his remarks on the subject distress his longtime love interest.
Then, the game veers off sharply towards the slasher genre with several gruesome murders being depicted and some more horrors being faced in dreams. Oddly, some rather lustful choices are provided in the game, that resonate rather oddly with the heavy themes of serial murder and tragic love.
Next, things get more philosophical when the game asks questions about the nature of reality and each individual's personal version thereof. As if that wasn't enough, some intertwined dark love stories follow that seem to be inspired by the classic 19th century novel "Wuthering Heights". And eventually the game reveals itself to primarily have been a detective game with the player either succeeding or failing based on how much (s)he has managed to figure out. Not exactly "L.A. Noire", but it certainly tries to take some pages from the same book. With so many different themes, this game doesn't really manage to do any of them very well (although some of the love stories certainly stand out). As a result, fans of most of these genres will probably feel this game leaves a lot to be desired. As do I.

To V-N or not to V-N?
Since this game contains quite a few choices-with-consequences, it is technically not purely a Visual Novel, but an adventure game. The problem is that much of the content (especially in the middle of the game) has very few (if any) choices and feels like a pure Visual Novel for quite a while. So much so, that I found it hard to escape the impression that this "game" started out as nothing more than a Visual Novel, until someone decided that there really needed to be a player character who is more than a mere spectator. The result is a rather curious hybrid adventure / visual novel, of which large parts cannot be influenced by the player in any way (since the player character often isn't even present during these parts). Since the visual novel parts are quite compelling, sitting through them doesn't feel like a chore at all. Once or twice, that is. Unfortunately, this game sports 14 different endings. So even if you decide to stick to the game guide after your first playthrough, that means that you will have to sit through the Visual Novel quite a few times. And even when using the maximum possible speed (by selecting "Skip to Next Item" from the dropdown menu), it still takes quite a while to replay the game. Even when only altering a few choices.

Things worthy of applause
There is also plenty worthy of praise in this game, such as:
- the nice artwork for surroundings and chase scenes. Although it's nothing fancy, it's nice to look at;
- the music starts out a little hit-and-miss (with an occasional synthesizer tune that feels like it belongs in a futuristic game like those in the Mass Effect series), but improves a lot as the game progresses. Towards the climax there are even a few songs that are actually quite nice;
- the story is quite complex and deep, although it relies a bit too much on extremely violent twists. Not that all of the violence is senseless. Some of it is quite understandable.

Various more critical remarks
- An island that does not belong to any country and does not have any sort of government or law enforcement. Seriously?
- An underage boy explores an enormous forest (it takes a whole day to walk from one end to the other) in search of a serial killer, but no one from civilization comes after him, not even his parents?
- The player character is expected to know when other murders have taken place in the forest, which given its enormous size is patently absurd.
- Since the player can never really be sure whether his surroundings (and the people he meets) are real or not, it's a little odd to expect the player to sift out clues from the odd mixture of real and unreal things and people he encounters.

The Verdict
Although some of the characters were sufficiently appealing to make me wonder where the other routes might have led, this game simply tries to fit into too many categories to truly succeed in any of them. That being said, this game has no shortage of potential saving graces, such as the deep story, nice music and pleasing secondary art. However, if you're not into gory dark love stories with supernatural elements and some sleuthing thrown in, then this may simply not be the game for you.

Over-all, 3 out of 5 stars seems a fair score, factoring in the modest asking price. Still, seeing as this was written and programmed by one single person, it's hard not to be impressed by how much is done right. That's one reason why I changed my initial thumbs down to a thumbs up.

Graphics: 8.5/10
The scenery visuals are a little inconsistent in some parts which prevents it from scoring any higher, but the characters and other designs were nicely drawn.

Storyline: 10/10
The main highlights are the 3 amazing backstories of Hisashi, Rika and Arazaki. Those stories are what sets this VN apart to other VNs out there. They also link up beautifully with the main story that I won’t mention due to spoilers. Bear in mind that the pacing is slow and it takes several chapters to get the “answers”, but that is a given since this is a mystery novel. Catching the killer is hard and it may not be who you think it is.

Sound: 8.5/10
The soundtrack is top notch (no pun intended). Yes, it’s a hit or miss in some situations. But once you hear a great track that perfectly matches the scene, you won’t easily forget it. That being said there are still some that sound too ‘over-the-top’ in some scenes.

Gameplay: 7.5/10
There are a few issues which include black bars along the sides when playing at full screen, screen tearing when the screen shakes (in some situations), the sound settings doesn’t save at start-up (meaning you have to re-adjust it whenever you play) and you cannot adjust the any of the sounds whilst in-game. But once you are all set, the game doesn’t lag or crash which is a good upside. It also AutoSaves after every chapter (Except for chapter 9 and 10).

Price: 10/10
It’s definitely worth the £6.99 price tag. The gameplay does have its issues. The story, visuals and soundtracks are on-point. This is highly recommended for those who are interested in mystery and horror.

Another nice little horror VN, Reminds me of some kind of odd mix of Higurashi with the murder mystery element and Sound of Drop with the "alternate horror reality"

Characters all start and end with different personalities, the killer's identity was difficult to figure out, and one particular moment in this gave me one hell of a creeped out feeling. I can also say one particular story really tore me up emotionally; on one hand I hated this guy, and on the other hand... I couldn't. Hell I still don't know how to feel about it.

If you like horror vn's this will be right up your alley.

If I had to mention cons:
A lot of characters stories are never fleshed out more fully, but considering how many characters there are and how well written the ones we got were, this is a minor complaint imo.
Not epic quality in terms of art, but that never really bothered me much personally.

This is amazing visual novel, without trying to spoil anything, it can feel like Higurashi, but it take it own directions and path, making the story unfold in surprising ways, the branching however, is a bit confusing, easy to get yourself locked in path, unsure which decision did trigger it. But save for that, the story, music, art and character are more than worth.

I originally thought this game had an interesting premise to it. I love murder mysteries and anime, so I was willing to try and look past its faults. However, these faults turned out to be much worse than I anticipated.

For starters, the translation to english is as about as terrible as visual novels come. Besides often being too literal and redundant, there are many times that I had no idea what was happening. Considering this game is based solely around storytelling, this immediately cripples the game's ability to give the player any enjoyment. However, I did try overlook this only to be met by the many other glaring faults in this game.

The next major flaw this game has that I noticed right away is the slow story. Very little seems to actually happen within a reasonable amount of time. This also seems to be a by-product of the terrible translation.

Besides the flaws in the writing, the game itself is a mess mechanically. I have played visual novels on Newgrounds that have more features. Quicksaving, quickloading, easy use of both mouse and keyboard, and many other features are absent in contrast to games that I have played for free.

In addition, within the one hour I played, the game froze and forced me to quit and start it up again, costing me the progress I had made. It did not happen again, though I did feel annoyed having to go through the same dialogue again.

Finally, in what is the acidic cherry on top of this feces-coated cake, I noticed that the developer has taken artwork from other sources, put it in-game, and has given to credit to the original artists. Again, this is from other visual novels I have played. Unless several of the visual novels I have played have decided to take from this game specifically, I have to say that this disgusts me. (Edit: I have found that the developer actually shared some of it's members with the visual novels that I played, so this is not true.)

Perhaps I simply don't have "good taste", but I honestly have to disagree with the positive reviews here, many of which claim "interesting characters and story". To those reviews I have only one question, "What game did you play?"

Visual novels can be good, and Notch has some very interesting ideas to play around with. But, where it falls flat is in two key areas:

1. The translation is awful. It is pretty much a literal translation, rather than a sensibly localised translation. The result is, in a language which can repeat itself thrice over to show 'context', all that happens is a sentence will be repeated thrice over in English in the exact same way.

Conversations often go like this:

"How are you"
"I am fine."
"But how are you?"
"I am totes fine!"
"You're fine? Awesome, so how are you."
"Are you serious? I'm fine"
"Great, so how are you again?"
"This is really wearing thin, but I suppose in Chinese I'm probably asking you how you're feeling mentally or physically but for some reason the English translation just went 'eh screw it, he's saying how are you' so I'm gonna ask once more, "how are you?"

"I'm probably answering in a more detailed method in Chinese, but the English translators are phoning it in and telling me to say "I'm fine" when really, I have a dagger up my arse about this sort of thing and it really hurts but eh that's life. So I'm fine."

The result is a visual novel that drags on, for almost eternity. Conversations loop, events have an uncanny sense of 'deja vu', and the game takes forever to get to the bloody point. You really need to have a strong attention span to get through the story, and as I said, the story has some fantastic elements, that would probably be mind-blowing, if the translation wasn't an botch job.

2. The game features far too many chapters that completely bypasses the player in order to tell its own story.

This isn't a massive issue, as it can be useful to set up say, a plot hook or event leading into the player's future choices. But invariably what happens is the game presents two or three unnecessarily verbose stories, that have nothing to do with the player, and ties in very superficially until end-game. That's quite off putting, causes the game to drag even more, doubly so with the horrendous translation job.

Those two issues alone would hurt any game, but in this one, where the game relies on its story, it absolutely kills it, stone dead.

Those aren't the only flaws either, the game is determined to hammer its own nails in its own coffin. There are some, maybe cultural-clashes that can happen. For example, the reader is meant to believe whole-heartedly that a man who stabs his girlfriend every day with a machete, actually, genuinely loves her, and this woman would happily, and unironically, jump onto a sword daily in order to serve this man, in the name of LOVE! Seriously? For most western-gamers it's going to be a 'holy hell, this is beyond reprehensible behaviour', I mean we're talking beyond GBH with intent here, and she's not even getting off on it like a kink or anything, she just does it for the LOVE! >_< (Oh, and this is part of the story that the player has zero control over, and is sat on the sidelines as several chapters get dedicated to, like some edgy goth-emo, suicide fan-fic from tumblr somehow won a writing contract... and that's just insulting to genuine goth-emo's.)

That said, the music is great, and there is a good plot somewhere, in that horrendous translation, but worth the purchase price? Absolutely not. Don't bother, get it on sale if you must, but.. Jeez, it's a train wreck.

Bad translations really ruined this game for me.

Tried to get into the story, but right from the beginning, it was just a chore to read. The wording was just awful and really obliterated any hope of forming an attachment to the characters.

A real shame too, the story seemed intriguing but the execution was poor.

I bought this game because I like visual novels and it had a lot of good reviews praising the story and characters. I am now really confused...because those are the two things which made this a really weak experience for me.

The plot jumps about seemingly at random, there is little apparent structure as characters move back and forth from house to house, dreamworld to reality at the drop of a hat. The characters, of which there are many, are all rather dull and flat. I didn't care about any of them, they just didn't feel like actual people. Characters like Nanami are pretty much just props, a goal for the male protagonist to aim for. The rest of the female characters are basically defined by their love interests, while the males are likewise one-sided. Hisashi has his whiny quest for revenge , the protagonist has his search for the killer/Nanami, Tetsuya has his sister . It's like the characters are all designed around one concept, or one role, and haven't been fleshed out beyond that.

The protagonist storms about like a shoddily-written Hamlet, alternating between being generally inept and violent (although one of the bad endings does sort of address this?). Characters talk in circles, with conversations lasting twice as long they need to. Characters talk about their backstories for no apparent reason, with people who arguably should know already know these things - the exposition is always clumsy.
The world is not convincing. No police force? Really...The protagonist doesn't know the names of the two supposedly ruling families? I would have been able to deal with the police force thing if it hadn't only been mentioned when the protagonist came to the point where any normal person would call the police. You can't blame everything on the translation, although that is also clunky and awkward.

My dislike of the writing aside, there were some good plot points and I liked the general darkness of it - though the game frequently veered into melodrama and a childish effort to be 'the most brutal' and 'the most tragic'. There's something very teenage about it all, particularly the approach to violence and love. There is potential, but its buried deep.

The art is very inconsistent. I see a large numbers of artists worked on the game. Individually all their art is good, but together is makes the game look like a patchwork of art, with varying styles and levels of detail. It was particularly jarring to see two sprites of different style on screen at once, for example Reiae and Saki. Some backgrounds are drawn, others a re photographs - one scene apparently takes place in a grocery store, but the background photo looks to be from a shoe store.

The music redeems the game a little. Theres a nice variety, so instead of just one song being used over and over for the important moments the soundtrack is a little more tailored to each moment of the game.

The game is long, so there's a lot of content for your money.

I really didn't like this game. I'm sorry. I wanted to like it, but the writing just didn't do it for me.

Its hard to recommend this game.

Story isnt bad and it kept me going until end. But the writing or translation isnt very good. Game keeps repeating sentences over and over.

The protagonist is quite unlikable person, 80% of actions he does are eighter irrational or just plainly stupid. I can deal with bit of cute stupidness in young adult romance VNs but this is murder mystery novel! Game is full of facepalm worthy scenes and not in good way. Later parts of story are plagued by long boring exposition scenes.

To be honest its quite painful to read thru some of the scenes. I had to stand up and walk away from PC to calm myself down quite often.

so long, so few options, and yet "all your efforts were in vain" bad ending, YES!

edit: I enjoyed the story to a certain point, but on MANY occasions the dialog seems very "strange" like a russian or indian is talking to you in not their native tongue. AND so many times something is repeated to the point where you are like "YES, i read this all ready move all long ffs"

Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS is one of those unique visual novels you only come across every once in a blue moon. Thought evoking and story rich, this made for a very good read. I completed it in two 8hr sessions (yes, it was that addicting!), and that was only for my first playthrough.

The protagonist, Yuhito Asakawa, and his childhood sweetheart, Nanami Shio, reside in a remote town that has been long forgotten by the rest of the world. We first meet Yuhito and his beloved in a dream realm of horror, already hoping that the two lovebirds will find a way to escape the nightmare unharmed. And if Yuhito thought that was bad enough, his reality was about to get much worse. His once peaceful little town had been painted red by an elusive murderer, where the victims were all young girls. It is then that he decides to embark on this difficult journey to catch the killer and bring them to justice. Along the way, he'll make some interesting friends, struggle with reality and illusions, and grow braver and more determined with each step he takes.

^That's just my little summary - short, sweet, and to the point, without spoiling too much of the story. Seriously, it took me 16hrs to complete one playthrough. ONE! And there are 14 different endings! So trust me, there is SO MUCH MORE to this story than what you'll find in the reviews (unless you're looking for spoilers). Bottom line is, if you're considering this vn, then do yourself a favor and add it to your collection. You won't regret it! :)

***Also, the narration can be pretty gorey at times, so just be aware of that in case that's not your cup o' tea.

Helpful Tip: If you want to go through all of the endings, press [F] to skip all of the text you've already read. That button will be your new best friend ;)

Memories are so vulnerable in the face of cruel reality. What is goodness? What is evil? What is love? What is hatred? Your world has become an inverted image in my dream...

Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS is a Chinese Visual Novel that tells the tales of broken forms, iron wills and unbearable truths. Through my many experiences with either emotional, philosophical or psychological narrations in visual novels, I've rarely felt thoroughly shaken until this one little tale of loss and misunderstanding...

The narration opens up to a silent night as heavy rain washes the outline of a forest clean. A lone traveler moves within the darkness and attends his uncanny business, away from the spectators' eyes... By the arrival of the next scene, narration switches to first person, as we find ourselves in a rather dark and alien mansion. We stroll in the endless corridors in hopes of finding an exit, yet what we encounter would be beyond our most gruesome nightmares... Nightmares? "Was this... a nightmare?" Yuhito thinks as he wakes up, shaking in his bed. "So real..."

Our hero is Yuhito Asakawa who lives in a rather secluded little village in a forlorn little island, alongside his family and his friend/childhood crush Nanami Shio. For reasons unbeknownst to us, the village is somewhat forsaken and no one seems to even remember the names of the two governing families nowadays. There is an air of unnatural peace weaved with shadows of memories long gone. The eerie peace this little village harbors is about to be disrupted by a quite malicious occurrence, and Yuhito's silent, blank reality is about to be filled with both wonders and horrors as he dashes out on a rather hopeless quest.

Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS most surely does not deliver your common expectancy from a visual novel. The story and character dynamics are rather brutal, gory and disturbing with detailed narrations most of the time with thematic implications of abuse, torture, abandonment, suicide and countless other traumas. Thus, if you are to pick this one on a drive, you should know what you are getting yourself into. Be ready for a cold hand reaching for your heart and a lump in your throat as you discover many happenstances of the past, the present and the future.

My sole complaint is that the translation is quite direct during the idle conversations between characters, failing to present nuances and context, - especially during Yuhito and Nanami's early conversation - which usually ends up being either out of place or straight boring. But when it comes to environment descriptions or the telling of ongoing actions, the narration gets elevated to a completely new level of immersion. If you'd clench your teeth and see through the first two chapters of the game, you'll be glad that you went through with this one.

The visuals - especially backgrounds - are wondrous alongside character animations. The soundtrack is quite good and underlines the mood of the narration any given time. Characters themselves are vivid and interesting thanks to brilliant storyline and tragic character backgrounds, even without any voice acting. If I were to be completely honest, the character development of the main hero, Yuhito stays subpar compared to other main characters of the story. He is somewhat of a one track minded simpleton, nothing remotely interesting. You keep playing to learn the story of other characters and admire the quite interesting yet creepy setting though.

Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed Sinners is a treat for the suckers of gore, drama and psychosis with 14 different endings, marvelous character dynamics and a story revelation that you sincerely wouldn't guess on your own. Fetch it alongside a box of tissues and possibly a pack of cigarettes. You are welcome!

Please also check out Lady Storyteller's Curator page here - follow for regular updates on reviews for other games!

This game had a lot of potential, but in the end it just doesn't quite work. Too much of the story revolves around the hero's girlfriend who we never get to know or become attached to. There are some interesting side characters, but many of them are also somewhat lacking.

The most interesting aspect of the game to me was the brutal darkness of some parts of the story, particularly the endings. Nightmare scenarious of eternal suffering are everywhere, and even if you go for the good endings, well... I'll leave that for you to discover.

Expect to put many hours in to unlock all achievements and see all endings, even with a guide. And you should use a guide, because except for the endings themselves, the choices change almost nothing in the story.

Even with text skipping on, getting through to the ending is torturously tedious by the 12th time you've done so. Artwork wise, the game is a mixed bag, some scenes are very mediocre while others are much more detailed. The same goes for the quality of the translation, which ranges from competent to bizarre. If, like me, you must play almost every VN released on Steam, go for it. Otherwise, pass.

In videogames, there are good translations, bad translations, and horrible translations. Good translations capture the soul of the story as well as the raw meaning of the words; horrible translations at least stand a chance of being funny or charming for their onvious badness. Bad translations capture the meaning, and only that -- all the depth, all the charm, and every single drop of subtext get sacrificed on the altar of "makes sense gramatically, that's good enough."

Notch - The Innocent LunA is an object lesson in why even if you get the words in the right order and they're all spelt correctly, It doesn't mean you have a good translation. I could discuss the plot, but the plot doesn't matter because it's extremely hard to care about what happens to the characters. It's extremely hard to care about the characters because they don't have a single shred of personality between them, and the reason they have no personality is because every single line of the VN is written in the baldest, most simplistic style that still passes for English.

"Well," one might say, "even if we can't rely on the style of the text to make our characters likeable, what about their actions?" Well, the main character spends a good portion of the story being a condescending, sexist jerk without even realising it; then bad things start to happen, which prompts him to intentionally be a condescending, sexist jerk. The initial female lead is less of a character and more of an object/motivation. Random characters pop in and out of the story to do a little murdering; most remained unnamed and uninteresting for many acts.

Actually, I take back what I said about not talking about the plot. Even accepting that the poor translation might be stealing a lot of the thunder, the plot feels very shaky. The story is very dedicated to trying to be mysterious and not explaining anything for as long as possible; the problem is that it keeps doing for this so long that you don't care by the time things start to be revealed. A lot of the backbone of the work rests on the supernatural, and imho, this is what suffers most from the artificial mystery. Oftentimes, the story will explain its most recent plot twist with some kind of supernatural occurence, without explaining anything further; it feels contrived, like a bad fanfic.

What is there other than the poor translation? The artwork is honestly fairly mediocre. The special effects that the game occasionally uses are a nice touch visually, but there's not really any striking beauty here. It's anime characters against forgettable backgrounds. While there's certainly nothing wrong with an anime artstyle, it's definitely no better than any other VN with anime artstyle out there, and worse than a few I could name. The soundtrack suits the mood most of the time, but there aren't really any standout pieces that I would want to listen to outside of the scenes they appear in.

In summary: this game's main problem is that the "visual" element of its visual novel structure is nowhere near good enough to compensate for the sub-par novel part. In a genre that relies so much on the written element of the work, there is no reason any English-speaking consumer should accept a translation like this. Maybe, in its original language, this is a powerful and thrilling story; in this language, it isn't. Buy only if you want to support more Japanese visual novels making their way to the steam platform, and even then, I'd recommend looking for alternative studios with better translations so you can encourage quality at the same time.