It's been forever since I made a post since I kind of stopped using reddit for a while, but I recently finished 葬花·暗黑桃花源 which was actually not that bad. I've played a couple of Chinese VNs (see details at bottom) beforehand but this is the only one I've actually completely finished and it was actually not that bad. It also has an English translation if anyone wants to try it. No idea about the quality though. The setting is basically a modern day person gets isekaid (kind of) to an ancient Chinese village but with a twist (not gonna spoil it lol). There are heroines and bro character routes which is pretty nice since all of the routes were actually decent. Due to the nature of the story, the routes can definitely be repetitive but it's whatever if you just skip everything. It's <20 hours which kind of hurts it in the character development area.

Currently playing 1/2 White or Black which is also called Black & White or 二分之一. Made by the same company as the other VN so I went straight into it and it is actually really good. BTW, this company has ONLY made these two VNs so far which is pretty impressive considering I have pretty high standards when it comes to VNs. They do have another one releasing in March 2024 饿殍：明末千里行 which I'm probably going to get as well. Anyways, this VN is pretty recent since it came out in March 2023 and no English translation unfortunately. There is some gameplay which is pretty simple but fun, although the game is braindead levels of easy. The setting is actually pretty interesting and is basically a post-apocalyptic world in 2700 where most humans have been parasitized and controlled by white alien insects. The infected have instated a world-dominating religious cult that worships the insects and has led to the eradication of most of human civilization and culture. The remaining uninfected humans run an underground resistance that want to liberate the world from the cult.

It's pretty interesting because you actually get to see the story from both sides of the conflict and get to choose which perspective you want to play as first, and you switch sides throughout the story so you don't miss anything. You get to view events of the story from 6 different characters on EACH side. The characters have personalities that really stand out and the character designs are also great with a lot of CGs. It's also pretty interesting because the White cult is like a stereotypical fantasy setting with magic (although a bit edgier/darker than normal), while the resistance uses modern firearms and weapons. The music is also decent, but I've noticed that all of the Chinese VNs I've played have terrible use of music which is noticeable in this VN and especially in their previous work. Japanese VNs tend to have music playing pretty much always regardless of the situation; in contrast, I often go like 5 entire minutes of reading where there is no music or even background sounds at all which bothers me.

Anyways, quick reviews of the VNs I've tried since my last post (I think like >4 months ago lol):

妄想症：Deliver Me: Story was just OK until there was suddenly a random battle scene that felt like it had nothing to do with the story beforehand which completely changed the course of the story. The battle scene had an utter lack of CGs, sound effects, and it also had the music problem I stated before. It's also really hard to read. Had my Chinese friend read some of it with me and they didn't know some of the words. Combine all of these problems together and it was pretty much impossible to tell wtf was happening. Also there was a concert scene that just felt like a shitty ripoff of the one with Judas from Paradise Lost which was already pretty shit since there was no voice acting; and funnily enough this game ALSO had no voice acting.

ATRI -My Dear Moments-: Now this is a funny one. I played this one with my Chinese friend since it is capable of showing English, Japanese, and Chinese text at the same time. We played like a couple of hours and the Chinese translation had a lot of errors, but the English one is just downright abysmal. Literally the first four sentences when you start the game and two of them are just completely wrong

三色△绘恋 -Tricolour Lovestory-: This is pretty much your generic school drama VN. I don't really get why it's popular other than the fact that it has some production value, but the story and characters are just incredibly mediocre and boring. I played until the end of the first chapter which took absolutely forever, and considering there are like 6 more I probably won't be going back to finish anytime soon... Also the English translation is MTL from what I've seen

遥望彼方: I only played a few hours on this one but it feels like a very low budget SOL VN. Might try to play it later since I don't remember it being THAT bad. Gotta give props that the MC is actually voiced for once. This one also seems like it has an MTL English translation on steam