VANILLA - GARDEN OF JUDGEMENT

The Audio and Visuals are good to be sure. I'm a fan of this type of art style, which was primarily what got me to buy the game. Despite the theme of the story being interesting however, I'm not sure I like the lead up to the True End. Particularly, I didn't understand why [spoiler]condemning the three other heroines[/spoiler] was necessary. And if it wasn't necessary, calling the non-Trued Ends "Bad Ends" seemed a bit much for me. I felt like these plot points could have been justified more if the story was more fleshed out, but given the length of the game, there couldn't have been enough time. There's also the matter of typographical mistakes in the English translation. The backlog text is also hard to read because of the background image. I also don't hear the JP voice acting, even though I heard voice acting exists in this game. Despite my complaints though, I've overall had a good time reading through the game. I really liked reading [spoiler]Hakana's back story, and was disappointed at Shirou's, perhaps understandable, lack of backbone when it comes to defending her lover from his mother[/spoiler]. As a matter of fact, the backstory of each girl was pretty interesting for me. It was the [b]red choices[/b] part of the story that I really had trouble agreeing with. Perhaps with a more fleshed-out story, this game would be easier to recommend.

Beautiful. Absolutely incredible in every possible way (jk, except the backgrounds, charon's backgounds sucks). A lot more meaningful and psychological in the main plot line than a lot of other CHARON games (except ones like KaleidoStella and Cradle of Ruin, these ones still makes my brain hurt), but still having 4 incrdible dark and humanizingly painful backstories that catches perfectly what I think is a great CHARON plot, emphasizing mostly the 4th one, that made me cry about 3 different times, not counting the one during the True Ending sequence. The grotesce parts that always shows up in CHARON games are still there, but now perfectly balanced with the plot, not having any really unnecessary exaggerated scenes (like the torture ones from early games of the company). Obviously closing everything up perfectly with the CHARON's trademark "MC dies and screws up everything = best ending" Hakana best girl.

ABSOLUTE CHARON

Charon group, i hope they can read my review =D Excellent work in this game, i liked a lot, the translation, art and music is good too. About his story, i loved that classic feeling in these games when everything is going nice but abruptly we are forced to do something unpleasant, for those who already play it, is about soyo story, i was like "oh wow, please no, Charon, why i really need do it in this way to continue the game?", but well... this is what makes these games so special and appreciated by us. In other fields, this game surprisingly has voices!! is something what i always wanted to see since i played mikoto nikki, but very unfortunately they are disabled for english version and only working in japanese version, I don't know the real reason for making this decision, so, forgive me, charon/developers, but i had to use "tricks" to enable them in ENG ver. because that way i could enjoy the real game experience what this proyect was made and thinked. (loved Vanilla and Soyo voices) I dont know is case of "kaleido stella" what is the other game i buyed and hoping play soon, but apparently they haven't come out with any new translated game from a while, i hope that new releases get out in the future because the quality has no been lost and many of us dont handle the japanese language... In short, loved old rpg charon games and loved this game, totally recommended (Y).

Vanilla- Garden of Judgement is a short visual novel experience. Fair warning, it’s written to be pretty bleak, don’t go in expecting slice of life or true happy ends. Looking at the lovely character artwork and gentle music, I often felt extremely at peace and contemplative reading this. At other times I just found everything very haunting and mysterious. The backgrounds are mostly just real life imagery with a strong blur effect, but it works very well here and sets the mood nicely. There are three main girls you interact with, in order, followed by a kind of epilogue tying it all together. I didn’t like the way the interactive parts were handled, as you’re essentially railroaded into making heartless decisions to continue. If you choose the kinder options, you get a bad end with that particular girl- which actually reads more like a good, if vague ending- it’s a little confusing. It’s not that I’m against the MC doing bad things, but at the times they happen, they come completely out of the blue and seem to happen just because the author needs them to. I also felt that there were a couple of brief scenes that were written as crude for the sake of being crude, but there’s not too much of that. It’s nice to have a more contemplative story that doesn’t follow all of the standard progression, although some of the standard anime tropes (tsundere, etc.) still apply. There are myriad technical issues such as the script being unable to properly deal with an apostrophe, causing extra spaces to appear. The visuals are either viewed in a small window, or if maximized, you get a larger picture but it’s set all the way to the left of your screen with a large black bar on the right side. You’re unable to take screenshots through Steam. I’ve heard, but not confirmed, that there was supposed to be more voice work but it wasn’t implemented properly in the English version. All in all, I found this just unique and enjoyable enough that I feel it’s worth pushing past the technical problems and giving it a try.

Vanilla Garden is one of my all time favorite Charon novels. Even if it's not as polished as newer works, the art and writing is still very pleasant experience. I'm not one to shame graphics or quality after all, as long as I am having a good time. I re-read it together with my partner, and they also enjoyed it. Amazing quality as usual from Charon <3

Recommend for Charon fan. Personally, I took interested in her work since the classic "The Dark Side of Red Riding Hood", and I'd played most of their translated game since then. I would say that this game shows the improvement in her writing. The dark theme seems more fitted to the story. The characters are not over the top like most of her old work. For me, a scenario [spoiler] which protagonist punch Sayo angrily [/spoiler] seems a little out of character, tho I guess that'll be fine for someone who familiar with Charon's work. There are some technical issues too. Voice acting isn't in English version of the game. There're also some noticeable translation error but it wasn't so bad. Still, recommend for Charon fan. This is a good one!

Dieses VN ist echt gut! Die Geschichte ist ziemlich düster und traurig gestaltet. Die Bad Ends haben mir am aller meisten gefallen! Man durchlebt mit den Charakteren viele emotionale Szenen, die herzerwärmend von CHARON geschrieben worden sind. Der Spieler darf für sich selbst entscheiden, ob das Spiel in der Hölle oder im Himmel stattfindet. Schade, dass es so kurz war!

Charon's writing is as great as always in this relatively unique story. In Garden of Judgement, Charon explores some themes that hadn't been seen in previous games, while still keeping it in a familiar format for previous fans. My particular favorite part of the story is Sima's backstory, which can be relatable to most story writers (especially female ones). A small issue is the lack of voice actings in the English version (there are voices in the Japanese version, but they're absent in the English release), as well as how the text is spaced in the choice bubbles, but it's just a minor nitpick. Strongly recommended!

纯爱故事，但charon出品不会幸福到底，只要是相爱的两人，无论如何都会想和恋人下辈子都在一起的