I was able to clear one route for Dyanna, Lin, and Finn; three routes for Leira. From this, I do think that a lot of things are lost in translation because of cultural barriers, and to make matters worse the translation is quite terrible; as I read in the forums the translation is now being reviewed.

Oblivious Garden ~Carmina Burana is pretty much similar to other VN's, you move around the garden and go to places where you can interact with its characters. Your decisions will direct which storyline you will go through. In some stages of the game you will be asked to prepare a tea, this will lead you to a minigame. You'll decide which ingridients to use, set the temperature and time for brewing. The game may end early if you somehow suddenly got kicked out of the garden (This was how my first game ended). If you were able to do you job well you may be able to proceed to one of the heroine routes.

I had a hard time understanding it but the story is really good and interesting. The protagonist was presented well, and some of the characters are pretty unpredictable that you'd be puzzled out on how to interact with them.

It was a joy listening to the voice acting, there was nothing that I didn't like (This is my first Chinese VN though; I can't understand what they were saying). I like the art and the soundtrack. The OP is what I like the most in this game, I don't know how many times I watched it, really loved the music.

If you ever find yourself playing this VN, I recommend that you start trying to get to Finn's route first, finish Lin and Leira's before going on to Dyanna. I believe that this is the best way to experience the VN because with this you can have a finale with the Miracle Play.

First off let me just say this game is fantastic. It is a great piece of work. The game is a typical VN with choices, time playing through, and a sense of dating and options. What I recommend is that you buy it and try it yourself. The ONLY thing I will warn you is the VA. It is in only one language and the text is in english. What I seem to dislike about this is that they had the image, then you hear the character speak, it's just not "fluid". I give credit to the VA and the game creators though for trying however not all Voices work out well and it doesn't hurt to have someone speak the language it's in or keep it silent or even just have small lines in a sublime manner that make them want more. However I digress. The game's OP hit me like a rock. It made me sink. I went to start the game, wonderful story telling right off. Then I see the characters, text pass, GUI. It is an incredible piece of work. It's just the voice. I don't mind it but if it just doesn't seem to fit the character. Now that might just be my opinion but I'll be honest, it's too soft. I expected something more like if it was in this scenario with characters, there was a more "other" tone to the personality. Here I hear some of it but it just doesn't flow together. Sure I can turn off voices but I have to put this critically. It doesn't always work. The girls are nice, the choices good, and the plot makes you think. The days pass and work like a typical VN Dating Sim. Now as I go about this, I have a Mini Game or two. KUDOs to them for this. Not all do and let's be honest, that was a nice touch. I could have recommended this game a 5 but the voice set it down by 1 point but in fairness I will give it a 4.5/5. Reason, you did so much so well, it should not stop the quality the work produced. I give credit, it's one of the gams that hit my list and it hit me well. I just cannot emphasize the VOICE enough though... Hnrgh... Still great.

You are a proud and successful military general, you have won many wars and conquered many kingdoms. But during the deciding battle you make a grave mistake, and you lose everything. Shamed and shunned, you return home to your emperor. How can you ever redeem yourself? As it turns out, the emperor already has a new task in mind.

Oblivious Garden ~Carmina Burana is a romance-themed visual novel set in a post-medieval fantasy world. You are a humiliated ex-general and your new job is to teach the art of fencing to the seven princesses of the kingdom.

The first thing you'll likely notice when you're looking at Oblivious Garden for the first time is the unique and stylish artwork. The character portraits and CGs are gorgeous without exception and the gothic/baroque-inspired character designs mesh surprisingly well with the pastel-focused watercolor art style. The VN has a refined visual identity that sticks out of the crowd and will secure it a second look from many prospective readers. The backgrounds are unfortunately of lower quality on average and range from nicely painted landscapes to crude photo manipulations of rooms. The soundtrack is fitting and atmospheric, but a little repetitive. This would have been counteracted by either a bigger selection of tracks or at least less obvious loops (they're not jarring but very apparent after the first few times). There's Chinese voice acting available that complements the character designs pretty well and provides fitting voices to go along with the faces. It has a spiffy opening animation and the technical aspects (controls, save system etc.) leave little to be desired.

The story is set in the titular "oblivious garden", where the emperor has sealed away the seven princesses. The many parallels drawn to the royal courts in 17th century Europe extend not only to the opulent garden itself, but also to the complex social rules and codes governing the interactions between Irell Reis, the ex-military main character, and the princesses residing in the area. Don't expect much in the way of historical accuracy though, I got the impression that the social aspects were influenced at least as much by the developers' Chinese background as by their impression of past European nobility, which is not a problem at all considering it's a fantasy world. While this sort of setting has been attempted before in fiction, it deserves recognition for originality in the realm of visual novels, even though admittedly I am generous with my praise for any setting that is not a Japanese high school.

In another contrast to the visual novel archetype, the main character is a young adult with a sizable amount of life experience as a military general. Thematically, in accordance with that choice, Oblivious Garden does not shy away from the heavy-hitters: Recurring topics are the justifiability of war and violence, the vicious circle of revenge, the guilt of enabling and orchestrating mass slaughter versus "just following orders", and of course the dichotomy between fate and free will. The VN uses these issues quite expertly in the interactions between the central characters.

Rounding out the package is a charming little mini game about brewing different kinds of tea that maybe could have been slightly more forthcoming with its solutions (or maybe I'm just bad at it), but offers a fun break from the plot and an entertaining experience nudging you to perhaps make a nice cup of tea for yourself as well.

I would have loved to love Oblivious Garden. I saw almost all the building blocks needed for a fantastic visual novel, I really liked the art and the concept, the setting seemed unique and interesting. Yet, I can't love it. I can merely bring myself to say that it is pretty good all things considered. That is because Oblivious Garden commits my one cardinal sin, the one thing that a visual novel can do that I really cannot forgive: The writing is bad. Or rather, it has its good and even great moments (lots of them in fact) but it just can't sustain a consistent level of quality throughout the whole story. And for a visual novel, that is a huge problem.

To be clear, I am not talking about the low-quality English script that is rife with grammatical errors and vocabulary mixups. I know this can be a dealbreaker for many of you, so it deserves pointing out, but personally I can usually gloss over shoddy translations easily if I set my mind to it. In any case, it is something that can be fixed by putting the script into the hands of a better qualified translator or at least a native English speaking editor, which I have reason to hope might still happen. There were only one or two spots that I straight up didn't understand for which I would blame the lackluster translation. My main gripes run much deeper.

But if the writing isn't good, then why do I still give Oblivious Garden an overall "thumbs up" rating? There are reasons for that, I like to think they are good ones, and I will tell you all about them, but first I'd like to elaborate on the specific ways in which I consider the writing lacking and the ways in which it actually succeeds, so you can draw your own conclusions about whether or not your opinion would differ from mine and whether the things that bothered me might be non-issues to you.

(This review turned out to be too long for Steam's character limit, please click here to read the full text...)

Would reccomend this to anyone who is slightly interested in visual novels, Nicely drawn backgrounds and character design and the story is interesting to follow. The english translation is not perfect but there isn't that many problems so you can still understand the meaning it is trying to convey. Also the music is very soothing so if you have need something relaxing to do then you can easily put a decent amount of time into this.

Let me start out by saying I am probably a bit bias as I usually enjoy a good anime themed/visual novel style "game". So it was no surprise when Oblivious Garden ~Carmina Burana caught my eye and appeared to be one that would fall into this category.

Ironically enough I was able to secure a copy from the Christmas contest and as such I am now able to play it. This game review will focus on my first playthrough and will only reflect such until further playthroughs commence and conclude.

Upon starting the game up you are greeted with the beautifully crafted intro (if you have not visited the store page, it is the first video playable) which resembles in a lot of ways your traditional anime series opening by going through different poses and scenes of the characters you will meet throughtout the story. The selection of music was equally pleasant as it accompanied the opening in terms of emotion and ambience well. My only slight complaint is that there are numerous statements and phrases that appear but lack any sort of subtitling, this would be fine other than a large amount of the Steam community has English as a first or even second language and could steer them away from being interested in the game due to language barriers.

Once you enter the game you are greeted by your text/message box where all speech and events are conveyed throughout the story, this doesn't change but does have a nice gothic/Victorian design to it rather than a plain old box. The enviroment is displayed to you on static but well drawn and designed backgrounds reflecting different settings and scenarios from starry nights, vast corridors, and luscious garden floral. Certain events and actions throughout the story even trigger ambient sounds that accompany the scenario such as woodland noises in the forest. Music is also played throughout most if not all the scenes (which consists of classical themed pieces) which aids in immersion regarding the mood of scenes or characters. One of my favorites treats though I know some prefer not to is the inclusion of the voice acting for certain characters, which can help immerse the player even further if they enjoy such a feature. A more than slight downside however is the numerous grammatical/spelling which are very apparent throughout, despite being a heavily Chinese produced VN this could use touching up.



WARNING - MILD SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT:




While the intention of this review is not to include spoilers I will speak a bit on the story. You play as a famous war general known for his military expertise and glory acquired through many victories. This doesn't last long however as everything is ripped away from him and he is thrown into despair. Years later he is given the opportunity to redeem himself and his honor by assisting his countrie's Emperor by visiting the lustrous Oblivious Garden and interacting with the inhabitants, the noble princesses, in order to successfully carry out the "Miracle Play". Once there you start to learn what the garden is truly like from the inside and your choices will shape your path from there on. Regarding my playthrough there were times where the story didn't seem to flow smoothly and scene transitions were somewhat awkward. I am unsure if this on purpose, in part due to my choices/path, or if it was due to a lack of understanding.




END MILD SPOILERS



In the end Oblivious Garden ~Carmina Burana seems to fall into the category of a pleasant Visual Novel with its decent amount of flaws but by no means something that can't be fixed and addressed given some time and effort. Upon letting yourself get immersed in the characters, story, and music you will be able to experience a emotional ride that will occupy roughly just short of two hours length of your time (again, this was my one playthrough). Whether you are a fan of these sorts of games or even someone new to such a thing I would recommend researching and exploring it a bit to see if it is the sort of story that would peak your interest. As mentioned before though if the problems listed earlier are too much of a deal breaker it would be wise to wait for a later patch/release build.

It may be just that I want to like this VN so much. First and foremost: yes, the translation is terrible. You can read the mandarin behind the poorly-phrased English words and sometimes the amount of words on screen doesn't quite match the amount of speech you hear - even I, someone who barely has his 你好 and 我爱你 in check, can spot the discrepancies. However, the dev has already stated that it's being revised by native English speakers. Well, sure, the cultural barrier is as big as the language one - since the Chinese imagetic references are so different from ours, most metaphors and comparisons come across as really, really weird. So perhaps not a million revisions could make the text accessible without stripping it away from its, if I should call it this, original spirit. To the point it was impossible for me to read it without a continuous mental exercise of comprehension and abstraction. It's a distant read, that much I can tell.

So my analysis of the story and the characters is forever tainted. This cultural and lexical veil between the reader and the VN will probably make you feel weird, never at ease. You never really know if you are doing the right thing, you know? So it's a little bit tiring to read Oblivious Garden. The characters are interesting even then, and the protagonist, Irrell Reis, has a solid backstory without having too unique a personality, meaning you at least won't feel disconnected from him.

Having said this, the VN's structure is not unlike what you'd find in old VNs. It's not a sim, but you do have map movement and you do go to places only to talk to the girl you want to know more about. I have the feeling the VN is a little on the unforgiving side as anything but always choosing the same girl will seemingly give you a bad end. Once you are in someone's route, there are no choices though. I shouldn't tell you this, since the story keeps on making you doubt you're doing anything right, but it's pretty much an auto-pilot if you managed not to be expelled from the garden on a particular day (12/05, if my memory doesn't fail me). There is a tea-brewing minigame, whose effect on the story is unknown to me, which is absolutely arbitrary and demands a guide unless you can afford to be frustrated a lot of times, since you are given no clue whatsoever as to how to succeed at it. Unless you're Chinese, I suppose? Who knows. Anyway, there's a guide at Steam, so use it. Collecting recipes and getting new ingredients is a satisfactory experience and you can evolve across multiple playthroughs, so don't worry about achieving max level in your first attempt. Once you clear a route you can even play the minigame separately.

Now, the story is interesting even if you have a hard time understanding all of it. There's this storytelling technique, you know. Present your protagonist to the player, then sever all said protagonist's ties with his current life and throw him in a faraway, self-contained world. Katawa Shoujo does this and and so does Saya no Uta (in a different way). It's an effective way to put you in the protagonist's shoes, as everything that is new to him is also new to you. The Oblivious Garden is actually a dreamlike place (unsurprisingly, a garden) and everything about it feels cozy even if you read it in the original language. The art does a great job at establishing this place. If not technically incredible, it is vivid and colourful. The interface, which also resembles something you'd see in True Love or Season of Sakura, albeit more polished, blends well with the environment and only helps.

And what about the OST? Now, that is a masterpiece. I wish I could link a piece or two, but I couldn't find them. Not with the Latin alphabet anyway. But trust me - the OST is incredible. There are few songs, but each one of them is special and makes the Oblivious Garden feel special. It comprises violins, rapid-fire piano (akin to the one you can hear in the OP and the PVs), acoustic guitar and flutes in excellent blends. Very, very pleasant.




Sadly, the same can't be said for the voice acting. Its recording, specifically. It's as though as they'd recorded it all with a cell phone. So it's a little off-putting. Once again, I don't know how much blame can be put on Mandarin being an unusual language for me to listen to, but I pretty damn sure know when there's an awful lot of noise coming with the voice.

So here's why I actually recommend it to you: it has a unique feeling. I know I liked a VN when it has a unique feeling. Even if not for the story, just its atmosphere is worth it. And the text will be patched, so here's hope that it will become a more complete experience soon.

Nice game!

nice game!

Here're my preliminary observations:

Graphics:
Very pretty. The graphics are watercolor-esque style.
4:3 aspect ratio (Not widescreen). Full-screen is achieved by hitting the windows maximize button.

Story:
The game summary mentions 7 princesses. Only 3 are romanceable. A 4th girl, the head maid, is romanceable with the addition of the DLC. The news states that the DLC is included with each copy, however I'm not sure if this will apply in the future.

While the story flows for the most part, there are moments where the transition is abrupt and the flow is broken. I'm not sure if it's deliberate.


For instance, there was a scene where you're teaching Finn and she falls asleep. Then, when you try to wake her she's terrified. For all of 2-3 clicks. Then suddenly she's calm and apologetic. You get the feeling she's either schizophrenic or there's a step missing.

Then, there is another scene where you're at the training hall on the first day, and you find her acting really different...extremely confident I suppose. She asks you to teach her like you promised and you ask her whether she has androphobia. You try to comfort her...

...and cut to a childhood memory of Finn's. You wake up after that memory is complete.

How did you get from the training hall to your bed? What happened in the middle?

I haven't noticed this on the other girl's routes yet...I wonder if Finn's route is a bad end or a joke route.

Sound:
Music is peaceful, appropriate, and doesn't feel repetitive.

The battle music is rather interesting. It's the first time I heard battle music arranged this way.

Voices are in Chinese. Voice acting seems to be a hit or miss thing. (Whoever's VA'ing Dyanna sounds like her mouth is right on the microphone. Or maybe there's an echo in the background?) (Whoever's VA'ing Leira and her maid does a good job though.)

Main character (you) is unvoiced.

Gameplay:
Visual Novel. Branching appears to be determined by a combination of choices and the number of times you visit a girl.

There's a "dictionary" button at the top of the screen. I'm not sure what it's for since I can't use it yet.
The "return" button returns you to the previous set of choices. Failing that, it returns you to the start of the scene.

Translation:
Highly Literal and the Grammar needs work.

For example, one of the splash screens in the games say:
"The shades gradually fade away, but the sun that supposes to appears is still missing."

It should be:
"The shadows gradually fade away, but the sun that's supposed to appear is still missing."

The translation itself does not appear to be machine translated, i.e. they take into account the context of the scene.

It's a bit of a slog I'm afraid, and those that understand Chinese will understand why the sentences appear the way that they do. But as long as the wording fits the context, it should be understandable with a bit of mental gymnastics.

Personally, I can cheat a little and rely on the Chinese voices when the English subtitles do not make sense, but not everyone has this option.

Saving / Loading:
For those of us that like to make a save point for each branch, you get 40 save slots. 39 are traditional slots. 1 is reserved for quicksave.

You can only quicksave when you reach the screens where you're picking the girl to visit. I think the solution is to quicksave, then visit each girl in succession and save normally.

Misc Notes
My firewall picked up an outgoing connection from the game when it starts. I blocked it and the game seems to run fine. Dunno what it's for though.

Conclusion
I'll recommend for now since the game itself seems interesting. I'll need to update this review as I play more later.

What a nice story with those lovely characters!
Also the voice actors did really good job here even though I don’t understand much Chinese lol
I love this kind of GAL game so much, but I am kinda frustrated about the little cute puzzles in game :)
I hope they can extend the story line by several DLCs or what cuz this game definitely touch my heart and I wanna have more about it!

I’m not an avid reader but I do enjoy reading a book from time to time (it is rare, though). Visual novels are a little different but they’re easier for me to relate to because you actually see the characters and don’t have to visualize everything. If you’re a fanatic book reader you probably don’t understand this reasoning because interpreting and visualizing is probably what makes reading a book so magical in the first place. The upside to reading a visual novel is that your choices can effect and influence the story. This differs per game though. But Oblivious Garden is such a game. Did I enjoy it ? Let’s find out.

Reading a book – it doesn’t matter if it’s a physical one, digital one or interactive one – requires a lot of patience. You could miss parts of the story just by not paying (enough) attention, which is actually a shame. The story of Oblivious Garden caught my attention and it seemed very interesting to me. That’s why I was eager to give it a try.
You play as Irell Reis, a once famous general who is given the task of hosting the next fiesta, where the God will forgive the people who sacrificed themselves on foreign land during the war. You will prepare yourself in the garden of the Emperor, where seven princess live who are going to help and work with you. That’s the short version and it might not be entirely accurate as I usually forget smaller details. So forgive me if I’ve made a mistake.
I think it was clear that playing this game is like reading a book, but one that requires interaction from you, the player. You’ll be clicking through the conversations, occasionally making a choice that might affect the story and you’ll even be playing a little minigame where you have to brew tea.
You’ll be talking with the seven princesses, along with some other characters, and well, that’s basically all that you’ll do. I’ve played the game two times now but haven’t actually left the garden even once. It’s just non-stop conversing with the main characters. This frustrated me a little because the bigger story was the thing that caught my interest in the first place.
Also, it isn’t entirely clear what’s expected of you. As I said I’ve played through the game twice, but every time the game ended prematurely because I seemingly didn’t make the right choices. Both times I’ve selected entirely different answers but that didn’t seem to help. It’s very frustrating if you don’t know what to do and it insults my intelligence by simply ending the story so soon without being able to set things right. I don’t want to replay the entire story over again and mouseclick through a story that I’ve already read. This could’ve been handled in a better way, I think because I’m most certainly not going to play through the story for a third time, without knowing for sure that I can complete the story ‘correctly’. It might actually have been the tea minigame which didn’t make much sense to me (I was just randomly adding ingredients, for example), but I doubt the game counts things like that as a failure.
Unfortunately, the game’s typos and occasional bad grammar didn’t help either. For a game that consists of large pieces of text I actually expect something to proofread it before releasing it to a larger audience. I still understood most sentences/conversations so it’s not that I didn’t make sense of it all. It was just… distracting.
Other than that the writing is pretty good and the story is somewhat interesting. I just expected a little more here.

The one thing that’s immediately noticeable is how loud the music is when you first start the game. It can, of course, be easily adjusted through the Options menu but it surprised me a little.
The music is actually very good and the Japanese voice acting – even if it’s useless – seemed accurate but since I don’t actually speak Japanese I’m just guessing here. Still, voice acting isn’t something you see very often in visual novels (I haven’t played that many) so it’s absolutely appreciated.
The game uses mixed art. Some environments look beautiful and others seem to use a different kind of style, like your own room. Nothing ugly, but, again, distracting. The characters are competently made and what you can expect from a visual novel. This means ‘childish’ Japanese girls, with big eyes, small mouths and perfect bodies. If only something would try something new. I usually can’t really relate to Japanese/anime characters. Still, it’s all very solid and I can’t really complain here. It’s a ‘love it-or-hate it’ kind of thing.

I’ve already spoken a bit about this in the Gameplay paragraph but the shortest playthrough seemed to take about 2 hours of my time. That is with normal settings so no uberspeedy text. I’ve been told that a ‘good’ playthrough will take about 4-5 hours of your time so that’s pretty solid. Choices do seem to make a difference, but not much. This means you can replay the game and you might get a different outcome but in my two playthroughs I got the exact same ending. I did notice small variations in the story though. Considering the price I think you get enough gameplay out of it, but to be honest I would wait for a sale. That’s from a person that doesn’t play a lot of visual novels so it might be a different story if you actually do play a lot of these games.

Oblivious Garden pulled me in with its interesting story but unfortunately didn’t keep me interested for long. The story stopped short fairly soon and I had no clue what I did wrong. Even during my second playthrough I couldn’t for the life of me see what I did wrong in the first place.
The game can absolutely use a little (more) direction, or improve things to make a second (or third, fourth) playthrough worth your time.
I have played better and more interesting visual novels during my career as a gamer and therefore I can only recommend to wait for a sale or to just grab one of those others. Please take note that I don’t think this is a bad game per se but it just isn’t worth the current asking price in my opinion.

Let me sum all of these things up for you, for those of you who don't have the time to read it all.

Pros:

■ Okay visuals
■ Voice 'acting'
■ Multiple endings

Cons:

■ Lacks direction
■ Story isn't as deep as I hoped it would be
■ Been there, done that 'visual novel'-style
■ Typos & grammar mistakes

[Rating: 64/100]

Apart from the glaring translation shortfalls, Oblivious Garden ~Carmina Burana is one of the better visual novel style games to ported to Steam. This is a CHINESE made and voiced game and buyers should be aware of that before they consider anything else. While it isn't too big of a deal for me, some people on the forums are quite upset about it.

Graphics/Art - 5/10
The backgrounds looks horrendous; it's almost like they went into paint and brushed some pictures together. The character models on the other hand look relatively crisp and workable. Some characters have a couple awkward postures and the sprites aren't overly polished compared to something like If My Heart Can Fly, but it's passable.

Sound/Music - 9/10
The soundtrack is phenomenal and I'm going to give them props for voicing most if not all of the female lines. That being said, the Chinese voice actors sound quasi-amateurish but compared to most of the VN's on steam that lack any form of voice-acting, it's still a welcome addition.

Translation - 6/10
This is where the game falls flat. If you are fluent with English and aren't afflicted with any mental handicaps, you will be able to make out ALL of the scripts. BUT, the English translation seems like it was made by people with English as a secondary or tertiary language. It's slightly better than the machine translations I would be getting off Atlas with a modified dicitonary so tbh it's doable.

A welcome addition to the Steam repertoire of visual novels. I am thrilled that more Chinese made ones are making it onto the market and hope there's more to come. Given the price, this 5-10 hr game is definitely worth it.

I love VNs (Visual Novels). This one in particular is pretty awesome. Without spoiling to much of the VN, the artwork and background music is fabulous. The story for the most part is pretty good and each Princess is unique to their own peers, especially with their history/background story. There are 7 Princesses and 2 Maids that stand out. Only 3 Princesses and 1 Maid are options for an ending, maybe more in the future updates? (The staff has stated that it is not 100% done and Finn's chapter will not be a free DLC in future dates, as it stated "Price glitch indeed, we'll fix it asap")

The Mini-game Finn's Tea Time I thought was good but is also kind of pointless. It does not really affect the story besides the Princesses/Maids giving their opinion on how good/bad your tea tasted. Would of loved it if making the best Tea/crafting a S rank Tea gives you a unique art with each of the Princesses or something of that nature. A little more information on how to craft a Tea would be helpful then whats on the illustrated option. On the illustrated option, it will open 3 tabs.
-Materials: Explains what the material (Ingredient) is such as what Fragrance is produces, if it is a Seed/Fruit/Flower/ect.., is it Sweet/Bitter, ect...
-Tea: Unless you crafted the tea itself, the discription box will hint you on what Materials you may need to craft that Tea.
-Exit: Do I really need to explain what this does?
You start at level 1. As you sucessfully craft a Tea, you will level up. The higher your level, you get more Materials to make higher level Tea. You earn more recipes for Tea as well when you level up. There are 4 ranksing you can earn when you craft a Tea, from D to A. D being the worse pretty much means the Materials you used to make Tea does not make Tea at all. If you earn a C or higher rank, it means you did craft a Tea BUT it does not tell you why you earned that rank. Did I put to much dosage? Did I use the wrong Temperature? Did I not put enough Time into it?

I've played many VNs and Eroges ranging from G-senjou no Maou, Fate/Stay Night, Clannad, Little Busters, Grisaia no Kajitsu, Tears to Tiara, My GF Is The President, Kamidori Alchemy Meister, Daibanchou (Big Bang Age), MQG, Galaxy Angel, the list goes on. And yes, most of those VNs I do own the Japanese physical/digital copy unless there was a english release. Now for the ulitmate question: Is the game worth the $15 dollars (or cheaper with Steam sales/discounts)? In my opinion on December 13th, 2014, Yes. That does not mean it comes with it own set of problems.

VOICES
Majority of the VNs that come out are normally from Japan which means English translation with Japanene voices; HOWEVER, this VN is Chinese which means English translation with Chinese voices, granted it could be in Japanese voices but thats not the point. I have no problem listening to another language but other people may not find this VN as attrative because of the voices, which is Ironic because some people prefer Silent VNs while others criticize VNs for the lack of voices. Most Main Protagonist are silent because it suppoes to be seen on your point of view as the Main Character. very rarely are some voiced but for me personally I would love to hear the Main Character's voice
TRANSLATION
Translation plays a big factor for VNs, that goes without saying (Probably the biggest most important one for most people). For the most part, this VN is diffidently a enjoyable read in English. It is not machine translated and some minor sentences do need editing but as I stated before, I've played many other VNs with machine translation and this VN does not fall into that category. For the most part you can read it in English with no problems understanding what the VN is trying to explain to you.
CHARACTERS And Their PROGRESSION
Characters and their Progression in the VN play another big factor for VNs. This VN has no problem making each Princess/Maid unique to their peers. If I had a problem with it, it would be future releases for this VN. Finn is a free DLC at the moment but the staff releasing the updates have clearly stated that its a price glitch that they will fix in the future which pretty much states that they will be charging people for Finn's chapter of the game at a future date. Also, anyone whos played the VN will know that there are 7 Princesses and 2 Maids that stand out in this VN. The game is not 100% translated/completed which means we are missing 4 Princesses Arc and 1 Maid Arc if they do make all of the Princesses/Maids a possible ending. The only negative I would say is when you unlock the Character's Albums, it does not tell you if you unlocked 100% of their artwork for that Character, if it was a good/bad/true ending, and that sort of detail.
ARTWORK AND MUSIC
The art style and choice of music is another big factor for VNs. This VN artwork and music are fabulous. I have no problem with the music and seeing how creative people can make a Princess (female in general) look so different from one another is always fantasic to see. Some people like myself will love it, others will not find it as attrative.
MINI-GAMES
Mini-games are a rarity in VNs, especially ones that stand out. Finn's Tea Time in my opinion I like but it really does not serve any purpoes besides making the Princesses/Maids comment on how good/bad your Tea is. It does not change any ending nor does it affect the story which means some people will find it a complete waste of time. I like the idea but sadly has no outcome in the game so it not as rewarding as it should be. Maybe a unique Background with the Princess would work, just my wishful thinking. This part is kind of off topic but related to Mini-games. In Little Busters, there is a Player VS AI battle system that takes place (random and funny) and that will affect some endings you can earn in the game. The main Mini-game in that game is obviously the baseball mechanic. It is fun, rewarding, and diffidently affects a ending of the game if you win or lose.
PHYSICAL/DIGITAL COPIES
Since the game is released on Steam, it means it is a digital copy. While some people like myself would prefer a physical copy of the VN BUT I say it is better to own any copy of the game then not having a copy of it at all. Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment is guilty of this as well and a perfect example to use. In the US (United States), it is only available through PSN (Playstation NetWork) on the PSV (Playstation Vita) which means it is a digital copy; HOWEVER, if you bought the Chinese Physical copy of the game that comes with English translation (granted it not 100% but having translation is better then not having any at all), you now have a Physical copy of Sword Art versus the Digital copy of it.


As I stated before, I do not regret buying this VN at all; however, it may not be for everyone. If your a VN lover, this is by all means worth the $15, I find it a bargain compared to other VNs I've purchased. If you judge a book by its cover, this may not be for you unless it has sparked your interest.

Great Visual Novel here on Steam.
The stories are extremely well written.
Sure the translations may need a bit more editing and work but the developers tried their best and its not like it's impossible to understand what's written. There are plenty of translations, official translations, that are are worse than this.
Also, the art is absolutely gorgeous.
If you are a fan of Visual Novels then I definately recommend buying this.
Also you can become the Tea Master and Finn best girl.

Earlier this year, the game Oblivious Garden ~Carmina Burana was listed as a game looking to get the green light, and within just a few days of being posted, it was lit by the community. Just by watching the trailer, I knew this would be an enjoyable visual novel since the music and art style is what got my attention. Several months later, it has finally been released, and although it is not perfect, it is still a very well done an enjoyable VN.



The story is simply about a former General who ran away from a war that was already a loss, but by doing so, he is humiliated for being a coward for running away. After some time, he is then summoned by the Royals, and is told to train seven princesses the art of fencing for an upcoming Dance event. And with that, the story flows based off your choices. Do you talk to princess A, or princess B? Do you act c*cky and bold, or noble and respectful? Early on, there are ways of being able to 'do it all', but shortly after that, you have to make your choice in who you want to pursue or which ones you want to focus on and which ones you want to ignore. I have only started, and i can tell that there are some choices that make an impact, even if they are small for now. For those who are new to Visual Novels, I will briefly explain how they work. Visual novels are simply novels that are have background pictures, background sounds and/or music, and have minimal text to read along or listen to. The way a story goes in most VNs, is that you make choices, and based off that, the story can change and even the ending can change. An example would be that if you were told to not be rude in leaving someone without saying good bye, then doing it again, will lead to the character to think negatively of you. For more explanation, just google it and read.



This is a visual novel, so there are no mechanics per se, however, there are the usual VN controls such as game saves, HUD remover (for screenshots), and basic audio adjusters. Overall, they work as any normal VN should, however, I wish that the ability to 'go back' would be more than just viewing a list of what was said, but rather it take you back to the scene itself.




Very much like how a VN is in terms of music style. Each princess seems to have their own theme, and there are various themes for whatever the occasion is. Its very enjoyable to listen to, and even if you forget who the person is, you can possibly remember them based off their song, or atleast get a feel for how they are, based off their song. The sounds used in certain scenes are fitting, like sword clashes when there was a fencing match, or footsteps when someone was approaching from behind. It might not be much, but its those little touches that give it the extra boost of enjoyment.



There are cards, and thus backgrounds, emoticons, and badges. All of which are nice, simple and look great



This is a very enjoyable VN that is great to play. The visuals are amazing, the sounds are amazing, and the story is amazing. With all of that said there is one minor issue that should be taken into account, but not as a deal-breaker. The creators are Chinese, and english was not their primary language. With that said, there are various grammar issues and awkward wording. Oddly enough, spelling seems to be fine but the grammar needs some work and there are various typos as well. They mentioned that they currently have someone working on better translations, which might take some time since there is a LOT of text to go through, but in good time, they plan on having an update that address most, if not all, of the issues. I recommend this to those who like visual novels, or those who simply like novels that have hints of romance but have not done a visual novel before.

Fancy BGM and some polished drawings are all you need when it comes to AVG right? You got this, thus positive.
Voice acting is from those top notches of Chinese new-generation voice actresses(祈Inory, 山新), if you love their tones no matter what they are actually saying you should definitely try the game. Yep, I mean the language expression is poor even for the Chinese part, not to mention the English translation.

One of the few nicest VN's games to have made it on Steam, with a interesting characters and deep story with twists you wouldn't expect, with cool locations and soundtracks, worth to be tried out if interested in the genre.

This game has awsome gameplay and story about 3 girls in this game :D

its a pretty cute game the backgrounds are great the musics amazing the characters are amazing most things about this game are amazing and hell a free dlc to get another romancible character sadly though this makes it so you only have 4 romancible characters maybe the rest are gonna be dlc but well its a shame that theres so little when it comes to romancing so far theres also a tiny issue of translation theres a few chinese characters in it randomly but not many and then some words arent used correctly or spelt right but this isnt really an issue if you can ignore it and heck I even find it to be a small bit of charm to the game

The story and the characters are interesting, personally i like it but the translation is bad, very bad. Many of the conversations are very unclear and it feels like a 6 year old child wrote it. Unless it's properly translated i would not recommend this.