East 73: Magenta Fairytale

Ну хотелось бы увидеть перевод и этой новеллы.Ведь тогда её ещё кто нибудь да купит.А я смогу понять сюжет а не тупо глядеть на иллюстрации.

East 73: Magenta Fairytale is a visual novel developed and published by Magenta Factory that blends slice-of-life storytelling with understated supernatural themes. Originally created in 2011 before making its way to Steam, the game places players in the role of Xiao Su, a high school senior with aspirations of entering an art university. His life changes after transferring into a new art class, where he reconnects with an old childhood friend and meets several classmates who gradually become central to his journey. While the setting revolves around familiar routines such as schoolwork, friendships, and preparations for graduation, the story introduces a fascinating twist through Xiao Su's ability to perceive the emotional landscapes hidden within other people's hearts. This unique concept gives the narrative an imaginative layer without losing sight of its grounded and relatable tone. The game's strongest asset lies in its storytelling, which favors emotional authenticity over dramatic spectacle. Rather than rushing through major plot twists, East 73 patiently develops its cast through everyday conversations, classroom activities, and personal struggles. Each character receives enough attention to feel like an individual with distinct dreams, insecurities, and motivations. The introduction of Ye Siyan, another student who possesses the same mysterious gift, gradually expands the game's supernatural dimension while reinforcing themes of empathy, understanding, and emotional connection. Instead of treating the mystical ability as a source of action or conflict, the narrative uses it as a symbolic way of exploring people's hidden feelings, making the emotional payoff more meaningful as relationships evolve throughout the different story routes. Visually, the game retains an appealing artistic identity despite its age. Character portraits are expressive and complement the soft, colorful presentation, while the backgrounds capture numerous real-life locations inspired by the city of Nanjing. These carefully illustrated environments contribute significantly to the game's atmosphere, giving players the impression of experiencing an authentic urban setting instead of a generic fictional town. The artwork succeeds in creating a nostalgic mood that perfectly matches the reflective nature of the story, allowing even simple school corridors, parks, and streets to carry emotional significance as the narrative progresses. The consistency of the visual direction helps maintain immersion from beginning to end. Gameplay remains faithful to the traditional visual novel format, placing the emphasis almost entirely on reading, making dialogue choices, and discovering multiple branching routes. Players who enjoy character-driven narratives will appreciate the opportunity to revisit the story and experience alternative paths that reveal additional perspectives and deepen the overall narrative. The pace is intentionally measured, encouraging readers to absorb the personalities, relationships, and emotional nuances rather than constantly anticipating major twists. Although this slower approach may not satisfy players looking for gameplay-heavy mechanics or fast-moving excitement, it perfectly complements the game's introspective style and emotional themes. As a release that originated more than a decade ago, East 73 naturally shows its age in several technical aspects. The Steam edition preserves the original 4:3 presentation and does not feature voice acting, making it feel noticeably old-fashioned compared to more modern visual novels. The graphics have been updated for compatibility but are not fully remastered, so expectations should remain realistic. Another significant limitation is language availability, as the game officially supports only Simplified and Traditional Chinese. This makes the title inaccessible to many international players despite the strength of its writing. On the positive side, its lightweight system requirements ens…

I found this VN to be very enjoyable! Firstly, despite the store page claiming the game to not have an English translation, there actually is one though it's machine translated and unfortunately got many flaws. Now altogether the game is very nice. The art is insanely stunning, with vivid colors and an eerily dream-like and nostalgic aesthetic, while the music is great and relaxing. There are three main routes that vary from each other and the story is mostly lighthearted yet touches darker and melancholic topics as well. Especially interesting I found the supernatural aspects, which I honestly wish had more explanation and story relevance (though I believe that the bad translation might have impact on my confusion about it). I also loved the main characters, they're all very sweet and funny <3 This game just generally has a very unique and comforting (though melancholic) feel to it and I loved it a lot. The only major problem is really the machine translation. For example, it wasn't able to stick with using the characters' normal names all the time but instead additionally used three different translations of the hanzi just whenever it felt like it lol. Also some characters seem to use nicknames for each other, hence at the end EVERY character ended up with 5 different names... I actually managed to remember them eventually but at the beginning it was quite the struggle to distinguish the characters. Overall it was possible to understand the story but it was occasionally hard to follow the exact details and especially the dialogues (assumingly due to grammar differences) felt weird at times. That is quite unfortunate because it felt like I was missing out on a bunch of humour lol. In conclusion I can definitely recommend the game itself but not this translation of it!