Lilja and Natsuka Painting Lies

Such a lovely story. My playtime is not accurate since I let my console running a lot and often read before falling asleep. It was very interesting to read and I loved the character design. It get's very emotional and deep after some time (darker than I first thought :D) and Natsuka is just adorable.

The ups the downs of the story keep you hooked throughout. The characters interactions bring live to this amazing story. Every character brought a different element to the story, and the way it all came together in the end brought even more life to the story. The music and sounds and also more depth to the story. Overall this VN is worth every penny in my book!

I went back and forth on whether to recommend this VN or not, but about 80% of it bored me to various degrees. From a technical standpoint it's perfectly fine, there are some beautiful CGs and the OST is serviceable with a few tracks that stand out, the voice acting is good too, as is the translation. Unfortunately I didn't find it an enjoyable read, which saddens me to say because the main relationship is quite fascinating with really lovely moments (if you treat their incredibly puzzling age gap as a non-factor, you have to be willing to ignore it just like the game does, the same story could've been told with both of them being of legal age so I don't understand why it's like this). My main issue is its repetitiveness, some concepts really get hammered on over and over again to the point of frustration. While not being exclusive to it, this issue is felt the most when it comes to the "mystery" aspect of the game; a lot of the time it's clear what's really going on but due to the protagonist's characterization the reader is usually ten steps ahead of her, and even when she finally catches on one has to read through the characters' tedious explanations, it was a bit like I was watching a cartoon for toddlers. Why this happens is admittedly thematically relevant, to a point... But surely there must be a better way to tackle this kind of story without making it mind-numbing. There is no middle ground, you either have Natsuka stating the obvious or others (mostly Lilja) relaying informations that were completely withheld from the reader. The rest of the cast doesn't shine, undoubtedly the narrative is at its strongest when it focuses on Natsuka and Lilja, with cute interactions sprinkled throughout and a chapter near the end that made me feel like soldiering on had maybe been worth-it. But, alas, the final stretch proceeded to go in the opposite direction, wasting time on unnecessary drama with twists and turns sprung out of nowhere, coronated with a long godawful infodump right before the closing minutes of the game. To make things worse, it almost fell into a trap that many stories about disability fall into, not all the way through luckily but it was still disappointing to see. Little is shown in this game and too much, way too much too often is just told, and re-told. I will remember Natsuka and Lilja's dynamic fondly, but personally I don't think the good tidbits are enough to grant potentially getting bored for hours.