Horror visual novels Anime horror Psychological horror Horror

Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS

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A forgotten town, a summer of murders, and dreams that may be memories.

Platforms: PC
Stores: Steam
Price: Paid
Rated: Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam (95% of 3,295 reviews)
Length: more than 10 hours
Players: 1
Controls: Mouse: click to advance the text and to pick a choice.
Made by: Angels Blue Digital Entertainment, DigitalEZ
Released: 2012

What frightens Murders begin in an isolated town and mutilated girls turn up in its woods, while the young man telling the story cannot tell his dreams of death from what is real; bloody scenes, violent deaths and 14 endings, many of them bad.
Content: gore, violent deaths, disturbing imagery.

Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS is an anime-style horror mystery visual novel from the Taiwanese studio Angels Blue. A summer of murders shakes an isolated town and the people in it can no longer tell illusion from reality, and your choices lead through branching routes to one of 14 endings.

About Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS

Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS is a visual novel by Angels Blue Digital Entertainment, first released in 2012 and published in English on Steam by DigitalEZ in June 2015. It belongs to the studio's Notch series and its story comes in two parts, the Alpha and Omega episodes.

The story is set in an isolated town, a place of memories its own people have forgotten. That summer the murders begin. Old memories wake, the townsfolk start to escape into dreams of ruin and rebirth, and they wake to find the people they love gone. The narrator, Yuhito, has a dream full of death and then finds that the nightmare has not ended when he opens his eyes.

You read the story in text boxes over painted backgrounds and anime-style character art, with music and sound effects that follow the text. At set moments the game offers a choice, such as whether to deny what a character said, and those choices split the story into branching routes. The store page promises more than ten hours of story and 14 endings; players note that many of them are bad endings with sudden deaths.

The horror is in the murders, the blood-soaked scenes and the doubt about what is real, more than in jump scares. Its English translation from Chinese is stiff in places, which some reviewers mind and many players do not. It suits readers of murder-mystery visual novels such as Higurashi When They Cry who like a story that keeps turning.

How to play Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS

Start a new game and click to advance the text.
Read each scene; the art and sounds show what the narrator sees.
When a choice appears, pick one; it decides which route the story takes.
Save before each choice so you can come back to it.
After an ending, load an earlier save and choose differently to find the other routes and endings.

Screenshots

Notch screenshot: a girl with blood on her mouth and a torn, bloodied dress sits in a purple forest as the narrator stops at the tragic scene

Notch screenshot: a blonde girl in blue and a maid with silver hair stand in a mansion hall while Yuhito apologises in the text box

Notch screenshot: a choice between denying and not denying what Ren said, over a blonde man in a red coat in a bedroom

Tips

Save often and in different slots: many choices lead to sudden bad endings.
Keep notes of which choices led to which ending to find the good ones.
The two episodes, Alpha and Omega, are told in order; play through rather than skipping ahead.

Questions

How many endings does Notch - The Innocent LunA have?

14, according to its Steam page, reached through multiple branching routes.

How long is Notch - The Innocent LunA: Eclipsed SinnerS?

The store page speaks of more than ten hours of story.

Is Notch scary?

It is a murder mystery with bloody scenes, violent deaths and a growing doubt about what is real. It relies on story and imagery rather than jump scares.

What languages is it in?

English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.