(Review is based on version 1.2.6. -I consider it Fully Released- and will discuss the sexual violence present in the game)

Castle & Myosotis... Where to even start?

I guess the most prominent thing at the outset is the total lack of sprites - the only visuals, mostly, are heavily filtered photos for background art. That might sound like a dealbreaker for some, but I can assuage your fears by reporting that I didn't even think about their absence after 10 minutes. And for reasons that will become apparent, I am if anything grateful that certain scenes were not visually illustrated! 

I'm not sure if the music is licensed or made for the game, but it's all good. The vibe is in the area of somber or dramatic piano/violin for the most part, which both suits the story and something I personally enjoyed. The sound design outside of this is rather sparse, but when it kicks in it's almost always to great effect. 

Okay, so what is Castle & Myosotis actually about? Great question! Wish I knew!

There is something here about duty, duality of power and powerlessness, loneliness, and cycles of violence. But there are two MAJOR issues burying these things.

The first is a frankly obscene amount of sexual violence. These characters can barely go a single scene without either being the victim or perpetrator of what made me question why I wasn't just quitting the game. (It REALLY needs clearer and more content warnings, because some of the things happening is too much even if you can stomach the "normal" fucked up shit going on constantly.)

I still hesitate to dismiss these things as mere doujin plot shenanigans. Because what it says on the game's page kind of rings true: "There is a lot of content in the game with many pornographic parts in the early stage [Pink note: lie, it's in the entire runtime], but this is not a pornographic game." However, it is hard to tell at times, which brings us to the second major issue.

The translation is, and it hurts to say it, very rough. I'm grateful it's translated at all, but it's to the point where practically every single textbox has to be parsed for its meaning. Odd grammar would be manageable, but for a story that I believe is actually rather complex and nuanced in its original language, the mechanical prose and simplistic word choices (often technically correct but wildly wrong in the context they appear in) obscufate the writer's intentions. So with the themes explored here, what we get is mostly just... awful shit happening without apparent reason - and again, I don't think that was the point. (Although, some sentences are so ??? I can't muster any faith they aren't insane regardless of language, see the example: "The lion r***d by those hyenas looks kinda cute..." followed by the character chasing the hyenas away to continue what they started. The character is meant to be kinda sympathetic by the way!) Very late parts, found in a lengthy post-game, does have a noticeable increase to the quality of translation. It's still not the easiest to read, but does show off nuance better.

One example from such a late part I want to bring up is portrayal of sex work, from the perspective of a client which I've slightly edited the grammar of for legibility:

"In general, the average sex worker will leave in a rush to the find the next one after they've finished their work and received payment. Sadly, sex, as one of the few things to bring great pleasure to the mind without harming others too much, is a feeling they can only abuse. That is to say, while we enjoy it, they enjoy it repeatedly as work, day after day. Then it's hard to attain primitive pleasure from sex."

Stopping to consider the commodification of sex as a means of survival and their skewed relationship to it as a consequence isn't something I'd expect to find in a pornographic narrative, where a sex worker's body is more likely to be objectified to the truest extent of the word. Much less in one that revels in exploitation and dehumanisation. It's why I want to believe a true translation would show similar empathic subtext throughout the entire script. (Curiously, that excerpt is from the LEAST sympathetic character in anything I've ever read since a novel about serial killers, which I had to drop because it made my mental health plummet? Even the worst people can be right on accident I guess.)

The story is not all about sexual violence however. There is like, a fantasy plot about gods and politics going on. Which I think is interesting, although I'm basing this less on what I read (as it's buried under translation issues) and more on the genuinely impressive story structure, meta narrative tricks, and programming insanity this game has up its sleeve. It pulls them off very well, which I count as a further point in favour of that the game is much better in Chinese as there's no way this much effort could have been made with one hand. But that's not the version I have available to me, and as such can only base my evaluation of it on this - morbidly fascinating and incomprehensible - mess.

So, do I recommend Castle & Myosotis? No, not with a good conscience. The content is just too overwhelming; with the hypothetical nuance lost in translation, it's just pointlessly miserable. I can't even recommend it with a bad conscience to someone who would want a fucked up doujin plot to read in hell, because those parts aren't actually particularly eroticised. I will recommend it if you know Chinese, but only if you give me a full analysis of what it's truly about as I really wanna know what I just spent way too much time and sanity to nearly 100% (nearly, as I can't figure out where the 300 missing lines are despite having unlocked everything)

I will now decide to believe the entire cast died because they all suck, and do something less traumatising (which would include being in a plane crash). If curiosity gets the better of you (please reconsider) you have my condolences I guess.