The Sin

This is few times I've gotten bored with a game because I couldn't understand what was happening. The English translation is broken. I can excuse bad grammar and translation errors every now and then, but in this case, when there is one in every 2 sentences, I couldn't justify myself continuing to depict the meaning of each one when I would rather be working out the mystery revolving around elderly, witches and unexplained death in this game. Obviously, I could only speak on this as an English-only reader. Many people will have different experiences based on whether the translations of their chosen language are more polished than others. I'm just saying in my experience I couldn't get into this game based on that issue.

A visual novel about the death of a village witch in modern rural Russia. This is not a game, but rather a short story with illustrations that the player advances by clicking. It’s good, but the translation to English is quite rough, making some scenes rather confusing. Recommended for players interested in Slavic folklore, but play Black Book first, which is not only a great game in itself, but also deals with (and better explains) the strange overlap between Christianity and supernatural belief seen in The Sin. For a loosely related film, see The Banishment.

Extremely good and mentally disturbing...As cold and psycho as Siberia's wild pale.

A linear story about a Russian boy. Good writing and visuals!

The biggest drawback of this VN for me was the extremely rough English translation, rife with spelling, grammar, and context errors. But if you're willing to give it a little time and interpolation work, there's an excellent creepy short story of societal decay, family strife, and witchcraft here that's worth the effort. It helps if you've played something like Black Book and have some knowledge of Russian traditional beliefs on witchcraft. The black-and-white sketches and eerie music help set the atmosphere for a truly bleak story with no happy endings. Old sins can cast very long shadows.

The spookiest thing about it is his use of the English language.