A beautifully f*cked up BL revenge story.

The narration style is sparse, delivered in the third person and rarely diving deep inside a character's head. I think that distance works well for a story like this, leaving some mystery and ambiguity, letting the story unfold without making the player complicit in the protagonist's misdeeds. Perhaps it's also the case that if you've experienced abuse, you can better fill in the gaps of the characters' emotions and why they behave the way they do, leading to a fuller, more impactful story than more fortunate readers might get.

Unfortunately, the lack of detail leads to some abrupt endings -- particularly the good endings, which seem reluctant to address the fact that even if the protagonist gives up his revenge plan and tries to make amends, he still has to clean up a whole lot of sh*t. I also wish the interactive mode scenes were used to greater effect.

The translation is much better than a lot of VNs on Steam, but kind of feels like the devs hired a competent translator and then couldn't afford a copy editor. The style and flow are generally good, but the script is full of typos and minor grammar errors, as well as a few repeated awkward phrasings ("the latter" is one that particularly stuck out). (I think most of the translation errors have been corrected since the review was originally written!)

The H-scenes aren't censored for Steam (the CGs are just drawn from angles that don't show naughty bits, which is fine with me). There's a bit of wonky anatomy, but in general the CGs look great. The voice acting often feels flat (I'm not familiar with Korean, so there's probably nuances I'm not picking up on), but it has its moments. Except for Laurence's route, all the sex is noncon/dubcon and not romantic, but again, it's clearly not meant to portray healthy relationships. Depending on the route, the protagonist can be a seme or a power bottom, neither of which are super common in yaoi games, so that's nice.

I bought Beyond Eden for the yaoi and discovered a powerfully emotional story about flawed, complex, and ultimately sympathetic characters. The content requires a bit of a "recommended if you like that sort of thing" hedge, but still, definitely recommended.

~ YaoiRecs ~
~ Kimchi Tea Reviews ~

A beautifully f*cked up BL revenge story. The narration style is sparse, delivered in the third person and rarely diving deep inside a character's head. I think that distance works well for a story like this, leaving some mystery and ambiguity, letting the story unfold without making the player complicit in the protagonist's misdeeds. Perhaps it's also the case that if you've experienced abuse, you can better fill in the gaps of the characters' emotions and why they behave the way they do, leading to a fuller, more impactful story than more fortunate readers might get. Unfortunately, the lack of detail leads to some abrupt endings -- particularly the good endings, which seem reluctant to address the fact that even if the protagonist gives up his revenge plan and tries to make amends, he still has to clean up a whole lot of sh*t. I also wish the interactive mode scenes were used to greater effect. [strike]The translation is much better than a lot of VNs on Steam, but kind of feels like the devs hired a competent translator and then couldn't afford a copy editor. The style and flow are generally good, but the script is full of typos and minor grammar errors, as well as a few repeated awkward phrasings ("the latter" is one that particularly stuck out).[/strike] (I think most of the translation errors have been corrected since the review was originally written!) The H-scenes aren't censored for Steam (the CGs are just drawn from angles that don't show naughty bits, which is fine with me). There's a bit of wonky anatomy, but in general the CGs look great. The voice acting often feels flat (I'm not familiar with Korean, so there's probably nuances I'm not picking up on), but it has its moments. Except for Laurence's route, all the sex is noncon/dubcon and not romantic, but again, it's clearly not meant to portray healthy relationships. Depending on the route, the protagonist can be a seme or a power bottom, neither of which are super common in yaoi games, so that's nice. I bought [i]Beyond Eden[/i] for the yaoi and discovered a powerfully emotional story about flawed, complex, and ultimately sympathetic characters. The content requires a bit of a "recommended if you like that sort of thing" hedge, but still, definitely recommended. ~ [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/11160476/]YaoiRecs[/url] ~ ~ [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/31589634-Kimchi-Tea-Reviews/]Kimchi Tea Reviews[/url] ~