Lay a Beauty to Rest: The Darkness Peach Blossom Spring Review for Steam

Lay A Beauty to Rest: The Darkness Peach Blossom Spring, by developer Zero Creation Games and publisher Fun Quarter, is a beautiful visual novel with a well written story of love and suspense. You play as Ji Ming, a man who ventures up the mountains for a nice peaceful day away from the city. On his way back down, however, he comes across a surreal landscape of an ancient village called Peach Blossom Spring. Will you choose to stay in this beautiful land, will try you escape, or will you uncover hidden secrets that you wish you hadn’t? Whatever you do, make sure you choose wisely.

When you begin the game, the story starts with Ji Ming walking through the forest talking about his life and his reason for being up in the mountains. He then looks at his watch and decides to start to head back. Upon doing so, however, you come across this strange creek with growing Peach Blossom trees all around as well as a small cave. Without thinking too much about it, you walk through the cave and come out on the other side to see this very pretty landscape of an older looking village completely devoid of any modern technology. A young lady greets you and tells you where you are before taking you into the village, where you meet more of the townsfolk. After that, depending on your choices, you can stay there and get acquainted with the villagers or you can go down a bit of a darker path straight off the bat.

Either way your choices will control the kind of experience you have in the game. There is always a surreal and eerie feeling within the village even if you do not immediately jump into the dark corners of the story. With the villagers being so kind and welcoming, there is still always the feeling that something is off and lurking in the background. The game has a great atmosphere and beautiful art as well as music that fits the settings very well. Overall, this visual novel has amazing design and really good writing that makes you want to keep going.

There isn’t much I can say in regard to issues I had. In the beginning, it was hard to find where to change the language because the default opens in Chinese. That, as well as a few translation errors here and there, but that’s to be expected and I don’t usually hold that against games as long as the story is still coherent. The only other thing I can really say is that if you play a tamer route, i.e., not immediately breaking the rules and going where you aren’t supposed to, the plot is a bit of a slower burn to get to the interesting parts. Though that all really depends on the choices you make. I really like the mind map system where it shows you the choices you make in a tree layout, it even marks the more important / impactful choices. This is a really good game overall especially if you are into the visual novel style.

Lay A Beauty to Rest: The Darkness Peach Blossom Spring is a suspenseful visual novel that features an eerie atmosphere and beautiful art. The experience you have playing the game depends on the choices you make. You can dive right into the eerie parts of the plot or you can gradually learn more about the village and discover secrets along the way. Either way you go, there is a weird eerie feeling sitting behind every corner. The ambiance is amazing and immersive and you can tell a lot of effort and care was put into this visual novel. Aside from a few translation errors, there aren’t really a lot of issues with the game. I am giving this game a 10 out of 10 as it is a very well made and pretty visual novel with very few problems.

Lay A Beauty to Rest: The Darkness Peach Blossom Spring is available for PC via Steam.

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