I'm finding 不死姫 not bad actually.
I appreciate the female protagonist and novel setting for the story (not set in a school setting, nor that kind of premise). The center of the story is her emotional journey and growth, and I think its depicted pretty well. She has a lot of doubts and fears, which is understandable, and they plague her during the story.
It's not a complex story, there aren't that many characters. But each of them gets developed, each of them has a different interaction and impression from the the heroine (=the MC). Pretty interested/invested in the story.
There's the enigmatic but amiable dude who shows up from time to time, but his presence doesn't obnoxiously interfere with the plot.
The H-scenes are presented reasonably considering their context. Ok some of them were really long, holy crap, but more importantly, they are seamless. They don't break the narrative.
The author Izumi Ban'ya. He's worked on countless titles (including Dark Blue which I've been reading), mostly darker ones with high sex content. The writer's language is pretty simple, but seems to put the basic effort to develop characters in his stories.
Edit: On the 5th and final chapter.
I'm pleasantly surprised. The story was about everything I was hoping it'd be.
The main character's a great character...and for a story of growth, this is one of the more satisfying ones. It's also a story of her life. There are a lot of parts/impressions/issues to her life that the author depicts properly.
The story is a bit sparse, all the details in the in between years aren't filled in. There could have been more episodes -- this is the opposite side of the spectrum compared to most vn's, who often show everything possible -- but as it is, the chapters carry the most critical/dramatic/memorable moments in her life. The start of each chapter more often than not brings a new atmosphere. You almost don't recognize her between chapters, until you see her interact and realize it's all a part of her character
Some of the narration and character dialogue is a smidgenrepetitive. The main character has the habit of over-speaking her thoughts directly. But w/e, I don't really mind.
On a side note stuffed the weirdest, most gratuitous p*rn in a few of the bad ends. There are other serious bad ends, those ones might be semi-serious too, I just can't be bothered to go back and check lest I never be able to look at the storyseriously again. God those H-scenes were weird. Good advice when you're immortal: don't get caught by pyscho experimenters. Thankfully, the h-scenes in rest of the story are in-line. Still not ok for the squeamish. There's some brutal sh*t in there. But the story also has one of the most kindness-filled chapters I've ever seen in a story.
Edited by Chronopolis
