Incredible story about, well, friendship for the most part. Relatable characters and immense amount of detail means there's probably going to be a character you can self-insert to or entirely empathize with as if they were actually real. Mostly not that difficult to follow story with a lot of twists and turns, and you're encouraged to theorycraft throughout the story to find out what happened next and have your expectations blown away by the next chapter. So far I've read
Main series (Onikakushi - Matsuribayashi)
Epilogue (Saikoroshi)
Some side stories (Taraiwamashi, Tsukiotoshi, Yoigoshi)
Left to read:
Onisarashi (manga exclusive)
Someutsushi, Kageboushi, Tokihogushi, Fragments, Miotsukushi PS2 and Ura
Batsukoishi (sus chapter)
Hirukowashi (daybreak chapter)
Hinamizawa Bus Stop (proto higu)
Higurashi Outbreak (zombies??)
Kamikashimashi (outbreak continuation)
a bunch of other shit why is there so much higurashi

10/10

This is one of my favorite visual novels of all time. You'll some a couple more up the list, but this holds a special place for being one of the first I've ever read/played. I actually had tried to watch the anime years and years ago, when I was an edgy 9 years old searching for gory anime just to see the gore. Good thing I got scared after a couple episodes. Years later I decided to pick it back and it is now one of the greatest pieces of media I have ever consumed. Seriously, that anime is fucking incredible, I could talk about it for hours. As something that marked so much as it did, I decided to go for the source material. While I do still prefer the anime, oh my isn't this spectacular. I really don't wanna talk about much because it's awesome to go into it completely blind like I did, but it is extremely scary and disturbing so please be aware of that.

All the praise it gets is so well deserved. A VN the mystery it provides is incredible, with each arc providing a different scenario that makes one question whats real or not, and how it all fits.
Whilst I'm not sure if overlooked, the sound design is also amazing, making good use of enviornment SFX to set tones, whether its by overloading the players senses with the msuic of cicadas, or creapping into a deadly silent atmosphere and vice versa, it just does it so well and has stuck with me since.

these first four episodes are an almost fascinating exploration of hinamizawa and the mysteries surrounding it. it's a great atmospheric horror experience, especially in chapters like onikakushi and tatarigoroshi. tatarigoroshi had me getting out of my seat at points lol
the breakdown of the characters in each of these arcs are pretty well done, mostly. even in wataganashi, one of the weaker arcs, there's atleast some good growth of mion and the responsiblies she holds as part of one of the three families.
but, i'll be honest, the writing isnt entirely perfect in this. wataganashi had me yelling at keiichi and mion for being such downer bitches and tatarigoroshi has abysmal SoL scenes that drag on. but honestly, it's a good read if you're looking for a nice mystery novel figuring our what is done by humans and what is supernatural.

(question arcs)
i have really complicated feelings on this so far. i think it definitely deserves the hype it gets, the characters are amazingly written and the mystery is really gripping but (say the line bart) it was really bogged down by the pacing. looking back on it so far i cant really imagine the story being trimmed that much without it losing a lot of its impact but its such a massive slog in the moment that it makes me really hesitant to recommend it to anyone. still even though ive had huge parts of the answer arcs spoiled already im excited to see what they have in store