I've been dipping my toes into the Visual Novel waters with Utawarerumono: Mask Of Deception and Mask Of Truth, and it's interesting.
They're both sequels to the original Utawa from 2002, which was a hentai VN with SRPG combat interspersed throughout (rereleases, ports and the remake from a few years ago removed all the porn), but it still had some gorgeous character designs (very Ainu inspired), with a few eye-rolly ones. I haven't played in like 15 years but I remember the h-scenes not really adding anything and were probably added just to make it sell. Anway, for those who don't know, they're games where technologically advanced mainline humanity has died out and is survived by humanoids with slight animal features who have built up their own feudal-era Japan styled society, and then the wars and battles for territory and such that transpire around the amnesiac main characters Hakuowro (original game) and Haku (Mask games). Lots of Ainu (as in the indigenous Japanese people) inspired themes/designs.
I just finished MoD and am working on MoT, and I'm quite surprised by the disparity between the good female designs and the worse ones. MoD/T are still kinda horny games despite not being hentai, with the horniness being pretty few and far between, in the 15 hours I've played of Truth there's only been one egregious scene, but I guess its pedigree can't help itself with some of the designs.
For the good, we've got Kuon, who just looks amazing to me. She has long, warm looking robes that are completely sensible and look like something a real person could wear in a colder climate. Other characters like Rulutieh, Nekone, Anju are all wearing these beautiful elaborate robes as well, with intricate designs and great colors.
Then there's characters like Nosuri, who is wearing a leotard with boob socks, or Fumirul who I can't really describe what she's wearing but it's real dumb, then there's characters like Atuy that toe the line between ok and bad design-wise. Really bad ones are the twins who dress like half-naked dancer types, not good.
Kuon looks great though!
Nosuri not so much
The openings for the Mask games are pretty gorgeous tho.