Let's reverse things for a second

[Oddball]

Suppose instead of just playing as Hisao, what if you could pick up the game and play it from the point of views of Shizune, Hanako, Lilly, Emi, or Rin?

I'm not just talking about the story from their point of view, but a full game of each of them.

Hisao had multiple potential love interests so why not expand that and let the others have multiple potential partners. Who would these other characters be? (For example, the blind boy in Rin's artclass could be a potential choice for her.)

For that matter, let's assume the Hisao path plays out the same way. What choices would have put these girls on the Hisao route to begin with?

For Hanako I can see the first choice being whether or not she even goes to class the first day Hisao shows up. The second choice would probably have something to do with talking to Lilly about him or just avoiding the subject. Things like that.

How do you think things would play out?

For some reason, I'm picturing Lilly's version as an old fashion Text Adventure game.

[OtakuNinja]

Rin's first choice: ["Hello"] [Remain silent] [Kick him]

[Sea]

What about the secret Kenji perspective? What would that even be like?

[MegaMoto]

I love the idea of this topic give me some time I must draw a flow chart.

[Umber]

I'd like to think that it'd be a nice experience. You could see what would trigger Hanako's emotions on the path to her bad ending, what would finally make her burst. Perhaps maybe her inner thoughts and flashbacks to the past, and how she felt during those moments? Then again, there would be other bad endings as well, and in turn, many good endings. If the game was to be programmed that way.

But, if you consider the options, if you're seeing it from Hanako's perspective, you could make the decisions, and you could change how the story goes. This leads to the idea (and/or fact) that Hisao's progression through Hanako's story wouldn't necessarily be Hanako's progression through his. That would be a refreshing change, although it'd cause one hell of a confusing mess.

Since I've been talking about Hanako so much, let's start with her. We were shown Hanako's personality during Katawa Shoujo, whereas we didn't learn much about Hisao. We were given a character very similar to us on our first playthrough: a wandering, confused person that didn't know what the first step was, or if it even existed. All you could do was go on and learn. Hanako, in most minds, has a very dead-set list of characteristics that everyone could recognize. Where would things start for her? How? Hanako's story could begin at either her childhood, or an average day at Yamaku - or whatever else might have happened.

And another issue - how would she react? How should she react? How should we react if we were her? Those lines would cross throughout gameplay, and might hinder the experience. Our decisions as Hisao were meant to do things right, and would lead to either good or bad - our decisions as any of the females would add the factor of our decisions being made to do things as though we were in the mind of that character. Some of us might take that factor into consideration more than others would. Some of us might disregard it completely. In that specific case, we might not be playing it from the girls' perspectives, we could just be following through all of the possible options that could have been made...

...There's also the thought that, if we were to truly experience the girls' personalities to their fullest, we would have to have gone through their stories without any previous experience in any way - meaning, Katawa Shoujo, Hisao's arcs, was never inscribed into our memories. You have to take into account that we're used to seeing Hisao as having choices. If we were to go down his arc, there would be endless debates on which choice he should or should have made - or even worse, how a character might react to his decision if given the decision to react in any way. Having any previous knowledge of Hisao's journeys in Katawa Shoujo would cause such problems.

I'll have to go out and say that I feel like it'd be a different kind of story. Not so much content (obviously that's one factor but that's kind of obvious), but delivery. The concept, of course, is a little hard to grasp. Considering everything above makes deciding on how things should be presented even more difficult.

An answer to all of these confusing, borderline-nonsensical conundrums?

[trumpcard]Well, there's always fanfiction...[/trumpcard]

I feel like I copypasted the typical Switzerland-esque response to every "What If [this]?" out there.[/nervouslaughter]

[Sea]

Well, Umber wins. Thread over.

[Xanatos]

First choice of Rin's path will be where to eat lunch. The art room leads to Hisao.


This thread makes me want spinoffs...

[wazuzu]

Misha is deciding to lose some body mass, starts running and falls in love into track team captain. Oh the irony.

[mysterycycle]

For Hanako I can see the first choice being whether or not she even goes to class the first day Hisao shows up. The second choice would probably have something to do with talking to Lilly about him or just avoiding the subject. Things like that.

How do you think things would play out?

I would love to see more of their interactions between each other when they're alone together, just because Hanako tends to clam up whenever Hisao's around. I imagine there is a lot of complexity in their interaction that we never really get to see. Following that train of thought, it would be interesting to see how tensions might grow between Hanako and Lilly as Hanako finds herself increasingly interested in Hisao, but perhaps worries that he's interested in Lilly, and wonders if the feeling is mutual (especially interesting if we go into this not knowing whether it's going to turn out to be Lilly's Path or Hanako's Path). I'm reminded of those scenes in both Lilly's and Hanako's paths where Hisao gets a hint of some conversation or confrontation or something going on behind the scenes, like whenever Hisao comes over to Lilly's dorm, or at the Satou summer house in Hokkaido... Additionally, there is the question of how Hisao entering the equation affects the carefully-balanced social dynamic they've set up during their first year at Yamaku, whether it will threaten their friendship altogether. No matter what happens, change is inevitable, and both Lilly and Hanako strike me as people who don't particularly like change.

Not that everything should revolve around their relationships with Hisao. Bechdel test aside, it would just be really interesting to delve more into their inner lives, how they relate to the people and world around them, and especially how they relate to each other.

Heck, just being able to play a VN as Lilly or Hanako starting at the beginning of their first year at Yamaku, and travel along with them as they begin their unique friendship together, would be really great.

Same thing for Shizune and Misha, now that I think about it.

For some reason, I'm picturing Lilly's version as an old fashion Text Adventure game.

That is absolutely perfect. Work in music and sound effects and it would be pretty awesome.

[box]

For some reason, I'm picturing Lilly's version as an old fashion Text Adventure game.

This was the most enjoyable part of any post I've read on the KS forum.

Hanako's perspective would be pretty interesting, since she keeps so much to herself.

[Oddball]

Misha is deciding to lose some body mass, starts running and falls in love into track team captain. Oh the irony.

Actually I could see Shizune having the track team Captain as a potential love interest with her thinking that she could change him.

By the bad ending, the relationship has gone nowhere and she's alienated Misha as well.

Also, I like the idea of Kenji as a love interest for Shizune.

[MegaMoto]

Misha is deciding to lose some body mass, starts running and falls in love into track team captain. Oh the irony.

Actually I could see Shizune having the track team Captain as a potential love interest with her thinking that she could change him.

By the bad ending, the relationship has gone nowhere and she's alienated Misha as well.

Also, I like the idea of Kenji as a love interest for Shizune.

Wha... How exactly would that pairing work ?

[SpecimenSix]

Actually I could see Shizune having the track team Captain as a potential love interest with her thinking that she could change him.

By the bad ending, the relationship has gone nowhere and she's alienated Misha as well.

Also, I like the idea of Kenji as a love interest for Shizune.

Wha... How exactly would that pairing work ?

Maybe she thinks she could change Kenji too, she does like a challenge. Plus Kenji is actually really awesome in Shizune's route, and seems like a decent friend to Hisao.

I actually really like that pairing myself, Oddball. After all, of all the girls to snap Kenji out of his paranoia, if that's possible of course, it would definitely have to be Shizune.

[Lepi]

Katawa for girls basically? I would love that personally~

[MegaMoto]

Actually I could see Shizune having the track team Captain as a potential love interest with her thinking that she could change him.

By the bad ending, the relationship has gone nowhere and she's alienated Misha as well.

Also, I like the idea of Kenji as a love interest for Shizune.

Wha... How exactly would that pairing work ?

Maybe she thinks she could change Kenji too, she does like a challenge. Plus Kenji is actually really awesome in Shizune's route, and seems like a decent friend to Hisao.

I actually really like that pairing myself, Oddball. After all, of all the girls to snap Kenji out of his paranoia, if that's possible of course, it would definitely have to be Shizune.

BUT HE'S BLIND (mostly) AND SHE CAN'T HEAR. Even with Misha to translator I don't think it could work.