Pelit magazine reviews Katawa Shoujo

[gRaViJa]

I don't think his problem was "sex with disabled girls" but the fact that he thought the girls looked too young - a perfectly valid point if you're not used to the anime-style drawings. Maybe it's us who have become a bit jaded, because in Anime ALL girls look younger than they are supposed to be.

True, but apart from Emi they don't look underage imo. I've seen mucth worse VN's and Animes lol.

[Daitengu]

I don't think his problem was "sex with disabled girls" but the fact that he thought the girls looked too young - a perfectly valid point if you're not used to the anime-style drawings. Maybe it's us who have become a bit jaded, because in Anime ALL girls look younger than they are supposed to be.

True, but apart from Emi they don't look underage imo. I've seen mucth worse VN's and Animes lol.

Which is even funnier since she's actually the oldest of all the girls.

Side note, Emi's mom is pretty hot.

[dunkelfalke]

Isn't X-change the series with the rape bus?

Yep, that's the one. Actually, for porn with plot (opposed to plot with porn like Katawa Shoujo), X-Change 2 and 3 are pretty good. Still, there is a huge difference between these two kinds of eroge.

[Shockproof Jamo]

I'm surprised that the magazine had a very conservative view on this. I would've though that the game would be received more liberally there.

Visual novels are still a pretty new thing in Finland. The medium is not that well known, and even most of those who are in the know still treat them as "those sleazy porn games from horny Japan". Finland in general is still a pretty conservative place, so the Pelit-reviewer's reaction didn't surprise me in the least.

[Dullfinn]

Finland in general is still a pretty conservative place

Compared to what? There's another recent thread here with translation - from a finnish anime mag called Anime, in which they interviewed Aura - where they say something in the vein that it is a markedly american way to treat anything with "erotica" as something akin to porn, and definitely not just one form of entertainment, let alone art. So, in that sense I'd claim people from the nordic countries to be more liberal than, say, americans - or even some other europeans, like those living in the southern edges.

[Wander]

This might be a little offtopic, but who's that dude who did the review? This Aleksandr Manzos character? Never heard of him. Seems like he's a new recruit... Perhaps he's a little insecure about himself and doing game reviews in general. Might explain his prudish opinion about the sex scenes too.

Yeah, I think he is a fairly new assistant writer of Pelit and that's why he's getting these sort of hmm... "games none of the main writers want to play" -things to write reviews of. I don't know if his opinion about the sex scenes is even that prudish. The truth is that they are not really relevant (imo.) to the story and taking them away wouldn't really have changed my experience.

Oh, and I also decided to play this game after reading this particular review so there you go.

[Alexbond45]

It's obvious the author never played a VN before, but the fact that mainstream-media review the VN and don't crash and burn it, is amazing! 72 is a pretty good score for any game.

The sad thing is, Only shooters get anything truly good, inless you make a breakthrough game of a dying genre (IE: Company of Heroes, This game is probably the best RTS Game in the last Decade, and RTS Is losing popularity, for it is the same thing over and over)

[encrypted12345]

I don't know if his opinion about the sex scenes is even that prudish. The truth is that they are not really relevant (imo.) to the story and taking them away wouldn't really have changed my experience.

Really? I found that even if they weren't always completely relevant to plot development, they helped with characterization and were genuinely heart-warming unless it was purposefully hilarious or awkward (Rin's sex scene made me downright depressed). They were much better tied into the plot and characterization than any story that I have read (Rape scenes as a cheap plot device notwithstanding .) That and I know that at least Hanako's sex scene was a major plot point.

[Mirrormn]

I don't know if his opinion about the sex scenes is even that prudish. The truth is that they are not really relevant (imo.) to the story and taking them away wouldn't really have changed my experience.

Really? I found that even if they weren't always completely relevant to the plot, they helped with characterization and were genuinely heart-warming unless it was purposefully hilarious or awkward (Rin's sex scene made me downright depressed). They were much better tied into the plot and characterization than any story that I have read (Rape scenes notwithstanding.) That and I know that at least Hanako's sex scene was a major plot point.

Several of them could have been edited down to be more "tasteful" - not that I think that such a thing would necessarily be a good idea. But it would be possible to have the same plot points and literary connotations without depicting and describing the sexual acts in as much detail. Personally, I felt like the sex scenes were handled with varying success by the different path authors, and thus their levels of necessity to the story and experience vary throughout the game. For example, Emi's storage shed scene could have been cut from the game entirely, and it probably would have improved the overall story in an objective sense. Really, I found that level of awkwardness quite off-putting. On the other hand, as you point out, not only is Hanako's sex scene majorly important to the plot of the route in a general sense, but the specific details and feeling of the encounter are important. It would be tough to edit that in a way that preserved the experience of the story, and removing it completely would just be impossible.

[Wander]

^I basically agree with this.