Katawa Shoujo Forums

I dunno, as much as I enjoyed The Walking Dead, and was touched by the ending I'd still have to give KS the win for the sheer number and intensity of feels.

Holy crap, I didn't even realize I'd zoomed right past 1000 posts. Yay me!

win746 wrote: Spec Ops: The Line, did anyone else played that? I didn't expect the game to have this kind of story at all, thought it was just another generic shooter. Absolutely brilliant, yet still underrated.

I did

The first casualty of war is innocence

Yellow 13 wrote:

I did

The first casualty of war is innocence

The truth is a very close second.

win746 wrote:Okay, cmon. Apart from the ending Mass Effect 3 was pretty decent, War Z was just a piece of ****.

I wouldn't even say Katawa Shoujo is a game, giving a visual novel first prize for worst gameplay is just........

Not an MLP fan, but the hate is just absurd.

The biggest feels though, Walking Dead game deserves to win, the story was just magnificent. I hope Clem is alright . But unlike KS, it didn't last long because I can't relate much to Walking Dead to generate more feels (since I haven't been in a zombie apocalypse, yet).

Spec Ops: The Line, did anyone else played that? I didn't expect the game to have this kind of story at all, thought it was just another generic shooter. Absolutely brilliant, yet still underrated.

How did XCOM got 5th place for biggest feels?

have a soldier you named after someone thats lasted for 10 missions get wasted by a muton

KS isn't even a game it shouldn't have even been on there

Ignore the text at the top by the forum header

What I say is law

Brogurt wrote:KS isn't even a game it shouldn't have even been on there

Is it something that you can play? yes. Is it something that you can win? yes. Then it's a game.

pandaphil wrote:Holy crap, I didn't even realize I'd zoomed right past 1000 posts. Yay me!

That just means I was right when I said you're a spammer and that all derailing is caused by newcomers.

OtakuNinja wrote:

pandaphil wrote:Holy crap, I didn't even realize I'd zoomed right past 1000 posts. Yay me!

That just means I was right when I said you're a spammer and that all derailing is caused by newcomers.

Ouch.

Hey, we've calmed down a bit. I'd give you a hug, should you let me.

There are a lot of video games out there that present us with a surprising amount of feels. Though, I've stopped playing games in general, and I'm biased towards the minimalist structure of Dark Souls, so my opinion doesn't really mean much here.

Oddball wrote:

Brogurt wrote:KS isn't even a game it shouldn't have even been on there

Is it something that you can play? yes. Is it something that you can win? yes. Then it's a game.

Brogurt is either playing the devil's advocate or pointing out that you require a very loose definition of game in order for Katawa Shoujo to constitute a game. Don't mind him.

What is play? What is winning? Katawa Shoujo consists primarily of reading, and clicking buttons to advance the script (or automatically, if you toggle as such). You don't really interact with it as such. Is reading a book a game? Is watching a movie a game? What if there is multiple/alternate endings? What if there are deleted/alternate scenes? If you click to watch the alternate cut of a film, does that consititute a game, because you have interacted with it? Katawa Shoujo, like books and film, doesn't have any explicit win condition. It inevitably draws towards its conclusion no matter what you do, and given the lack of a win condition, you cannot really "win" or "lose" when you arrive there. You can only finish, with varying degrees of satisfaction. It's like sex.

The point is, the line that separates "game" and "not-game" is less of a line and more of a gradient. An infinite continuum, if you will. Katawa Shoujo exists heavily to the "not-game" side, but as there is no quantifiable edge to either side, it does not lie on it. Conversely, something like a game of tag lies heavily to the "game" side; so much so, that it exists almost entirely as gameplay. With a continuum as diverse and as undefineable as this, it is difficult to conclusively say that something is or isn't a game. It is better to state what the ratio of interactivity to non-interactivity is. In Katawa Shoujo's case... that is very small, but not zero.

In any case, pretty much everyone calls it a game anyway, semantically correct or not. So let's forget about it.

Oddball wrote:

Brogurt wrote:KS isn't even a game it shouldn't have even been on there

Is it something that you can play? yes. Is it something that you can win? yes. Then it's a game.

You don't play it though, anymore than turning to a chosen page in a CYOA book is playing a book or selecting a chapter from a DVD menu's scene selection is playing a movie. And there is no win condition. There are only varying conclusions, some arguably less pleasant than others. Yet even in bad ends, you are rewarded with unlocked scenes and CGs and such so they're as much winning as the good.

I'm disappointed Frog Fractions didn't win any awards. That game was great.

Not surprising KS won the worst gameplay though. Debatable whether it is a game or not, but you're basically just clicking on a screen. Or not even doing that if you have auto mode on, except at choices.

You don't play it though, anymore than turning to a chosen page in a CYOA book is playing a book or selecting a chapter from a DVD menu's scene selection is playing a movie. And there is no win condition. There are only varying conclusions, some arguably less pleasant than others. Yet even in bad ends, you are rewarded with unlocked scenes and CGs and such so they're as much winning as the good.

Except for the fact that you could argue there IS a win condition. It's right there in the game's premise description:

Despite his difficulties, Hisao is able to find friends—and perhaps love, if he plays his cards right.

I think for a majority of KS-players, even a few who won't like to admit it, "winning" is playing your cards right and making the choices that end up with Hisao finding love. Love that sticks instead of crashing horribly. You could argue that the bad ends are glorified "game overs" which are very much worth watching, but still "game overs". When I first started playing games on my PC (in the good ol' eighties) I used to play these adventure games that you could win, but half the fun was saving your game and then watching the protagonist die various horrible deaths...being mauled by a monster, dying of thirst in the desert, getting zapped by the evil wizard, blowing up in the vacuum of space. It was all part of the experience and rewarding in its own right.

I'd say if something has moments where the player can make "the right choice" or "the wrong choice" and as a result either gets a (to him) favorable or non-favorable ending, you can rather succesfully argue it's a game. If I finish a movie or a book, I don't feel "winner satisfaction", but that IS the case when I finish a VN's "good end". Why? Because of the fact it were my actions (even though limited in number) that made it happen.

Wait... I thought the goal of the game was to kill Hisao in the least time possible, so there is only one winning ending

Oh for fucking in church. How many times do i have to say it? Katawa Shoujo is NOT A VIDEO GAME. There is no challenge, no possible way to lose, and no real interactivity that couldn't be found in choose your own adventure novels. Plus, who the hell set up these fucking awards where Katawa Shoujo simultaneously gets a best and worst award in multiple subjects? Someone needs to fire their editor. Preferably in a way involving real immolation.

I could argue your points, but that'd probably be one more thing that'd keep you from some well-needed rest, so I won't.