Katawa Shoujo Forums

lurk moar wrote:

Just played wrote: However I did have a fairly negative couple of experiences with the heavy all-or-nothing choices that are sometimes not conveyed properly?

In particular "I spend the whole afternoon in the Nurse's office." could be mistaken for sarcasm, but instead the Hisao flips out on them instead, also the "Do I push myself harder or take it easy." is just so ... bad?

You either try to push yourself to the brink of death or only run as much as you did the previous day and give up entirely. What's with that?

The Cold War scene was also very much like that of either sticking with Shizune and throwing Lily under a speeding train or forever tick off Shizune.

I know these are branch points but apparently Hisao has two operating modes of either total asshole/all-out or apathetic/whatever, I think you might want to reconsider how you've handled some of the branch points.

This. I chose the "I had a fun time at the nurse's office" choice and then it was suddenly BAD END.

Rednal wrote:I think she can roughly pinpoint where you are by the sound of your voice...

vermithrx wrote:I was wondering, is there a point to using the quote button if you are reasonably sure your post will be directly beneath the one you're responding to?

cpl_crud wrote:And yes, we cheated by making you dead.

I thought it was very well done for an online group of visual novel fanatics. When I first read that this was made by 4chan and was about crippled people, I expected something awesomely sick, and it was what initially drawn me to it. I was surprised that this was actually a pretty mild, yet touching story.

The art was surprisingly professional. The art in this is on par with professional natively drawn manga, and that is saying a lot. Almost every visual novel based on the engine that this one was based on is just yuck when it comes to the art.

The second thing that most impressed me was how richly it was written. Much better than the half-assed translations of most Japanese media.

The third thing I liked was that it has Linux and OS X builds. Cross-platform ftw! This is a rare thing to see in any game or program, much less visual novels, so I was pretty damn impressed by it.

The music was also pretty nice, albeit not very unique or memorable. The depressing loop in the hospital scene was uncharacteristically bad and monotonous, though, but the composers might have been going for that. I exceptionally enjoyed Rin's theme song for some reason.

I found myself staying up from night 'till morning because of how enticing this game is. When you see the awesome art and read the awesome writing, you just want more of it.

I have one big criticism, though. This game has pretty much no plot. Or if it does, then it moves slower than tree sap. There was no rising action that was visible to me. I was kind of disappointed by the end(s) because I didn't really feel like the story really got anywhere. I understand that this is only "Act 1" of the novel, but is it too much to ask for it at least feeling like things are actually going somewhere? Lack of plot can be excused if a story is exceptionally cute or funny or action-packed or etc. to make up for it, but story is none of them, aside from the Kenji and Rin scenes which I couldn't help but smile all the way through (and occasionally facepalm at the main character's lack of humor). Most of the game is just having random small talk with the characters. It's like being social, except without actually being social because the interactive parts are really rare. But I guess this may appeal to a certain demographic who plays these games...

Another thing I didn't like was how negative, humourless and inconsiderate the main character (and narrator) was. He is just plain annoying. But perhaps the authors were going for that, given the character's recent circumstances.

I also found it funny that the story all took place in a Japanese-style school environment when I presume that the authors are not from Japan. The story was also written in English, and does not even have a Japanese translation. I just think that it's more beneficial to put at least a spin of personal culture in your work, and not try to perfectly emulate what you think is someone else's culture, because naturally it'll end up more flat than what a person who actually lived in the culture can potentially make. I assume that almost none of the authors who made this actually went to a Japanese school, so I don't think that it's a good idea to write about one as opposed to a typical school environment in their vicinity. Original spins on things interest me a lot more than perfect emulation because it lets me delve deeper into the authors'/artists' personal creativity, and they had a lot of room to do that here, so I was a bit disappointed that they didn't utilize that room all that much. But that's just me.

All in all, I thought that this was a charming visual novel. I don't know if I'd recommend it due to the aforementioned disappointing lack of plot. I don't think I'll ever read it again, and I probably won't read Act 2 unless there is a lot more plot involved or Kenji is the starring character. But this game personally made me feel very fuzzy and warm inside, which games rarely do. Despite the tepidness of the plot, most of the characters, the art, the writing and the music are very interesting and enjoyable. If you had the patience to read this entire review, then I don't think you'd have a problem reading this novel. =)

Aura wrote:I heavily dislike YMK's way of doing the "dead end"

Skofo wrote:There was no rising action that was visible to me. I was kind of disappointed by the end(s) because I didn't really feel like the story really got anywhere. I understand that this is only "Act 1" of the novel, but is it too much to ask for it at least feeling like things are actually going somewhere?

Most of the game is just having random small talk with the characters.

Another thing I didn't like was how negative, humourless and inconsiderate the main character (and narrator) was. He is just plain annoying. But perhaps the authors were going for that, given the character's recent circumstances.

I assume that almost none of the authors who made this actually went to a Japanese school, so I don't think that it's a good idea to write about one as opposed to a typical school environment in their vicinity.

Skofo wrote:I have one big criticism, though. This game has pretty much no plot. Or if it does, then it moves slower than tree sap. There was no rising action that was visible to me. I was kind of disappointed by the end(s) because I didn't really feel like the story really got anywhere. I understand that this is only "Act 1" of the novel, but is it too much to ask for it at least feeling like things are actually going somewhere? Lack of plot can be excused if a story is exceptionally cute or funny or action-packed or etc. to make up for it, but story is none of them, aside from the Kenji and Rin scenes which I couldn't help but smile all the way through (and occasionally facepalm at the main character's lack of humor). Most of the game is just having random small talk with the characters. It's like being social, except without actually being social because the interactive parts are really rare. But I guess this may appeal to a certain demographic who plays these games...

Another thing I didn't like was how negative, humourless and inconsiderate the main character (and narrator) was. He is just plain annoying. But perhaps the authors were going for that, given the character's recent circumstances.

I also found it funny that the story all took place in a Japanese-style school environment when I presume that the authors are not from Japan. The story was also written in English, and does not even have a Japanese translation. I just think that it's more beneficial to put at least a spin of personal culture in your work, and not try to perfectly emulate what you think is someone else's culture, because naturally it'll end up more flat than what a person who actually lived in the culture can potentially make. I assume that almost none of the authors who made this actually went to a Japanese school, so I don't think that it's a good idea to write about one as opposed to a typical school environment in their vicinity. Original spins on things interest me a lot more than perfect emulation because it lets me delve deeper into the authors'/artists' personal creativity, and they had a lot of room to do that here, so I was a bit disappointed that they didn't utilize that room all that much. But that's just me.