Review of sorts (feel free to write your own)
Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 6:47 am
I've only played emi's arc while writing this,but I can already say: simply amazing work! I knew I was on to something when i first dled the demo version almost a year ago. But I never expected it to be this good.
First about the story... Well, there are multiple stories and even tiny sidestories, and I have to say that each of the characters, even sidecharas like Kenji and Mutou feel nicely developed. Of course, the girls themselves are damned adorable as characters too, with all their personality quirks. (Really looking forward to Shizune's and Hanako's arcs, Rin too...) But the protagonist, Hisao Nakai deserves my special mention! While most games of this genre are satisfied with schooling the player through a chain of choices which feel arbitrary at best and ridiculous at worse, KS presents the player with a protagonist you can understand and empathize with. And he grows through the stories too. But it doesn't just stop there, while your usual gal-game endings often seem rushed and plastered over the whole thing, here you can feel a sense of progression. KS just won't stop until you're completely in love with the girl you've conquered. And the hentai parts, I have to say that while these are usually the biggest source of disappointment for me,(I'm the sort of player who speedclicks through those, just to get the story and romance I needed) here it doesn't feel forced at all. The sense of progression which I mentioned earlier already helps a lot, but it's also nicely written because it focuses on the couple and their ways, instead of... well, plain sex.
What to say about the art? It's just so goddamned adorable! You chose a very hard topic to deal with, and while fiction smooths over the problems in their lives a bit, the art still does right to disabilities while still looking cute... (i'm not making a whole lot of sense here, guess I got too much cute, injured girls in my head right now...) The coloring and effects have a sort of childish tone to them, it's more like a cute picture book thing than a flashy anime, but it suits the atmosphere of the story very nicely! Even the hentai parts are nicely done, because the angles and positions are done so that it hides the messy organs, while still giving the player something to look at. The only thing that feels a bit lazy is the use of so many stock images, and wide usage of the sprites, but with production costs and financial profit at zero, it really can't be helped. Finally, while the animations suffer from the same problem of looking... well, cheap, they're nicely directed and just having them here definitely shows a degree of dedication to this.
music, directing, visuals in general, (well, I'm obviously getting lazy here) All feel nice, perhaps the best thing about it is that often you don't pay special attention to them, because they flow so smoothly with the overall story. The music tracks are great thou, I'll have to convert 'em into a mp3 soundtrack for myself one of these days...
In any case: great game, dudes. and I really DO mean it. (waah, needs moar cute injured girls!)
First about the story... Well, there are multiple stories and even tiny sidestories, and I have to say that each of the characters, even sidecharas like Kenji and Mutou feel nicely developed. Of course, the girls themselves are damned adorable as characters too, with all their personality quirks. (Really looking forward to Shizune's and Hanako's arcs, Rin too...) But the protagonist, Hisao Nakai deserves my special mention! While most games of this genre are satisfied with schooling the player through a chain of choices which feel arbitrary at best and ridiculous at worse, KS presents the player with a protagonist you can understand and empathize with. And he grows through the stories too. But it doesn't just stop there, while your usual gal-game endings often seem rushed and plastered over the whole thing, here you can feel a sense of progression. KS just won't stop until you're completely in love with the girl you've conquered. And the hentai parts, I have to say that while these are usually the biggest source of disappointment for me,(I'm the sort of player who speedclicks through those, just to get the story and romance I needed) here it doesn't feel forced at all. The sense of progression which I mentioned earlier already helps a lot, but it's also nicely written because it focuses on the couple and their ways, instead of... well, plain sex.
What to say about the art? It's just so goddamned adorable! You chose a very hard topic to deal with, and while fiction smooths over the problems in their lives a bit, the art still does right to disabilities while still looking cute... (i'm not making a whole lot of sense here, guess I got too much cute, injured girls in my head right now...) The coloring and effects have a sort of childish tone to them, it's more like a cute picture book thing than a flashy anime, but it suits the atmosphere of the story very nicely! Even the hentai parts are nicely done, because the angles and positions are done so that it hides the messy organs, while still giving the player something to look at. The only thing that feels a bit lazy is the use of so many stock images, and wide usage of the sprites, but with production costs and financial profit at zero, it really can't be helped. Finally, while the animations suffer from the same problem of looking... well, cheap, they're nicely directed and just having them here definitely shows a degree of dedication to this.
music, directing, visuals in general, (well, I'm obviously getting lazy here) All feel nice, perhaps the best thing about it is that often you don't pay special attention to them, because they flow so smoothly with the overall story. The music tracks are great thou, I'll have to convert 'em into a mp3 soundtrack for myself one of these days...
In any case: great game, dudes. and I really DO mean it. (waah, needs moar cute injured girls!)