Like all good tabloids, they have a preconceived narrative to sell.
I’ve been following this game for quite some time and was happy to be finally able to play it. It certainly exceeded my expectations and it’s one of the english VN’s I’ve enjoyed playing most so far.
About the art, the team consists of several artists, each of the main artists sticking to the CG’s of one particular route. This was done to try to improve consistency, though if you play multiple routes, it’s obvious different people with different art styles worked on the project. For a team that had to rely entirely on volunteers and didn’t have the advantage of a large art budget, I think they did well. Now, I’ve worked in amateur game development myself and it’s usually easy to surf some art sites and find a pic that looks better than what you have in your own game. But I can tell from experience that there’s a large difference between an artist who can churn a pretty pic whenever he feels like it and an artist who can produce pic after pic after pic after pic based on specific feedback from a writer, even if he doesn’t feel like it but knows it has to be done anyway. The former is fairly easy to find, the latter is extremely rare. That’s why 95% of all large-scale projects made by amateur game developers over the internet fizzle out way before they ever get anywhere.
About the writing and the disability part…I think it was actually balanced well. Many of the burdens the girls face are directly or indirectly related to their disabilities. The girls aren’t completely defined through their disabilities though, so if you eventually forget the girl even has a disability (due to personality coming to the foreground), that was kinda the idea behind it. One of the messages that’s behind the game is that disabled people are still people and as you spend more time around them, the “disabled” part starts fading and the “people” part becomes more obvious. Behind what they might seem at first, they ARE normal people. (as stressed in act 1 by the protagonist’s homeroom teacher) With the Rin-path, btw, you could argue that Rin’s true disability isn’t her lack of arms but her autistic mindset. Her story is a very interesting (and fairly accurate) example of the troubles between a person with autism who has trouble wording and voicing her thoughts and a non-autistic person trying to get close to her.
About the haters…I’m not sure what I’m most baffled about; the knee-jerk reactions themselves (though this IS the internet where forethought isn’t required to post comments) or the fact that to these people, the notion that disabled people have sex lives too is extremely offensive and yet they accuse others of being bigots.
Katawa Shoujo is awesome and I’m a cripple irl and I don’t give a damn its a farkin vn. XD
Also, 2channers is bunch of basement experts so pay them no heed. Currently on lilly’s route, I take my time but don’t care. Its pretty good. I would rate it pretty high up. I wonder if the group is gonna be working on another vn or not.
Too bad them being crippled becomes pretty much irrelevant.
One thing I’m seeing is people praising this as
Of course these people have no idea what they’re talking about [size=50]ahem vndb usersahem[/size]
Why is it bad that the girls you meet eventually change from “the blind girl” or “the burned girl” to “Lilly” or “Hanako” in the reader’s mind? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? This isn’t a cripple fetish game.
That’s not it so much- the characters generally have well defined personalities from the start so this isn’t a problem. It’s more that the disabilities are ripe for dramatic potential and the story feels as though it wastes those to an extent.
I know one theme of the game is the idea of showing these characters as being their own people, not just characterised by their disability, but this is somewhat condescending- the reader sees them from the start as individuals anyway. Rin’s personality, for example, stands out far more than her lack of arms does. Shizune stands out more as a forceful and competitive student council president than as a deaf girl etc etc.
If the key message behind Katawa Shoujo is ‘cripples are people too’ I’ll argue that yes, it probably manages that, but that really is a moral that is beneath it.
Too bad I’m having fun 
1.Make game about supernatural heroines
2.Write script and remove supernatural elements then replace with heroines losing their ice cream
3.Say “‘aliens’ are beings too!”
When are you going to review another game?
3.call it ‘shuffle’
Probably when I finish WA2CC*. I’ve been a little distracted of late.
*doesn’t mean I’m going to REVIEW wa2, mind
Lancer, I agree with you to an extent, but only to an extent.
I’ve finished seven endings thus far (Hanako’s, Lilly’s and Emi’s routes) and still have about five or six more to go. Both Hanako’s and Lilly’s routes felt like they didn’t make the most of their dramatic potential, but that has little to do with not taking advantage of their respective disabilities. Lilly has never known sight, so being blind means nothing to her. Her blindfold exercise clearly demonstrates that she doesn’t feel inconvenienced in the slightest, so her blindness being a primary factor in the conflict on her route just wouldn’t make sense (I don’t expect Rin’s lack of arms to be an issue in her route, either, though I may just be putting my foot in my mouth 
). My gripe with Lilly’s route was that it was, well, cliche (and that may have been the developers’ intent given RAITA’s original omake page) and underdeveloped. Still, I have to give credit for how multidimensional her character was; I was pleasantly surprised when she started showing her true colors: a playful young woman not unlike Matsuri Shiho from Sola.
Emi and Hanako suffer from the exact same problem as each other despite having very different disabilities; how differently they react to the same kind of incident is what defines them, not the injuries they sustained, and that is the primary issue on their respective routes. Emi’s route is by far the best-written thus far; I think Hanako’s could have been so much better if it had gone into more depth and better fleshed out her backstory (my initial hunch was that the housefire that killed her parents and damaged her so thoroughly occurred on her birthday; her Survivor’s Guilt makes perfect sense, but it’s not nearly as dramatic as a more justifiable “it was all my fault” explanation). As much as I hate to admit it, I think things work out better for her if Hisao doesn’t hook up with her (see Lilly’s route). While Hanako’s True Ending is sweet, I was stuck thinking, “wait, that’s it…?” when the credits started rolling. Her Bad Ending, on the other hand, I consider quite well done - a well-warranted Take That! to anyone who views her as an insecure moeblob (and Emi echoes these sentiments quite loudly in her own route).
Suffice to say, I think Emi’s route is beautifully executed. The writing is snappy, the dialogue sounds very natural, and I can’t help but think that Emi and Hisao were made for each other (not unlike Rena and Keiichi in Higurashi - I’ll note that Mion was my favorite character in that one). I can only imagine how much better Katawa Shoujo would have been if this writer had handled all of the game’s routes.
Mutou is a great teacher. I mean that.
Well, back to the game. Two more routes to go, and Rin’s is next.
I actually liked the real reason she hated her birthday better than the often-done “anniversary of their death” justification, it ties in better with the issues that define the conflict that takes place in her route.
They should have had a lead artist or small group of lead artists decide the direction for EVERY scenerio so that artwork was consistant no matter what route you chose. I’ve worked on fan projects and it is possible to have that level of consistency even with burnout and rollover.
That’s not quite what I was getting at. Yes, her birthday is the anniversary of her family’s death (it’s never specified if she had any siblings; I’m assuming that she didn’t have any). The thing is, given the depth of the emotional scars Hanako received in addition to her obvious physical ones, I think Survivor’s Guilt is too neat and tidy a justification for such a complex reaction to her trauma (compare her with, say, Shirou from Fate / Stay Night and you’ll see what I mean). Had the housefire started, for example, during the preparations for her birthday party, her reactions would make much more sense to me (recall that she was in a very bad mood after learning that Lilly and Hisao were preparing a birthday party for her).
Still, I agree with you about the anniversary cliche. I figured out the “big reveal” the moment she mentioned who inspired her to run in Act 1. When I replayed the game and found the alternate way to get her True Ending, I wanted to smack Hisao for his cruel choice of words during the kitchen scene, especially given their obvious possible misinterpretations. Hell, I would have kicked him out myself if I were Emi. Given the way Emi thinks (she admits that she’s not that bright), the more cliche explanation makes sense for her - the running girl is simply running away from her problems; Hanako, on the other hand, is a much more intelligent and sophisticated character, so I was hoping for a more intelligent and sophisticated reason for her being who she is.
Despite all that, though, I still feel that Hanako is absolutely adorable. She easily bests Emi in the “cute” department; her timid smile is just so precious… Character-wise, I prefer Hanako; writing-wise, I prefer Emi.
Agreed. Lilly is gorgeous in some scenes, but slightly off in others, Hanako’s hair changes color from time to time for no real reason, and some of Emi’s facial expressions just seem wrong (you know which ones).
If Katawa Shoujo’s art is ever redone by a Japanese artist, that’d definitely be something to see.
I got all good endings (or at least I THINK those were good endings, most of them are pretty anticlimactic, which is the main flaw of the game in my book). Rin’s route remained my favorite, then Lilly, Hanako, Emi, and Shizune was the worst by far. Some possibly spoilerific impressions follow:
[spoiler]Rin’s route was my favorite mainly because of my love for quirky characters and her deadpan humor. While it is true that the route places the least emphasis on the physical disability, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I believe it has some of the most hilarious dialogue even though Rin doesn’t talk much. The character is relatively complex, but not a complete mess like Shizune (more on her later).
Lilly’s route is one big cliche, like it’s already been said. I mean, a refined blond half-foreign “princess” is about as derivative as they come. The story itself is also very standard, hell, even the music box is a bit cliche. However, the atmosphere is good, very good. It had a sort of peaceful and relaxed feel, and somehow the generic music and yellow-tinted afternoon backgrounds suited Lilly the most. I breezed through this route with a smile on my face, and that’s all I could possibly ask.
Hanako seems to be the favorite among fans, but I don’t really enjoy shy and submissive characters. If I did, the route might just have been higher on the list. It was fairly well done and the character was believable. Good enough.
Emi’s route is also okay-ish. The differences in character art are most apparent in her case, however. The paper dolls looks very different from CGs. The plot is fairly standard, not too original and not too cliche. Also good enough.
And finally, Shizune’s route, which I hated. The script is painfully uneven, especially in the first half of the route (before Misha’s “confession”). Most of the early scenes do not advance the plot in any way, but whenever Hisao gains a new insight into Shizune’s character, it is only obvious to the player after reading Hisao’s inner monologue, which is a clear sign of weak writing. For all its intended complexity, I did not find the character believable, it never really fleshed out. Furthermore, the route felt way too long and had about twice as many pointless scenes (mostly involving Kenji).[/spoiler]
My English is especially off today, I hope at least some of the stuff I wrote made sense.
I won’t be playing KS for a while, but I’ll have to admit I’m beginning to enjoy the drama around it immensely. :roll:
Somehow, this reminds me of the release of Final Fantasy 7, which introduced a lot of new people to the genre who weren’t shy about saying how much they loved the game, causing the “old FF guard” to foam and rage whenever the game was mentioned.
The developers made a blog post, btw, explaining why they chose to spread the various writers and artists among the various paths instead of putting one person in charge and let the rest take a designated spot in the assembly line. The idea behind it was the fact they realized most big efforts made by volunteers on the net fails and they were trying to minimize the damage the project would incur if one person were to lose interest and leave. (or got hit by a truck)
Oh, I remember that “controversy”. It was a really stupid controversy. FF7 blowing the market for RPGs wide open was the best thing that ever happened to JRPG fans. It’s what made it possible to bring out the SMT series (yes, technically, the first Persona was released here before FF7. Look at how much they butchered it.), and look how well that has done. And it’s what made it possible to bring out Disgaea, and the success of that game basically led directly to the situation we have now, where Atlus, NIS America, and XSEED are all fighting over quirky JRPGs to release.
None of this would have happened if FF7 hadn’t made tons of people take a good look at the genre for the first time.
Yeah, there were a ton of n00bs that all came in at the exact same time. It was kinda annoying. I remember all the rumors pages floating around the internet about FF8, made by people who had no clue how Final Fantasy worked, seemed to think FF7 was the 6th direct sequel to the original FF, and were wondering how the next game would take off from FF7. (Something about some kinda parasite in Sephiroth’s body, was a common one, as I recall). That was pretty silly.
But ultimately, the n00bs were the best thing that ever happened to RPGs, unless you were only into RPGs because they weren’t popular and once they became popular, you had to hate them.
So yeah, I hope Katawa Shoujo is a huge success. I hope it bring in a bunch of new fans. I mean, we only need a few thousand more sales per unit, and the opportunity cost calculation changes completely; Mangagamer becomes profitable, and it becomes worth it for a lot more companies to release a lot more games.
Why does ‘popular’ = ‘translated into English’? Is it because Japanese people don’t count or because foreign money means Japanese companies can continue to make bigger games with more cutscenes and less of that boring gameplay?
I’m both being facetious and mostly kidding here, but even these ‘quirky JRPGs’ Atlus USA, XSEED et al are fighting over releasing have 100K+ sales and often fairly solid followings.
Maybe back in 1996 there was such a thing as a big cultural barrier making even massively popular Japanese titles count as obscure but it hasn’t been around for some time now- or our bar for ‘obscure’ has moved a bit. Either way localisers are still way behind the curve.
Well, er, yeah. In 1996, the industry was essentially convinced JRPGs didn’t sell in America (and cost way more to bring over), so very few JRPGs were getting translated and released. This led to a self-reinforcing loop, where few put much effort into trying, therefore the sales remained crappy. I think last year had as many JRPG releases in English across all the various platforms as the SNES had for its entire run. (It’s close, and depends on how particularly you want to quibble over the definition of ‘JRPG’, but I’m fairly confident that’s correct.)
It was actually kind of funny; Nintendo Power saw that a few RPGs had done OK, so they tried to start a montly RPG column. Like 3 months later they had run out of games to cover in said column, so they tried to switch formats to cover games that had been passed over for Western release. (That didn’t go over well; the column was dropped after one month of that.)
FF7 proved that RPGs CAN be successful in the West. After that, games started getting localized that wouldn’t have been released before. And then Disgaea was a fairly major hit, which prompted NIS to start an overseas branch … and here we are today.
Being an RPG fan in the pre-FF7 days was tough.