Disabled Girl Dating Sim Katawa Shoujo Finally Available

[MSTJedi]

Anyone else stuff up and die on the roof with kenji? The dialogue was beyond awesome, but then I got sent back to the main menu, and thought I only downloaded the demo or something. So much for doing what I would do in real life.

You failed to choose a route. Or you chose multiple ones. Start again, skip through the read text, and only take the choices that express interest in one specific girl.

Just had that happen. Pissed me off. The last way I wanted the story to end was to be stuck on a roof with that nutjob. Thanks for the suggestion, trying it now.

 

[Oly J]

People were actually waiting for something like this? Dating sims always came across as creepy and stupid to me, but this one is just taking the piss.

Edit: Actually, I wanna know why all of the physically disabled people are all in the one class. I bet there's some strange reason for that in the game.

some schools just specialize in special needs education, I've spent my entire life in such places, (I have Cerebal Paulsey)

 

[DR123]

I'm just curious: where did Rin being identified as the "thalidomide girl" come from? I haven't found anything on the 4LeafStudio site promoting the game, the wiki or anywhere in the game itself that suggests thalidomide had anything to do with the incomplete formation of her arms.

That said, I really have enjoyed it so far. As has been said earlier, the characters all having some sort of physical/emotional impediment is written as a part of their characters, more than as a selling or shock point. The adult content doesn't detract at all from the rest of the game and seems to be well thought out for the most part, placing a lot of distance between my viewing it as a visual novel as opposed to an eroge (although Rin's story matches her character a bit too well at times).

I'll definitely be looking for something similar as soon as I finish it, which will unfortunately be quite soon. Any recommendations for games of a similar pacing and technical quality would be greatly appreciated.

I think it was in the drawing that sort of got things going:
http://shimmie.katawa-shoujo.com/image/9.jpg
http://indiegames.com/katawashoujo_release.jpg

Not 100% sure though. The first drawing there was on the wikipedia entry for it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katawa_Shoujo

 

[Smertnik]

I'll definitely be looking for something similar as soon as I finish it, which will unfortunately be quite soon. Any recommendations for games of a similar pacing and technical quality would be greatly appreciated.

I heard good things about Clannad and Symphonic Rain. Can't recommend anything from romance/slice of life genre from first-hand experience, though, as I prefer horror/fantasy vn's myself.

You can always just browse some vn database (e.g. vndb.org) and look for the most popular/highest rated entries. Although merely a fraction is translated and most are rather difficult to acquire (legally, at least).

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

If they aren't blatantly exploiting handicapped people (or fetishes for that matter) I don't see a problem with this. I am not one to play Dating Sims, but if the only difference between this game and your average Dating Sim is the fact that the romance options are physically disabled I honestly don't see a problem. To think otherwise is to think that is is somehow wrong to be attracted to a physically disabled person... unless of course this is exploitation. That last bit is important.

I'm actually on my second play through of this game, and it is as you guess, not aimed at exploiting the handicapped or appealing to people with odd fetishes. I'm not one for playing dating sims but i find the characters likeable and very human.

I guess a lot of people will have knee-jerk reactions to it, but i sent it to a couple of my friends and some didn't want to try it, but a couple of them came in within a day or two telling me they powered through it and loved the story.

My suggestion is that people should give this game a go, with an open mind. Heck a lot of the first act of the game is about having an open mind anyway.

 

[Alexias_Sandar]

Well, I've played it through now, and I'm impressed. Very impressed. It was...probably one of the most enjoyable games I've played in a long time. All the characters were people...not mere caricatures. Honestly, for a group of volunteers simply working on their own time to throw something like this together... it's awesome. I could relate with most of them and felt...well. The stories were very compelling. I'm sure to play through many of the stories again sometime. I can't say which story was my favorite, because...honestly... they were each so different...but had their own draw. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

 

[BlackWidower]

and Lilly, WOOOOOO...yeaaah

Internet bro-fist!

Funnily enough I ended up on the path with the legless girl first, and I really don't like her. Seriously, she's a pain in the ass!

Wait till you get Tezuka's path. At least Ibarazaki is cheerful - caffine-fake-high cheerful, but still better than her painting friend. I had to play through Hanako and Lily's route a few times to get over the mind-f**k.

I'm in the middle of her path, and I so far love it. The reason I hated Emi was because she was a dumb *****:

"I can't let you get close."

Then what the fuck are we doing!? What's worse is that she's completely oblivious to her faux pas. It's pathetic. She's a horrible human being.

 

[ScottocS]

I'm in the middle of her path, and I so far love it. The reason I hated Emi was because she was a dumb *****:

"I can't let you get close."

Then what the fuck are we doing!? What's worse is that she's completely oblivious to her faux pas. It's pathetic. She's a horrible human being.

Having stuck with Emi's path through my first play through, I got hooked somehow into getting to know more or pushing on to understand why she feels the way she does, because of the 'I can't get close to you' theme. Yeah, it was a tad annoying but I was happy with how they resolved it all in the end.


Being my first visual novel, I was surprised at the emotions that could be drawn from the choices I made (especially with Emi's "rollercoaster-ride" attitude). I'm looking forward to the other arcs and am glad a friend recommended it to me.

 

[Beautiful End]

I'm in the middle of her path, and I so far love it. The reason I hated Emi was because she was a dumb *****:

"I can't let you get close."

Then what the fuck are we doing!? What's worse is that she's completely oblivious to her faux pas. It's pathetic. She's a horrible human being.

Having stuck with Emi's path through my first play through, I got hooked somehow into getting to know more or pushing on to understand why she feels the way she does, because of the 'I can't get close to you' theme. Yeah, it was a tad annoying but I was happy with how they resolved it all in the end.


Being my first visual novel, I was surprised at the emotions that could be drawn from the choices I made (especially with Emi's "rollercoaster-ride" attitude). I'm looking forward to the other arcs and am glad a friend recommended it to me.

This. Just this.

Emi was also my first instinctive choice. I was shooting for Hanako but I ended up with her, which forced me to try and understand her better. Amazingly, I got her good ending on my very first try. There were times when I just had to stop and think of the best answer and how she would reply.

However, so far, I think I'm liking Rin's path a bit more...

 

[mjcabooseblu]

I really don't see why someone would get riled up over something like this. You wouldn't be outraged at someone actually dating a physically disabled girl, right?

 

[kawacatoose]

I wont deny I'm interested and I will try to download this. I actually just tried and it didn't open. I'm trying to download it on my Mac which has all the current updates. It saves the file but I can't open it. And I don't know what to do with the other option of opening it with an application. What should I do?

Don't use the torrent link to download but the DDL link.

 

[aggers]

to all those people who are critical of it...

seriously just play it, i was not expecting much but its very well written and refined. much more tasteful then any other of the visual novels that i saw with degrading simple well endowed blonde bimbos, the characters in this game are human, flawed and relatable.

this really pleasantly surprised me

 

[Friis]

OH and I should probably mention, since no one else has, this IS A HENTAI GAME... have fun.

Thanks for the heads up, I was about to try it out of curiosity.

Just to confirm, you are being sarcastic, right?

I'm not actually. I'm not into porn of any kind.

It's not porn though... yes there is sex in this game, but it's tastefully and realistically done... and in the amount that you may expect from such things like moderately artsy movies involving romance.
And that's about it.

It doesn't have sex in it as a selling point. It has sex because it's a part of romantic relationships which are a part of life. I'd say the sex scenes of each storyline make up about 1-3% of that storyline.

 

[Friis]

I'm in the middle of her path, and I so far love it. The reason I hated Emi was because she was a dumb *****:

"I can't let you get close."

Then what the fuck are we doing!? What's worse is that she's completely oblivious to her faux pas. It's pathetic. She's a horrible human being.

Having stuck with Emi's path through my first play through, I got hooked somehow into getting to know more or pushing on to understand why she feels the way she does, because of the 'I can't get close to you' theme. Yeah, it was a tad annoying but I was happy with how they resolved it all in the end.


Being my first visual novel, I was surprised at the emotions that could be drawn from the choices I made (especially with Emi's "rollercoaster-ride" attitude). I'm looking forward to the other arcs and am glad a friend recommended it to me.

This. Just this.

Emi was also my first instinctive choice. I was shooting for Hanako but I ended up with her, which forced me to try and understand her better. Amazingly, I got her good ending on my very first try. There were times when I just had to stop and think of the best answer and how she would reply.

However, so far, I think I'm liking Rin's path a bit more...

I don't think any of the other paths are quite as well written or have quite as interesting a character. Rin's story is in my opinion the most engaging and heartrending/warming of them all. What most people don't realize about Rin is that whatever she says, she means... she is always serious and tells the absolute truth the way she sees it, she just has some serious trouble putting her thoughts to words in a way that is easy to understand without paying close attention.

Shizune's story could have gotten close if it wasn't for the horribly out-of-place character of her father the grumpy-mullet-sword-man... seriously, way to ruin an otherwise great story of serious romantic drama with misplaced and overdone comic relief.

Hanako's story could also have been great, had it not been for her being so much of a typical moe character during most of the story that it feels very jarring when she finally starts breaking out of that mold. It's great that she does, but I can't help but feel that it would have been more believable and effective had they toned down the moe-dial just a bit.

Lilly's was pretty damned good. I'd say it's about on par with Hanako's story and Lilly has a refreshingly small amount of emotional baggage to deal with... there is some, but it's not the main point of her story.

I didn't much like the ending of Emi's story. I just really don't like the whole "I lost someone I loved and it hurt, so now I'll never love again so I can't get hurt." thing. It's just such an overdone cliché. I liked the rest of the story though, when it wanted to be heartwarming it really was, and when it wanted to be sad it really was. I could see the ending coming, but really hoped it wasn't what I assumed it would be, and I was let down. I had thoroughly hoped that instead of her dad just being dead, he'd still be alive and well, but having been responsible for the crash that took her legs, he had been unable to face his wife and daughter again, falling apart emotionally and leaving Emi and her mother with the burden of uncertainty and stress of trying to get him over his issues as well as getting over their own.
But no... he was just dead.

 

[Beautiful End]

Snip~

That ending for Emi you came up with sounds pretty good, actually. Now that I look back at the original ending, it does look pretty disappointing.

On that note, I hated the fact that we ALL pretty much guess what happened to her dad, except Hisao. I kept saying out loud "He's dead!" every time they would touch the topic. So it was pretty cliched that he never got the hint, especially when the story tries to break away from the cliched dialogues and situations for the most part.

 

[Quantum Star]

Snip~

That ending for Emi you came up with sounds pretty good, actually. Now that I look back at the original ending, it does look pretty disappointing.

On that note, I hated the fact that we ALL pretty much guess what happened to her dad, except Hisao. I kept saying out loud "He's dead!" every time they would touch the topic. So it was pretty cliched that he never got the hint, especially when the story tries to break away from the cliched dialogues and situations for the most part.

I had the same feelings about Emi's ending. I was hoping when Emi said they were going to go visit him she meant he was stuck crippled in the hospital, just like Hisao was in the beginning. So when Hisao gets to see Emi's dad in more or less the exact same state he was at the start, he could have had a serious moment to look back on how pathetic he was before and how much he had changed since going back to school. But no, just dead.

 

[Beautiful End]

Snip~

That ending for Emi you came up with sounds pretty good, actually. Now that I look back at the original ending, it does look pretty disappointing.

On that note, I hated the fact that we ALL pretty much guess what happened to her dad, except Hisao. I kept saying out loud "He's dead!" every time they would touch the topic. So it was pretty cliched that he never got the hint, especially when the story tries to break away from the cliched dialogues and situations for the most part.

I had the same feelings about Emi's ending. I was hoping when Emi said they were going to go visit him she meant he was stuck crippled in the hospital, just like Hisao was in the beginning. So when Hisao gets to see Emi's dad in more or less the exact same state he was at the start, he could have had a serious moment to look back on how pathetic he was before and how much he had changed since going back to school. But no, just dead.

And to expand on your theory, it would explain why Emi was also hesitant about getting too close to Hisao; because she had daddy issues, which are pretty valid in her case.
Eh, well. I still like Emi. Kinda. I don't know...