(Yet Another) Katawa Shoujo review

Apparently, some people here are interested in my take on this little ditty, so I'll just get my two cents in and be gone.

I'm skipping the whole describing the game bits because it looks like the other three stooges have already gotten it pretty much covered.

When I had originally heard about KS some time ago, all I knew it to be was a crippled girl dating sim that got a bit of attention from a certain online imageboard. Soon, some of my associates started playing it as well, so I figured, "What the hell, why not?" I'm not a very clever man, so I'll just describe my experience in the order that it happened, instead of worrying about trying to make a sensible review.

First impressions for Act I were pretty favorable, considering the type of 'game' this is. It was written pretty well, and I could sense the effort those fellows at fourleaf put into the game. Art was pretty decent, and the music worked alright for the scenes. The characters were interesting and I was having a good time of things. Something I noticed was that, although, at times it seems like the choices you make in the story don't really impact that much right away, some of the decisions will end up with much different outcomes from the others. Subtlety is nice, but some might not enjoy that as much as others. Take the statement as you will.

After my decisions were processed from the first act, it seems that I ended up pursuing the path of the energetic track-star, Emi. I won't lie, going through the first scene of this path was quite disgusting for me at the time. It was so sugary-sweet, I felt like someone was injecting pure cane sugar, with a needle, directly into my eye. I actually had to step away for a while. Perhaps I'm just too cynical, I dunno. BUT, I decided that I wouldn't be deterred, and kept trucking. Past the first nauseating scene, things calm down a bit, and eventually I start finding that the rest of this isn't so bad. The story arc rolls on as you get to know Emi better, sharing laughs, tears, and eventually learning of her tragic past, before finally reconciling in each other and going on to live happy lives together(Maybe!). Oh, there's also some sex scenes here and there. (Emi's a bit too loli for my tastes, her MOM though, WHOA-OA) All in all, it was a cute, engrossing little tale of romance between 2 young people, and I was quite pleased with the read.

That was my take on my run of the game, so this is the part where I give my last thoughts on the piece as a whole:

Overall, I enjoyed the story enough to stick it out to the end, considering all I knew about it was that it was Cripple Porn: The Game. The presentation is swell, and the menus and options are all super easy to navigate. If you don't like romance novels or things of that nature, then Katawa Shoujo probably won't sway your opinion on the matter, but I invite you to give it a shot. It's free, after all. I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon. I still feel it's important to remember, however, that it's still a game to try to get into the pants of a bunch of crippled high school girls. Though, if you're like me, you might find the story engaging on its own.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to unlock the rest of the paths and hundred-percenting this tale. 'Til next time.

-shadonickles

Katawa Shoujo: A Review

I would like to start by saying I generally dislike anime, manga, cuteness, big-eyed, crazy-haired anything. It does nothing for me. When I approached this "game" I knew I would nitpick and do my best to not give it a chance. I came to terms with this before I got started with this review and made it clear to myself that I would finish this game despite my feelings towards the genre and be a man about this review. This is what I took away from it.

Ugh.

It fucking SUCKED. Okay, that was a bit rash. For the target audience of people who enjoy generic romance and high school drama it's gaurunteed to pluck the heart strings and leave the "player" with a sense of coming away with something rewarding and... good. I guess.

Pretty much.

What is Katawa Shoujo? It's a Japanese style visual novel dealing with dating disabled girls created by members of 4chan (don't let that fool you, it's legit and free to download and play so that's something). What is a visual novel? Think a choose-your-own-adventure book with a lot more text and fewer choices. You play as Shithead (I don't remember his name) who has a heart attack because he has arythmia and didn't know it and a girl asked him out causing Call of Duty blood to fill his eyes and his heart to explode. As a result you wake up in the hospital and find out you can't go back to normal high school because you're different now and get sent off to cripple camp. Sorry. Cripple High. Anyway, everyone there has some sort of disability or what have you even if it's not completely obvious and it's up to Shithead to go out there and bless one lucky disabled lady with his cripple dick. Think of it as a school for super heroes except instead of super powers they are missing their legs or blind and there's no laser fighting, just talking and drama and romance and crap.

Expect things more nonsensical as this, i.e. "time is a gooey mass"

The first act of the game determines exactly who the recipient of said cripple dick will be. Don't expect to be able to directly control who the lucky lady is, the games handle choices as indirect and vague questions dealing with your opinion on certain things and how you spend your time rather than how to approach a challenge or situation. With visual novels it's all about the placement of the protagonist rather than how you would solve a problem so you're forced to view the world through Shithead's eyes (the guy is as exciting as a dead cow). Your choices in ladies are Armless, Legless, Deaf, Blind, Burnt, and a dude who looks a lot like Harry Potter.

Well at least it's not obvious.

Anyway, the games dialogue is very repetative and cute and you take away from it what you will. Expect to be told the trees are green a lot. I went down the path of Legless and got to have weird cripple butt sex at one point. That was the highlight of the story. This was only after 6 hours of reading about Shithead's feelings and boring developing romance and how protective Legless is about why she's Legless but she pretends to not be legless so... yeah. Anyway, somewhere along the way I screwed up and Legless never spoke to me again and the game ended.

Stupid BITCH! You broke my HEART!!!

Think of the choices as kitten cannon, where you aim and shoot and hope you don't land on spikes. There isn't a real target you're aiming for or anything you're just hoping for the best, at least that's what it felt like to me. Normally I would have been content with Shithead's failure and the game ending but by this point I admit I kinda cared about Shithead and what happened to him. I felt like his conscience and somewhere along the way I failed in guiding him to sweet cripple heaven. So I opened up my last save and made sure he got his happily ever after.

Facesole

In short, if you've got some time to kill and you're into the whole high school drama thing with a sprinkling of disabled girl hentai then go ahead and give this "game" a shot. If you would rather enjoy an intriguing story with tons of action and twists then go pick up A Game of Thrones.

*SPOILER* This guy DIES.