(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

Drawing Judy Garland

Aint she purdy?

My reference image.

This drawing is a big deal to me because it's the biggest one I've ever done on paper, the biggest one I've inked, the largest portrait I've ever drawn, and the biggest thing I've ever had framed. It was a big deal. GET IT?! It came out pretty good, so good in fact I thought I'd share how I did it with you fine people.

This project started out as me needing something to put on the bare walls of my room. Normally I would break out the ol' 9"x11" notebook and go to town but for this I knew it wouldn't cut it, I wanted something I could actually show off and look almost professional that wasn't a poster. 9"x11" is great because it easily fits on a scanner and you can shove it into your backpack or what have you with ease but I stepped up to 11"x14". I know it's not a huge jump in numbers but it's a pretty big jump in drawing terms, for me anyway.

I chose to do a portrait of Judy Garland because I wanted to create a vintage image but felt that Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Betty Davis, etc. were too overdone and there's a ton of posters and stuff for them out there but hardly any for Judy Garland in her later years. In case you don't know who she is she played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz! That bright young lass who lead the children of the world over to somewhere over the rainbow without even having to show her boobs. Magical. She really is an interesting person who lived a hell of a life and I felt she deserved my small tribute.

These are my super expensive art tools. Mechanical pencil, sharpie, and wax paper.

I didn't think I was gonna ink this at first, to be honest I didn't know what I was doing other than drawing the outline.

The reference picture I had was the most legit I could find on Google Images and looked the easiest to draw.

The basic outline was done and I didn't feel like drawing surface maps or shapes so I started filling in the details a bit.

I've learned to start at the top and work my way down to keep from smearing the lead so much, the wax paper helps too of course. Come to think of it this is actually the first drawing I've used wax paper on...

By this point I knew I was going to ink this thing so instead of shading in the areas I knew would be black I just scribbled in them so I would remember to blacken them.

Happy little details.

Drawing is like building a house. You start with a foundation and then build up from there, adding layer upon layer until it doesn't look awful.

I was bored with penciling at this point and started inking. I was scared as all balls while doing this because unlike everything else I do I can't erase my inevitable screw up.

The face was especially scary.

Shading large areas with an ultra fine sharpie is really lame and tedious.

I hated Judy's lips by this point and chose to try my hand and making them less stupid.

God, that pillow took forever.

The hardest things in the world to draw are hands, hair, folds, and feathers. I hate them all.

By this point I knew I was almost done but I realized how fat her face looked. If I knew how to shade with ink this would be an easy fix as I knew just what the problem was. Too bad I don't.

This is just about done. After I tweaked the nose and added those lines to the background I spent about an hour working on the line of her face, trying to thin it out and make it look neat. I also adjusted the eyes and a few other things, mostly borders.

And done.

In all it took me four days until I was satisfied but I think it came out okay for someone who doesn't do this very often. Hope you enjoyed the show! Maybe Ryan's review will be done by the end of the week then we can push KS aside forever.

Feelings & Fire: A Third Review of Katawa Shoujo

Overwhelming Need to Help: My Experience As a White Knight

Ogachi's Review of Hanako's Story
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Okay, I grudgingly agreed to play through this with the sole purpose of proving I could. It's a visual novel with an anime style developed by 4 Leaf Studios (Here: http://katawa-shoujo.com/). It follows Hisao and his paper heart through his time at a school for the disabled. Whilst there, he goes after one of five disabled chicks, each with positive, negative, and "Well, shit." endings. SO! I downloaded it, thinking it was just some stupid weeaboo kawaii uguu nonsense I'd be done with in 2 or 3 hours of laughing. 8 hours later, I completed a story. It was... different, to say the least. Now, I'm not big into the whole "Video Games as Art" thing or "Visual Novels Can't Be Video Games" thing, but it was certainly a different experience from the usual. Perhaps, that the lack of total control was it. Sure there were choices in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" style, but no more than 16 or 17 per story, and all the stories share 9 or 10 of the same choices in the 1st Act. Even the whole "Normal Guy" thing has been done before, but it is presented differently. You are not just a normal guy trying to get by but having trouble with the world. You are the normal guy, frail and knowing the wrong move can kill him, but always trying to deal with the problems and concerns of others instead of your own, which hits close to home for a lot of people. Perhaps it's just novelty value, as was recently suggested to me. Perhaps it was interesting in its way. Perhaps I'm just bullshitting my way through this. I'm not sure. Alas, I must continue my tale. ONWARDS!

_____

Hanako's Story

AVAST! Minor Details and My Reactions to Unspecified Plot Turns Lie Ahead!

Right-o. So. I started as Hisao and went through my first week at the school. Along the way, I saw a girl will long, dark hair who seems to be constantly hiding from everyone, raising some suspicion. Later, I meet a blonde, blind girl, named Lilly, and so I take the time to converse with her before accompanying her to the library. Whilst there, I saw the same dark haired girl in the Library, reading alone. Out of instinctive chivalry (or maybe just curiosity) I chose to cowboy up and attempt to talk to her. After a few odd sentences, awkward silences, and her just jumping up and running off, I learned her name, Hanako. I also learned the had quite the collection of burn scars and SERIOUS social anxiety. Unlike Fat4all's sheer curiosity about her, I felt slightly obligated to at least attempt to force a few more words out of her. Who says chivalry is dead? I found out her and Lilly are friends. Thus, off I went, on a roller-coaster of confusion, unsure that I was making any progress or not.

If I could describe the story in two words, it would be "emotional baggage". Seriously, Hanako would need an entire brigade of Psychonauts to clear that out of her head. About halfway through the story, I thought I was finally doing right well, making good progress as Hanako was actually starting to talk to people. My success lasted a half second before it was crushed into the dust of false hope as she then had an emotional breakdown. The next day, I thought I was bringing her out of it and even believed so for a bit after that but lo and behold I was WRONG. Though, I do have patience so I toughed it out and kept trying to break her out of the mental concrete barrier she made around herself. Thus the white knight that is in my blood did not allow me to leave it be but instead forced me to have a sense of obligation to protect her. Towards the end, I had the feeling of success again and once again it seemed to have been smashed. But then, during some of the last lines of the final Act, I had gotten a message she had been trying to put across the whole time, and thus "Oh. Well. Shit." It triggered a strange response, an experience I can't quite put my finger on. It seems like there's a word for it but I just don't know. Luckily, I never got a bad ending, and instead got the good one. Huzzah.

_____

Generic Technical Reviewing

Music- I don't really see that much to praise here. It was good for the job it was doing, I suppose, but nothing amazing.

Writing- Fairly good, definitely made me think about it. I was actually impressed by this part, being not what I expected.

Art & Design- Eh, this is a bit complicated. It's standard anime art, but the character designs do well to fit the personality of the character they represent, and I suppose calling an armless girl "generic" in this regard would be... unfair.

_____

The End Is Here

So, was it good, you ask? Was it playable? Was it worth it? In a nondescript, hesitant and shortly put way, yes. I only hesitate because I suppose at heart I am still biased and dislike this kind of thing off instinct. Did I enjoy it? ... Yes. It was actually much better than I expected. Hell with it, it's free. If you've got time to spare, go for it. It's just like reading a book, just with more pictures, music, sound effects, small choices that end up having a dramatic effect, and etc. Until next time folks. See you on a walk around town accompanied by "Dust in the Wind".

Oh God, why do I want to play it again? Oh dear lord, why? What is this? What is this I am experiencing? Oh God, it's the same as before! I think I know what the experience is called now. Is this what they call... feelings? My God.

_____

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.

The Way of Progress

my current setup

My focus right now (other than my day job and relationship issues) is to keep some momentum going in the old creativity department and pump out some new projects while I'm waiting for the movie to sit and mellow out in my head.

The first project was some music composition, I made one song I may use in the movie and then called it quits so I can focus on piano lessons using my dandy new keyboard that already has a bad key (who needs D? pfft) and do a bit of writing of the prose variety.

http://soundcloud.com/draconistheory/the-town

I have in the works a short story that will hopefully get people interested in the movie and provide a bit of background into the mythos of the tale itself, all those spooky entities and stuff floating about needed a bit more flesh on their spectral bones, not unlike the companion books that came out with the Harry Potter series and the mini series of videos released before Alan Wake.

We may be completely lacking in fan base and production value but it doesn't mean we can't pretend to be pr0! So I'll keep you going as that progresses and hope to have something neat to show you guys soon (if you even exist).

"I Got This" Filming Starts On Dec. 19th

Wish us luck. We're gonna need it.

Production of Film to start quite soon!

We are back from our month off from the blog, in which time we stuffed ourselves with turkey and pasta, and loads of desserts, with a new announcement!

OFFICIAL PRODUCTION OF OUR FILM STARTS IN DECEMBER!


While it will mostly be filming with the main cast and establishing each of the filming locations, main production is set to start at some point towards the end of the month of December!

GET YOUR ACTING FACE ON, PEOPLE!

Over acting...

Not quite there yet...