Developer – Four Leaf Studios
Publisher – Four Leaf Studios
Platforms - Mac, PC
I’ve always felt that the dating sim genre was always a better “backdrop” to games. As its own stand-alone genre, it was often this exploitative mess of an RPG/interactive novel.
No resonating ideas, just achieve sex with a girl and be done with it.
Katawa Shoujo had that going against it. It was coated by a shallow genre. It’s much like the concept of a romantic comedy film: It’s just way too cliché and shallow. Every once in awhile though, someone comes up with something that breaks the mold of that genre. They bring about a new approach and tackle it with delicate ferocity.
Four Leaf Studios is that someone. Or should I say some group? Katawa Shoujo is a miracle spawn of the Internet. A group of people on the infamous website 4chan designed the game. Numerous people from different walks of life got together to make a game by utilizing the greatest artistic tool of our generation: the Internet. They knew they wanted a dating sim. They knew they wanted something different. They knew it had to be done well and they would tackle it together.
So what exactly separates Katawa Shoujo from the rest of the pack?
Speaking up front, it would have to be the handicapped aspect. Each of the girls available to date in this game live a hindered existence, whether it be blindness or a lack of arms. This has caused quite a stir, with some claiming it to be exploitative, a bold statement in an already exploitative genre of gaming. This unique approach will bring in interest, but there is no way I would call this exploitative. It’s more of an exploration of things seldom talked about. It was a chance to learn about something we, as “normal” people, seldom understand. Think of Chasing Amy and the gay/lesbian community.
So, how did this happen? Why is it that the main character, Hisao Nakai, is surrounded by multiple disabled beauties? The answer is a heart attack. The main character doesn’t suffer from anything noticeable from the outside. Everything he has to deal with is internal. It’s also very symbolic. His heart is broken and it will take someone who is also broken in a different way to heal it.
No, I don’t mean physically. Each of the girls carries their own emotional baggage. They are human, after all. With the interactions of these characters I learned a great deal about what it’s like to be human. I learned what it was like to make the best out of what was brought upon you.
Sounds like The Binding of Isaac, my top game of last year.
What else is there to this game? It certainly has high production values, as evidenced by the soundtrack I downloaded and the artwork of both the characters and the backdrops. It doesn’t follow the RPG-Dating Sim method that really only seems to work with Rune Factory and Persona. Instead, it’s strictly an interactive novel with a few key choices here and there. It has great, well executed mechanics, but that’s not the wonder of this game.
The brilliance lies in its ideas. This isn’t a sex and done dating sim. I pulled through to the end for that human connection with a video game character. How ridiculous is that? I almost died (in game) just for her. That’s when I realized, this is human. This is that human connection. It’s human to love. It’s human to be different. I’ve realized these things about life from (I can’t believe I’m saying this) a DATING SIM.
I think my friend Shane said it best.
“I came for the cripple sex, I ended up learning about myself.”
Well said, well said. Amazing game, and it never ceases to impress how human life can actually be represented in games.
I just started the game and I have to say that it has a great atmosphere so far. Though, the descriptions go on a bit too long for my taste at first.
The developers made it easy to fit into the main character’s role.
I can’t believe we reviewed this. I love this website.
Forever Alone: the Game.
There’s a game for that?
They’re so human they are ready to throw their bodies at you within the month of meeting them.
These aren’t representations of people. They’re waifus with their limbs chopped off and served on a silver platter. The writing is top notch, HISAO CANT FIGURE OUT EMI’S FATHER IS DEAD. You didn’t figure out human interaction you figured out what it means to have a waifu.
Err, each relationship lasts for several months, and each girl treats sex quite differently, quite like real life. Some girls jump right into sex early into a relationship, while others take months and months. The longest seems to take some 4 months to happen, which is hardly unrealistic.
Beyond this, almost all of the sex is not random or “thrown in” like you would see in other “dating sims” or cheap porn. There is only one sex scene that I can think of that is flat-out unrealistically presented, and one that’s slightly silly.
Hisao is dim-witted, yes, and that ending is visible from a mile away, yes, but the interaction is pretty fucking realistic, and really fits in with my own experiences of high school. I both miss and despise those memories, and Emi in particular reminded me a lot of one of the most emotionally-taxing girls I’ve ever dated. She was nuts, but intoxicating, like Emi to Hisao.
TL;DR: You never went to high school or don’t remember it.
each campaign*
Damn, wish there was an edit button.
I’ll add it to the list of stuff to implement.
“I came for the cripple sex, I ended up learning about myself.”
This would be a nice real-life experience, I think… Well, maybe not nice. It would be memorable.
haha
Finished it.
You make such a small amount of decisions in this that it’s hardly worth calling a game.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the storyline I followed, though. It got caught up in itself a bit but it was alright.