One of the Visual Novel i played recently and yesterday i finally managed to complete all routes for Katawa Shoujo. At first i have rather low expectation with Katawa Shoujo as i thought the production value of the game is rather low as it is a freeware VN. However this game able to prove otherwise and show that the Devs put really good effort for it. While Katawa Shoujo is still not comparable with best Selling Eroge, i can say KS story is better than some of the VNs that i have played before. In all aspects Katawa Shoujo meets all standard that any decent VN have but i would say KS does really good job with the story and music. You won't find any particular deep stuff from Katawa Shoujo but it offers really heartwarming story which it did a splendid job with it. While it is probably subjective, i really liked the music of the game which i am indifferent with it at first though slowly but sure i feel some attachment with the music especially the main menu theme.
Out of all 5 heroines of Katawa Shoujo, i would say all of them are equally good as they have distinct and interesting personality. I think it is just a matter of personal choice to determine which Heroines in KS are better than other. I don't really have any particular favorite but i think Rin is the most interesting heroine in KS(though her route's conclusion is kinda lacking) as her character can be described like a wind, "free and unattached with anything" and her personal disability doesn't prevent her to be one. Probably the main protagonist has the hardest time to make Rin open up her heart compared to others. Nevertheless i would recommend to play all of heroine routes in Katawa Shoujo as they complement to each other in some way. Lilly's or Hanako's route is probably the easiest one to get into which makes them the best choice for the first route. I started with Lilly's route then Shizune then Emi(Moe overdose) then Rin and finally Hanako though there are no particular order you need to play the VN. If you never played a Visual Novel before Katawa Shoujo is one of the better gateway to get into VN. Lastly I always find that if Katawa Shoujo gets some more refinement to match the ones like standard commercial VN, i think it probably managed to be one of the High Tier VN.
I just finished my first route, (Emi)
ReplyDeleteit was fantastic and it seems that many people tent to end up on her route because nobody wants to look like a slacker!
I have only one complain and that's that somewhere the choise comes up to go to town or to go to the library and its just to obvious that your choosing between hanako and lilly.
They should have maked it more subtle, but other then that little anoyance, im enjoying it immensely.
You could already have known this but the story's and art are all designed by a different artist/writer, each artist/writer had its own character to take care of and it personalize them pretty well.
I route tempted to do Emi's route first as well but somehow i ended up taking Lily's for some reason lol.
ReplyDeleteI do notice the each routes have different writers mainly because you rarely see other girls appear once you are into a particular heroine's route..