I would have posted this yesterday but I spent all my free time playing this game! After 5 years of development, Four Leaf Studios finally released Katawa Shoujo!
So, what is Katawa Shoujo? It is a visual novel set at Yamaku High, a school for people with disabilities. The main character is Hisao Nakai, a guy who developed a dangerous heart condition. Initially upset over going to a special school, he soon finds out that it is not as bad as he imagined. In Yamaku high he gets a chance to gain friends — or a girlfriend if the right choices are made. According to the dev blog, there are 5 main paths to pursue — about 10 possible endings — so you will be spending a considerable amount of time playing this.
Installation is pretty easy, I have not checked the minimum requirements but this will probably run on any computer that could at least run Windows XP. I have not seen any DDL yet but I will upload it later. If you want to download through torrent, click on the links below. The torrent is quite fast, I got around 2 mb/s of download speed so you will be playing in no time.
Katawa Shoujo torrent (from the dev board)
Windows | Linux x86 | Mac OS X
Katawa Shoujo direct download (Mediafire, about 420 mb):
Complete Katawa Shoujo walkthrough here
Being a visual novel, you have to read a lot (duh) and the pace is a bit slow. You will find yourself tapping your space bar a lot to go through all the dialogues. This game initially received some negative feed back and criticism because of it’s “offensive” theme (going after disabled girls). But after going through the game, the special girls were actually handled delicately and maturely. There are also adult scenes but it is what I would call “soft core” and nothing really gross. You can even opt-out the adult scenes by going to the game options. I also noticed that the animations was done by a Filipino, Mike Inel *clap* *clap* *clap*.
Overall, this a very good game and I would recommend this to everyone (those of legal age). I find the stories really touching (I am now playing a third route while writing this) and the main character is quite engaging. I could feel his happiness, disappointment, when he is angry or surprised, when he is confused or even when he is bored. There was even a point where I raged! Hah! For a free, 400~ish mb game this one is a clear win.
Sauce: Katawa Shoujo
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Comments
nice~
been waiting for this one to come!!!
knowing that a fellow filipino did the animations in this game really boosted my morale in creating a visual novel as my thesis~
torrents can be found in the katawa shoujo blog..
http://katawashoujo.blogspot.com/2012/01/katawa-shoujo-released.html
links added to my post
This reminds me, Dae, have you played “Don’t take it personally babe, It’s not just your story”
A true rated G visual novel for free by these really cool indie dev.
http://www.scoutshonour.com/donttakeitpersonallybabeitjustaintyourstory/
not yet, i will be downloading it in a bit. i wish these games get ported to iphones and droids.
Thanks for the game!
And cheers for the efforts of our fellow filipino.
I won’t be playing as it seems way too depressing for me. It doesn’t take much to reach that status, and a game all about people with such crippling disabilities that they can’t even go to normal school sounds well past that.