http://www.katawa-shoujo.com/ (its free so thats a bonus)
Katawa Shoujo is a bishoujo-style visual novel set in the fictional Yamaku High School for disabled children, located somewhere in modern Japan. Hisao Nakai, a normal boy living a normal life, has his life turned upside down when a congenital heart defect forces him to move to a new school after a long hospitalization. Despite his difficulties, Hisao is able to find friends—and perhaps love, if he plays his cards right. There are five main paths corresponding to the 5 main female characters, each path following the storyline pertaining to that character.
The story is told through the perspective of the main character, using a first person narrative. The game uses a traditional text and sprite-based visual novel model with an ADV text box.
Katawa Shoujo contains adult material, and was created using the Ren'Py scripting system. It is the product of an international team of amateur developers, and is available free of charge under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND License.
I'm creating this thread as a place of discussion and also I place where I hope we can post our personal thoughts and feelings about this game.
I first heard of Katawa Shoujo through Reddit, there are many posts on r/gaming of images from the game and the comments of these posts are always full of very high praise for what I initially thought was a rather peculiar if not seedy game. The sheer amount of praise and recommendations of gamers convinced me to download it and give it a go.
Now I do not personally have any fetishes over disabilities so the fact this game contains 18+ images was somewhat putting me off playing it. Once again a returned to Reddit and commentors were very clear in emphasising the R rated images was not a part of the appeal of this game and can in fact be turned off in the options menu.
For my first few playthroughs I went in blind as I was strongly recommend to (and I strongly recommend the same to those whom have never played before) and found myself truly captivated by the story. I messed up a lot on my first try however and ended up with the shortest possible ending (death in fact). For my next try I was more committed to going for a particular girl (Hanako) and ... wow ... just wow ... I had been warned that this game sends you on a rollercoaster of emotions but I had thought it all exaggeration.
The game has IMHO the best writing and storytelling I have ever seen in a video game. This game had me distraught, worried and downright depressed at times, but at others I was laughing and feeling incredibly joyous. There are very few mediums, let alone video games, that have brought out such emotions in me towards fictional characters and that could the very way I view and interact with people.
There are moments in games I will always remember, from receiving my first Pokemon to conquering Europe in the name of Rome. My first good ending in Katawa Shoujo is one of those moments, though I may of only selected the the right answers it feels like so much more than that.
I cannot recommend this game enough, click the link --->
http://www.katawa-shoujo.com/ download, play and come here with your thoughts
Please include spoiler tags around any spoilers (duh)
Which was your first ending?
Who is your favourite character?
Which path did you enjoy the most?
