Oh, I know the story behind this game! It actually started on 4chan and became a huge project. I think it was originally meant to be uh, more...4channy, but it actually turned out really sweet and...well...good.

Today I torrented something legally. 

ETA: I'm only two days in, and already I think this game is funny and smart and charming.  Are all visual novels this awesome?

Last edited by satyreyes (04-17-2012 01:43:16 AM)

Hard to believe this is an Original English Language thing, isn't it?

Anyways, I'd finally gotten all of the endings, good and bad, but only got a 99% completion rate (you can check your completion rate in the 'library' on the extras screen).  Had to use a strategy guide to get the one scene in Act One I was missing.  It was an amazing ride.

My personal favorite girl is poor little Hanako.  Technically, she's the most physically capable of all the girls you can date, but her disability still takes a toll on her.  I've got a soft spot in my heart for Rin Tezuka, the armless artist, though.

You'll know that you're locked into a storyline when you get a brief animated video for that girl.  I suggest you save immediately after you unlock a girl's storyline, so you can go ahead and complete all their endings from that save.

Finished Rin's storyline.  I didn't feel totally satisfied by the ending; I feel like the central conflict between Hisao and Rin didn't really get resolved.  I think a happy ending for those two particular people may just have been unrealistic.    Anyway, I needed a long shower to piece things together and feel better afterwards.  It was a sad and moving story, and I enjoyed it, but I'm not in a hurry to play again in a different direction.

And I could use a hug. 

Last edited by satyreyes (04-18-2012 06:05:14 PM)

Ragnarok wrote:

For me it felt like the Rin I met in Act 1 and the Rin in her arc were too different. With a few exceptions, everything I liked about her was buried under the plot and circumstances, while Hisao's attitude becomes worse and worse. When Rin finally returns to how I remembered her it was the end of the story and it didn't feel like any progress had been made at all. Ultimately Rin rejects changing who she felt she had to become in order to pursue art and Hisao... is also there. He gets over his own issues very early, to the point that they don't seem relevant at all.

It's a good thing I quoted you, or I would've missed the white text!  It looks like a natural paragraph break on my display settings.

Anyway, I think this observation is fascinating, and I agree with parts of it and I'm not sure about other parts.  [I definitely feel like Rin's story is Rin's story.  Hisao is important, but not because he's Hisao; he's important because Rin needed a foil for her own development and Hisao happened to be the guy who was pushing her.  Rin only pushed Hisao once, with the "grimness" thing, so he fixed it (I guess; we never really hear about it again) and that was that.]

I'm not sure about what you said as far as Rin not being portrayed consistently throughout the game -- because I found her just as confusing as Hisao did.  [Her emotional flatness and fatigue and almost nonexistent communication skills are the more perplexing for their sporadic disappearance; it sometimes seems like Rin can emote and communicate just fine when she chooses to, but usually can't be bothered.  No wonder Hisao feels so frustrated with her.  It would have been fascinating if she had turned out to have a heavily medicated case of schizophrenia, or maybe autism, but we don't get any real explanation for the immense and seemingly self-imposed "distance" between her and others.]

But I'm heartened to hear that I'm not the only one who felt this way, and that you feel Hanako's story is better.  That makes me feel more like trying again.  Thank you! 

Mm, I see.  That makes perfect sense.  Rin is very much an oddball in Act I, but she's an unapologetic oddball -- maybe even an assertive one!  [She's the only one to ask Hisao outright what's wrong with him.  And if she doesn't talk much, and if what she says doesn't make much sense, that's just her way, and she seems not to care what people think about it.  But then the exhibition gets broached and she goes into existential crisis mode.  She's all-consumingly focused on her painting, which is not new, but now she is actively throwing up barriers against people -- lest she start caring about them? lest they detect that she already cares about them? I'm not sure.  But it is very difficult to reconcile the defensive, withdrawn Rin in this mode with the Rin who sat on a desk and asked Hisao about his condition, which, you're right, was our first impression of her and which we should have been right to take as an indication of what kind of soul to expect from her.]

The more I try to make Rin's story make sense, the more I focus on Hisao.  He seems to have made Rin more conscious of her feeling of being submerged, of the need to either change or give up.  [He was a catalyst for change for Rin on many occasions -- he pushed her to do the exhibition, he served as her unwitting muse in the atelier, and he made her choose between her apathy and his friendship -- whether these changes were for good or for ill.]  So I guess one way to read the story is: Hisao causes a problem, and then helps solve it.  But that is probably a little simplistic.  Rin felt submerged before he showed up, [and if it is really true that she was trying to make herself understood through her art, the evidence indicates that she was doomed to failure].  So a more generous reading might be: Hisao precipitates a problem that existed without him, and then helps Rin grow in a direction that she might not have grown without him.  I can just about get behind that story.  [If only Rin weren't so goddamn passive-to-passive-aggressive in the meantime, and if only we had better reason to hope that these two can ever understand each other well enough not to be perpetually frustrated with each other.]

[Yeah, he does bear some responsibility.  The closest he ever comes to actually trying to understand is in Act I, where he's like "durr whats the mural about" and she's like "durr i didnt have any ideas so i just painted a mural," and I guess he figures so much for that and never tries again.]  It was a great scene and the game is full of great scenes, but you're right that there was a lot of lost potential as far as how those scenes fit together and develop their themes.  I just finished Hanako's storyline, too, and -- apart from the ending, which was thought-provoking and original -- the story had the reverse problem: it was too predictable.  It lived up to its potential, but it was exactly what I expected it to be.  It contrasted with the moments in Rin's storyline where I was like "holy shit that blindsided me and it's amazing," which is probably why I found the ending disappointing.  Grr.  I'm all Goldilocks over here. 

I'm glad everyone is enjoying this.  I, also, found Rin's storyline to be rather schitzophrenic, chaotic and hard to piece together. [But then again, so is she, so in that context, it almost works.]

For anyone who's trying to gauge difficulty, I'd say Lilly's is probably the hardest storyline.  [There are six choices, and three of them matter.  You've got to nail ALL THREE perfectly to get the good ending... and you only see the good ending after what's considered the bad ending.]

Second-most difficult is probably Hanako.  I truly do like Hanako best of all.  [Again, to get the best ending, you have to nail the two choices that matter.]

Medium difficulty is Rin.  [Through all the chaotic branches and different choices, even some three-part choices, it's all going to come down to one decision whether or not you get the best ending, and it might not be the choice you suspect.]

Emi is pretty easy.  [You actually have to try pretty hard to get her worst ending.]

Shizune's, however, is the easiest.  [There's only one choice.  And that choice?  F*CK MISHA OR DON'T F*CK MISHA.]

All in all, it was a beautiful ride, and really handled the subject matter with class.

Coming out of lurk mode to comment on how thankful I am to hear this game is finished and playable, I had no idea!! I remember playing the demo several years (?) ago, and I thought it was fantastic! My favorite character at the time was the girl with the long, dark hair who had half of her face burned.

I am frightened to read the entire thread because I want to experience the game without preconceptions, but I do have a question or two….

1)    Can I play this game without a walkthrough and be able to get the ending for whomever I choose? I know in some of these games it isn’t as simple as –finding where the character you like is hanging out and being nice ever after- but in others, that is all you have to do. I like to stay away from walkthroughs if possible, but I would rather use one and get my chosen ending rather than screwing up the first play through.

2)    Are there H-scenes? I’m so curious!!

PS – Satyre, as I see you questioned whether all visual novels are this awesome, I must recommend to you my favorite EVER17. It has one of the most complex, yet, brilliantly resolved storylines I have ever experienced in ANY form of media. It takes several playthroughs to get to the bottom of the story, but it is well worth it. Also, Phantom Inferno* & Hourglass of Summer are two others that are at the top of my list (and I’ve played these games quite a bit!). I highly recommend them if you ever find yourself bored and in the mood for an amazing story, with characters that are written so well you feel as if you have made real friends by the time the story ends.
    *Contains H scenes

Frosty wrote:

1)    Can I play this game without a walkthrough and be able to get the ending for whomever I choose? I know in some of these games it isn’t as simple as –finding where the character you like is hanging out and being nice ever after- but in others, that is all you have to do. I like to stay away from walkthroughs if possible, but I would rather use one and get my chosen ending rather than screwing up the first play through.

It depends a lot on the object of your affections.  There are five eligible bachelorettes, and some of their stories are much more interactive (and therefore more challenging) than others.  You can definitely see Shizune's whole story on the first try without a walkthrough, but Rin and Hanako are harder; they both have a lot more choices than Shizune, and some of the choices matter and some of them don't, and it's not always obvious which are which.  On the plus side, holding down... I think it was Left-Ctrl... lets you zoom past scenes you've already seen, if nothing has changed, so it really is not that much trouble to get back to where you went wrong from the beginning of the game.

2)    Are there H-scenes? I’m so curious!!

Yes, and I haven't found any of them tasteless, though one or two were a little creepy (in a good way and for reasons having nothing to do with physical handicaps).
ETA: What I mean by this is that these scenes aren't creepy because the women's handicaps are fetishized.  That doesn't mean that their handicaps have nothing to do with it.

Last edited by satyreyes (05-27-2012 09:15:31 AM)

I still totally need to get the Hanako path.