Koenchu! Prologue The Tale of the Voice Actress-You,the Sky

[sake-bento]

The demo download link is here: http://download.cnet.com/Koenchu/3000-7 ... 90154.html
(It moves around.)

The creators do post updates still, on the blog: http://blog.zerozigen.com/

[Eldinen]

In http://vndb.org/v2613 appears that the game is completely in English and other languages, although I suppose there was a mistake, right?

Or only exists in Japanese full version?

The truth is that I am interested in buying this game but can not find where to do it hehe

I hope you can help me with these questions

happy Holidays!

[exsul]

You can buy it here:
http://www.dlsite.com/eng/work/=/produc ... 87885.html

[Eldinen]

Thanks! But, can not I buy a physical copy?

But then, why they say the game is not complete in official website?

[sake-bento]

There's a facebook group where you can ask questions here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/118080768211128/
It's maintained by the original circle and the localization team.

[Eldinen]

Ok, thank you very much!

[gekiganwing]

Bought Koenchu from DLSite. After it finished downloading -- five large files -- it worked the first time. (I couldn't get the demo to start up.) So I started reading, and I kept going for maybe an hour. I don't know if this early feedback will help Zero Zigen, but if nothing else, it may help people here...

The first thing that attracted me to Koenchu was the character art. I liked it quite a bit -- there's quite a few girls in the game with detailed sprites which I find appealing. So far, two guys have appeared, both with a slightly more realistic appearance.

Also, there's even an animated opening sequence. The visuals alone are rather good for the money I paid.

Every now and then, typos appear, and the grammar becomes sloppy. It's a bit disappointing to see the game go from English to Engrish for a few sentences.

This seems to be a slice-of-life story about attending classes and learning how to be a good voice actor. There are a few scenes which seem slow and drawn out. (We really don't need any more "girl wakes up the protagonist" scenes, do we?) But the story seemed to be going along, and didn't appear to be plagued by angst or repetition.

I was rather surprised to see that Koenchu contains achievements and at least one mini-game. Not sure why the achievements are there, but after some decision points, the game alerts the player that something has been unlocked. And the first mini-game is a series of ten randomized trivia questions.

One of the things I apparently unlocked was a side story. But all the text was rendered as "DUMMY." So I assume that part hasn't been translated yet.

[shirow]

>gekiganwing

Can you send me message?
info　at zerozigen.com

[suikojay]

I bought this game maybe a month ago, and it has been quite a blast to play. My first play-through took about 8 hours (since I read kinda fast and didn't wait for the seiyuus to finish verbally speaking), and many others after that took only a few hours since I skipped over many of the already read texts, and reloaded previous save files where I thought all I had to do was a make a few changes in my choices to get a different ending, and it worked on quite a few occasions. I actually got all 16 endings plus the 1 true ending! I also managed to get almost all of the "Extra" goodies: "Tips"; "Event CGs"; "Radio" songs; & "Achievements". And aside from the 4 "typing" mini-game "Achievements", I'm only missing 3 more "Achievements".

Where the game really shines is in the personalities of each of the characters. Each person is quite distinct, and with the inclusion of voices, whether it be in Japanese or in English, it only further helps to set each character apart from one another. It is a bit disappointing, though, that there is generally only one in-game stance for each of the characters when Souta is around them. It would have been nice to see all the characters have different poses/stances. However, they do have a myriad of different facial expressions, as well as eyes that actually blink, which I must say is pretty cool! My favorite character is without a doubt Mikoto! With her bright smile and cheerful disposition, I knew that she was someone that I would grow to really care for in the game, and I did, very much so! I was easily engrossed with her storyline the most.

The music for the game is simply fantastic! Each musical piece, I thought, did an excellent job in complementing the mood and atmosphere of each scene. In fact, the sound test boasts a whopping 90 tracks! For a doujin game, that’s simply amazing, especially since many of them, in my opinion, are very good, too!

One of the things that disappointed me though was that all the "Tips" were either in Japanese or "Dummy" texts (since they weren't translated ouside of Japanese). Honoka's epilogue was the same way so I couldn't quite understand it - and believe me, I'd love to know how much Souta and Honoka's relationship had progressed! Also, every once in a while, too, there were "Dummy" texts that would show up in some of the routes, but generally, it wouldn't be during any real important scene from what I can remember, aside from Honoka's epilogue. However, the "True Ending" though (there's only 1 of them from what I can tell), is actually the 3rd to last "Tip", and unfortunately, it's also only in Japanese (or "Dummy" texts).

Also, I did want to mention the mysterious in-game "errors" that would occur sometimes after viewing one of the "Tips" or "Endings" (from the Ending list). This error would cause the program to close, so that was a bit irritating, especially since it seemed like u lost everything that u had achieved in the "Extra" categories prior to your last save. In addition, on Month 7, Week 1, when Souta goes to the cave to search for Kiri, sometimes it'll error out (and the program will close) when you choose the option "Return". Furthermore, there was one time, I believe after an error occurred, that one of the files needed to properly run the Koenchu! program got corrupted which caused the game to no longer run!! Whenever I tried to run the Koenchu! executable, an error would immediately occur and the program would close! It took a while, but I tracked it down to a corrupt file called "datasc.ksd" in the "savedata" folder. I just replaced that file with a new one and that took care of the "error". Unfortunately, though, this particular save file was for keeping track of ALL the things in the "Extra" category like the "Achievements", "Tips", "Event CGs", "Radio" songs, mini-games, mini-games scores, etc. So I lost all of that and had to earn them all again... So now what I do after I finish playing for the day, or if I'm ready to take a 5 minute break from playing the game, etc., I make a copy of the "savedata" folder just in case something like this happens again where I'll need to replace one of the files... and believe me, I'm afraid it might happen again! Every time one of those "errors" occur now, I feel a little nervous that it may have corrupted one of the files.

Another issue that I noticed is that once u close the program out (or if it errors out), it resets the text language back to Japanese. What I mean by that is if u were to open the Koenchu! program, and view one of the "Endings" from the Ending list or play the Quiz Mini-game, it would be in Japanese. And the only way to fix that is to start a new game in the "English" language or re-load one of your save files that use the "English" language. However, if you were to start a new game with the "Spanish" language, and view the mini-game, it would still be in Japanese! But at least the "Endings" from the ending list would be in Spanish. It would be nice if their was an option in the options menu to keep all text language in the "Extra" categories to whatever language u wish at all times.

One last issue that I noticed is that it seems that if you use the "Skip" feature, it seems like it sometimes skips parts that u haven't "read" before. So caution really needs to be utilized here when using that feature.

Now I do have a question for anyone else that has played this game. How do you unlock the secret "Typing" mini-game? The strange thing is, I haven't even played this mini-game yet! I'm honestly really baffled as to how everyone else seems to have. Thus, any help would be greatly appreciated on how to unlock this mini-game, let alone play it! I've done almost everything in this game, but play that mini-game, lol.

Overall, I think if a person is into visual novel games and character-driven stories, they should at least give the demo a shot if they haven't already. It’s free, after all! The full version will be more of the same, and then-some! And at the price it’s currently selling for now, around 6-7 U.S. dollars, it’s totally worth it!

[Slytex]

I recently bought the game, looks fantastic. Small problem though, I've never been able to play visual novels without some form of a guide or walkthrough. Amazingly, despite how great this game is, I wasn't able to find any kind of guide for the character routes.

Add to that, I didn't really know where to ask for help regarding this matter, but since this topic has been used "recently" I figured this was as good a place as any to start searching.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[suikojay]

I recently bought the game, looks fantastic. Small problem though, I've never been able to play visual novels without some form of a guide or walkthrough. Amazingly, despite how great this game is, I wasn't able to find any kind of guide for the character routes.

Add to that, I didn't really know where to ask for help regarding this matter, but since this topic has been used "recently" I figured this was as good a place as any to start searching.

Any help would be much appreciated!

I did email the creator, Masashirow, back in May, and he said that maybe he'll get to working on a strategy guide of sorts in the summer (not sure if he ever got to it, though). But in actuality, u don't really need one, the routes to get any of the girls are very easy. Just be nice to the girl that u are after, and choose options that'll make u spend the most time with that character (just make sure to save at each "choice" and reload to make sure that u pick the best option that does so). Back when I was playing the game, though, I couldn't really find much help either. However, u could try their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Koenchu, but I don't think anyone is really playing the game anymore, unfortunately - so the facebook page is kinda dead. I do still remember the routes a bit though, even though I haven't played in a while. The "hardest" ending to get, if u can call it "hard," is probably the best ending with Makoto. Let me know if u need any help, though!

Also, if u are able to get the typing mini-game, let me know! I've been trying to unlock that mini-game, but can't seem to do so. I think u have to play the game using the Japanese language, which I did do once, but I have a feeling I didn't make the right choices that would yield the option of playing/unlocking that mini-game.