Katawa Shoujo released

[Taleweaver]

Considering that the quote is completely fabricated, isn't it a bit silly to accuse her at this point?

I'm not sure the quote is fabricated. I can very well imagine the Faux News people confronting her with the "guy amputates his arms after playing Rapelay 2" headline and getting that comment from her, in which case she's at least jumping to false conclusions ("Katawa Shoujo is another game endorsing sexual violence like Rapelay"). And considering the buzz that Katawa Shoujo is making all over the internet, I find it hard to believe that she'd have never heard of the game before and shouldn't know that, unlike Rapelay, sex isn't the main focus of Katawa Shoujo.

If Faux News knowingly made that quote up for her, isn't that, like, not just bad journalism but also libel? If I publicly quote Blue Lemma with saying "I think Rapelay is a wonderful game, and I think it will inspire many people to treat women the way they deserve to be treated", couldn't BL, like, sue me for that?

[PyTom]

Is Fox News involved at all? As far as I can tell, it seems like CNN was the only organization suckered in by this.

CNN calls their user-submitted journalism iReport, where as Fox calls it the totally different uReport. But more importantly, CNN allows users to initiate stories (like this one), where Fox tends to ask users to contribute content to existing stories (like asking for pictures of a tornado).

CNN tends to be the one that's more experimental with reporting techniques - probably because they have a lot less viewers.

[papillon]

It's nothing to do with Fox, no.

The "quote" from EN comes straight from the original made up article on the joke site. It's not a reaction being presented by a different site with actual journalism. It's directly on the site which is a BLATANT FAKE SITE, linking to a joke blog, which is full of fake celebrity death reports which are ALSO full of manufactured quotes and so on. Even Kotaku can see this is a troll!

There's really zero reason to believe that in the middle of making stuff up for giggles, they suddenly decided to pause, track down a real-life busy individual, convince her they were legitimate journalists with a story that they hadn't yet printed even on their own joke site, and get a legitimate quote from here.

[Taleweaver]

Yikes, you're right. I saw this...

My screen at the time of reading

And I jumped to the wrong conclusions.

However, I think I'll just ask EN on their position on Katawa Shoujo. Then we know what they think

[mugenjohncel]

So did anyone see CNN's iReport site was running a story based on Katawa Shoujo? Turned out it was made up, though...

And the first thing that went to my mind is... "Get out KS Devs!... Sage and Reported for Viral Marketing!"

But in all seriousness, while KS is pretty much above average at best... and while it's true that "some" of their marketing practices are pretty much frowned upon like the countless 4chan spams and so forth... no one can't deny all that attention-whoring and Viral Marketing really did produce positive results and is a good example for us lesser known devs to follow their example on how to spread awareness on your work.

"SMILES" (Problem Sir?)

[Blane Doyle]

*headdesk* This is like the argument against violent games (which, by the way, have been found in studies to actually NOT cause violent tendencies). Oi...

[Anarchy]

Well, as a psych major who has taken classes on the psychology of aggression before, the general consensus of decades and decades of research on media violence has generally shown a strong link between viewing violent media and aggressive behavior. The general public tends to think that psychologists are saying, oh if you play this violent game you are going to go out and murder somebody, which is absolutely ridiculous and not what experimental studies are about. The only thing we're saying is that playing violent videogames is a risk factor for aggressive behavior. Like driving a car while drunk is a risk factor for getting into an accident, or how not exercising is a risk factor for heart disease. It's not the only factor, it's one of many other factors that increase the likelihood of aggression, like being male, or being abused when you were a kid. Just like not all guys are violent psychopaths, and not all abused kids grow up to abuse their own kids, it's not a simplistic, black-and-white, "you play violent videogames, you will become a violent rampaging psycho" thing. Behavior is a complex thing, and I just hate it when people draw simplistic conclusions from studies and think that that's what psychologists are trying to "prove". (There's no such thing as proof, there's only evidence that supports a certain conclusion beyond a certain reasonable doubt, damn it).

Sorry for the rant, it's just a pet peeve of mine when people cite dubious research funded by videogame companies and go it's a FACT that videogames DON'T CAUSE violent behavior, when most competently-executed studies tend to show the opposite. And then people latch on to it just because they don't want to think that videogames might be a risk factor for violence, just like industrial countries don't want to believe global warming exists.

Anyway, *cough* not to go too off-topic-

My sentiments are generally close to Taleweaver's, personally. I think the writing of KS is serviceable at best and mediocre at worst (except for certain hilarious and/or thought-provoking lines from certain characters - you know who I mean). It could have done with a lot of extra editing and tightening. I do think that it looks more polished and sophisticated (bar some dodgy CGs and the photoshopped backgrounds) than many amateur works. The technical and artistic aspects are excellent. The length and the amount of content is great for an amateur work, but as people have pointed out, they may have sacrificed quality for quantity. However, I still have great respect for the group of people and the amount of effort and the sheer length of time they put into this.

Personally, if it had been released as just another work on this forum without all the hype, I probably wouldn't have given it a second glance. Just because it's not my type of game. Really not into generic high school BxG romance. I literally fell asleep multiple times while playing through Lilly's and Shizune's route. Rin's route is probably the only one I've even remotely enjoyed so far, because at least it has at least a kind of original conflict going on instead of generic romantic cliches and overused character tropes that you see so often in generic high school anime. Nothing against anybody who genuinely enjoys those romance tropes though. It's just not for me.

[Blue Lemma]

I played the Hanako and Shizune routes so far. There's no question the production values for KS are very high for an OELVN, and the script is commercial-length. It's also very impressive that the team was able to complete such a large project and work for so long on it. It has good music, plenty of CGs, even some animation which was cool... My problem comes down to this:

The story is not interesting.

Don't get me wrong... It's okay... but it's the weakest yet most important part of the game. I constantly found myself pressing the space bar as fast as I could humanly speed-read, waiting for something interesting to happen. So much felt like filler or just plain unnecessary (i.e. Kenji, Shizune's dad, the whole Shizune trip....) The disappointing fact is that I just didn't really care much what happened to the characters most of the time. That is what separates KS from the best VNs out there. The conflicts were often boring or confusing - wasted opportunities to draw the player in.

On the Shizune path, when

I took the "okay, let's get a bad end" choice and "comforted" *coughcough* Misha, I was actually excited after that because there was suddenly some drama in the story! Dude sleeps with girlfriend's best friend! And best friend was interested in dude's girlfriend! That's Maury/Springer stuff right there. I was excited to see how this would all unfold!

.... but then they wasted it by having the story after that turn into a boring game of hide-and-seek mixed with trying to navigate the drama between two girls ever so painfully until you

actually hit the bad end.

(yawn)

And somehow, Hisao didn't seem to feel all that guilty about having sex with her, either. That was kind of strange.

Hanako's path was sweet and entertaining, though I wanted to slap her sometimes >_< Actually, more like I wanted to slap the writer (ever so gently of course) because he/she certainly imparted the sense of frustration involved from dealing with Hanako's mental issues. But the protagonist should feel frustrated. Not the player. Still, I'd give him/her a hug after the mini-slap for making such a sweet, cohesive story.

Overall it's enjoyable, but I have a feeling I'm going to run out of steam before trying all 5 main paths. This is certainly a top-tier OELVN on the whole, but I can't say it's my favorite. Not even close. Actually, I'm a bit concerned it will have the effect of introducing new people to VNs where they'll think they're too verbose and boring. (Then again, many are but that's beside the point ) Put me in the Taleweaver and Anarchy camp. Longer isn't always better.

So much potential with this much dedication, and so much potential unrealized. If it came out of nowhere, I'd be thinking "cool!" and probably have a better overall impression. However, with the exposure and hype it got, plus the amount of time put in, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed.

Personal opinions on the story aside, congratulations to the KS team for taking a good shot at a huge project and following through. They clearly put in a ton of work, and we may never see a free OELVN project this size with such production value ever again.

[LeandroP]

I actually enjoyed a lot the game. Wether some paths were a little bit boring, others were great. I love how they developed Lilly's and Hanako's path.

They are actually intrincated because there are lack of hints on what you should do. You can get bad, neutral or good ending without even notice.

Emi's path

seemed to me to be a little bit predictable and choices were actually kind of obvious to make.

Shizune's path

was boring and the lack of important choices made it longer than it should have been.

I didn't finished Rin's path,

but I recommend you to play it before Emi's path, It gets really hard to see her as something more of a friend after leaving her to last.

I want more Kenji! He must have his own VN about his struggle with the feminists!

[Anna]

Just finished Rin's path. It really touched me, which is funny since I thought Emi's path was boring and annoying. Anyway, my gosh, there were some really great scenes with a lot of impact, especially if you consider they don't do much. It mostly goes into reasoning, mental states and thoughts, but it's very interesting.

The last line of her (good end) route really touched me too, it was impressive. What a bitter-sweet route.

[silenteve]

I haven't played through Rin, Lily, and Shizune's paths. I'm in the middle of Hanako's and Emi's (I'm playing them simultaneously, switching off after every option.)
I'm not looking forward to Shizune's path, because from Act 1, I'd decided to hate her. She irritates me with her bossiness. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to Rin's path. She's my favorite, and from what I hear, her route's pretty good.
I like the quality of the game. However, I dislike the script. Some of the things being said was cheesy and at times, there was so much unnecessary dialogue I just skipped through the scene as quickly as I could. The amount of CG to obtain is overwhelming, but I'm ok with that because they're gorgeous and I love lots of CG The animation is ok, I really liked Hanako's opening animation ^^ However, compared to that, I think Emi's was sub-par.

Still, I think it's a worthwhile game. Can't wait to finish.

[Greeny]

The first ending I got was Kenji's. I'm like, story of my life. TT_TT

Anyways, Taleweaver & Co have a valid point, but I do feel the good outweighs the bad. But maybe that's because I didn't play the Shizune route.
Although several times during Hanako's route I felt like punching the protagonist for being such an idiot. Actually, make that many times during the
whole game.

Though I have to say, Emi

is a terrible girlfriend. At one point during her route I was like, "screw this, I want a different girlfriend". I honestly would have dumped her if given the option. But alas, my striving for the best ending took priority.

Near the end of Hanako's route,

the sex scene just felt so wrong. At least the game admits it was wrong, but I'd still rather not have had to go through that.

[LeandroP]

The first ending I got was Kenji's. I'm like, story of my life. TT_TT

Anyways, Taleweaver & Co have a valid point, but I do feel the good outweighs the bad. But maybe that's because I didn't play the Shizune route.
Although several times during Hanako's route I felt like punching the protagonist for being such an idiot. Actually, make that many times during the
whole game.

Though I have to say, Emi

is a terrible girlfriend. At one point during her route I was like, "screw this, I want a different girlfriend". I honestly would have dumped her if given the option. But alas, my striving for the best ending took priority.

Near the end of Hanako's route,

the sex scene just felt so wrong. At least the game admits it was wrong, but I'd still rather not have had to go through that.

Try Lilly's route.

Is the only route that has a really good development IMO. Hanako's route is too darn short!

[Obscura]

Don't get me wrong... It's okay... but it's the weakest yet most important part of the game. I constantly found myself pressing the space bar as fast as I could humanly speed-read, waiting for something interesting to happen. So much felt like filler or just plain unnecessary (i.e. Kenji, Shizune's dad, the whole Shizune trip....) The disappointing fact is that I just didn't really care much what happened to the characters most of the time. That is what separates KS from the best VNs out there. The conflicts were often boring or confusing - wasted opportunities to draw the player in.

I finally played the game...I basically spacebarred my way through three of the relationships. Is it sad I didn't even bother reading after about two minutes in?

I have no idea what happened other than it seemed like the characters talked a lot. It seemed like it was an extremely slow process to get from point A to point B.

The artwork was very pretty and I was impressed there was animation. Otherwise...what was this?

It's cool it got a lot of attention though. The writing just totally was not my thing.

[Daggett]

I guess I was one of the lucky one that just recently discovered this game. Instead of being one of the people waiting for it to come out. I liked it a lot. Rin's route annoyed me, but I got Hanako's good end first play through so I was happy. It seemed very slice of life to me. Not just like a wham bam thank you ma'am type game.