Since I have time at the moment and in order to put a bit life in this community, I will post some recommendations for older games in the coming days.

This post here about a demake of Katawa Shoujo reminded me that I wanted to make a post about the original for a long time and maybe I could interest someone in trying it out (it’s free! and good!).

What is Katawa Shoujo?

It is a dating sim at a high school for handicapped students. Made by Four Leaf Studio, some people who found each other on 4chan. And before those of you, who know that board only for its edginess and strange green texts, close this post: what might go through your head at this moment couldn’t be further from the truth. This game handles the topics around being handicapped in my opinion very respectfully by portraying all the cast as what they are: teenagers at high school first, with admittedly unusual circumstance second. But it is not the main driver of drama, only just a part of it that sometimes complicates their coming of age. While this game was made by people originally from an internet forum, it is not full of nowadays old pop culture references or other typical internet humor you might associate with it. And it also isn’t a pity party for the students. Your protagonist isn’t that strong of a character admittedly, but he develops with the route’s female main character and also helps them overcome personal problems. But if you play different routes, you will see that they also develop without your presence as teenagers normally do.

A Visual Novel lives from its main characters and those in KS are all memorable and didn’t felt like one dimensional ones to me. And no, it’s not just for the erotic content. The developers even released a cut version on steam without the naughty bits and people still praise it a lot. Because the stories are just that good. Does it have some clichéd situations? Sure. But a literature tool can be interesting or boring, depending on the skill of the writer. Each route/female main character was written by a different team and while that is recognisable in the different writing styles (and sometimes in how certain characters behave a bit different in different routes), I did not feel that one is weaker than another. I like certain character routes more, but that is because I can identify far more with them. The heart to heart talk with Rin, the armless painter, was something I did not expect and which made me felt understood, because she spoke about how she felt in a way that I also experienced, that I myself couldn’t really put in words before. That changed my opinion of this character from simple comic relief to a much more fleshed out person I can identify with. Other main characters are Lilly, the blind tea drinking proper lady; Hanako, her shy friend with burn and emotional scars who befriended Lilly because she couldn’t see the physical scars; Emi, the energetic runner with leg prostheses and friend of Rin and finally Shizune, who is mute and deaf but doesn’t let that stop her from being the most forceful and stubborn character in the game.

The game idea started with a single page by doujinshi artist RAITA about the idea of disabled girls at a school for handicapped teenagers without any deeper thought into it. Years later the picture surfaced again on the internet and 4chaners began talking about “wouldn’t it be funny to develop that game?” And from there it evolved over years into the finished product. In the end the original draft by RAITA only provided the characters visual basis (their handicap so to say), character wise it was a completely original concept by the developers themselves.

And honestly, it is free (Steam version as well), I highly recommend that you try it at least, if the concept of visual novels doesn’t put you off.

And if you got the manly picnic at first like me, just start again and more strongly commit ;)