Katawa Shoujo is Too Good

Original Katawa Shoujo artwork

Okay, back when I first heard about Katawa Shoujo I was more than a little concerned. It bloomed out of 4chan, which is well known as a site full of crude, creepy, and immature people. Members of the video game-specific board are always talking about getting into groups and making games, so I mostly just brushed references of this one aside. What set it apart from every other idea that bloomed there weekly before disappearing forever?

I guess it took a great deal of years but the game is finally out now. I wholly expected it to be a very trite dating sim experience which would probably insult a lot of people. Somehow though it's come out and been an amazingly caring experience. The writing isn't the best in the field, but it's a lot better than the majority of officially published releases (which isn't hard to do). Some parts of the game show obvious indie-ness (such as one character being drawn sketchier than the rest) but otherwise it is a very well put together package. There are points when I was very impressed with this as being an indie endeavor - such as some rather high quality animated sequences.

More than anything I was scared of what this game might be. Somehow though it's managed to treat each disabled character just like anyone else. They also seem to have done their research with working out how people adapt around this all. I'm amazed that something born out of 4chan isn't a degenerate piece of work. I think that's what impresses me the most. Even if you didn't know of its roots though the game is already on the list of my more favored VNs. I've not completed it yet but once I do I hope I'm left feeling happy about the game. I expect to write a piece later about how respectful and tasteful this game is sometime next week.