Katawa Shoujo beta version leaked!

[Sean Hollyman]

....The fuck is Katawa Shoujo?

Play it and find out. You won't be disappointed.

But it looks like some kind or weird anime thing

Its a visual novel that deals with disabilities and how each girl is actually normal than what society thinks of them

Its written quite well and its not the typical cliche anime crap that people are exposed to

Average Reaction

Thanks for clearing that up.


Now I'll just be sure to clear my way and move on.

 

[Breaker deGodot]

....The fuck is Katawa Shoujo?

Play it and find out. You won't be disappointed.

But it looks like some kind or weird anime thing

Appearances can be misleading. It's not Japanese; it was actually made by an international group of 4chan users. Go figure.
It's also one of the most memorable gaming experiences I've ever had, if not THE most.

 

[boag]

I thought dating sims were like... happy?

Dude, you have no idea, dont ever look too deep into the barrel else youll find some really sad ones, or possibly some NTR rage.

 

[NeutralDrow]

I'm going to ignore everything I just read. I'd prefer not to consider Katawa Shoujo and Hitomi: My Stepsister in the same category of game.

Since it didn't actually happen, though (clearly), I'm not upset. Don't even need the brain bleach.

Except in response to the people who find Shizune's original route to be preferable. I'm going to indulge my hyperbolic instinct for once, and just say...go die in a fire, and leave my student council girls alone.

I thought dating sims were like... happy? Haven't played it myself, but from what I understand there's some bad stuff in mid-game and the bad ends are usually depressing but... jesus damn.

Despite the sarcastic responses you've already gotten, they really can go either way. Most usually use happy "main" endings, but there are quite a few that pack in the bittersweet and downright depressing endings.

It's even more of a contrast when you talk about visual novels in general, not just dating sims.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Wait a second. People play dating-sims nowadays? Since when? I thought this was a Japanese thing.

Is this like a thing that is spread around schools or just some minority?

Just some minority of us. They're already a niche genre in Japan, so we're even more of a niche outside Japan, and generally limited to stuff that's been translated (either officially or through fan-work).

Well...it's more visual novels, really. I've only played two or three "true" dating sims (it's basically like the distinction between a text-based adventure game and an RPG).

 

[Spector29]

snip

Well, playing through her published arc isn't the best dynamic to think about when approaching the subject of Beta!Hanako.

The first boy might've tripped her feeling, though it probably wouldn't be horrible. If she thought she killed another boy that loved her, she might be inclined to irrationally believe she was responsible for her parent's death.

And taking somebody's pills away is just screaming death for somebody.

EDIT: Before I get killed. let me say I do agree this is more for shock value. I just disagree when you say the beta says Dating girls who have problems aren't worth dating or to inhuman to befriend.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Wait a second. People play dating-sims nowadays? Since when? I thought this was a Japanese thing.

Is this like a thing that is spread around schools or just some minority?

For the most part, you're right. Katawa Shoujo is a special case in that it was made by a western team who met on 4Chan, and it got heavy coverage in the mainstream gaming press. A /lot/ of people played and loved it, probably at least as many as your average AAA game. The number of people who went on to play other visual novels, on the other hand, is probably much smaller, being a small minority of the people who played KS.

 

[Spector29]

You just sent me a friend request, and I accepted. Any potential rudeness on ether of our parts is accedental.

Now to the nitty-gritty.

How young was she when the first boy tripped her emotions? Because Hanako in the original arc tells us how she grew up being judged and bullied, shunned even by schools. She had a whole lot on her plate when growing up, so in this beta I can't really say this excuse to make her more unstable is agreeable on.

It doesen't say how old she is, but as to your second sentence; That's true. Now imagine what is possibly the first person since the accident to not only be friendly, but has romantic affections? I think the naturally shy and not-yet coped Hanako would flee, and Boy would give chase. When Boy dies, Hanako could come to the conclusion that if she didn't flee he would be alive. Stack that up with the probable increase in abuse because of the incident, Hanako could very well be unstable.

Even if it did cause her to really be at fault thus fall into a deeper depression, her personality is inflicted thus you see her differently then we do in the original arc.

...I don't really understand what you're trying to say here.

You might notice I keep comparing this Hanako to the original Hanako... but that's because the way the original story did it- was perfect. This demo tries way to hard, and ends up being one of those 'pushing a dating game into something else' category.

Absolutely, Final!Hanako is far and away better than Beta!Hanako. We're in agreement here, I'm just trying to explain why Beta!Hanako could at least exist.

Why did Hisao believe flushing pills down the toilet was going to help in any way?

Because he's an idiot. I'd thought Rin and Emi's routes would've told ya that. =P

Also why did the creator find Hanako's death to be reasonable in the good ending? Have those events in the bad ending at least, why must these good endings contain the worst possible outcome unless otherwise? See, it feels as if they wanted to leave us shocked and to remember but it's a poor way of doing so.

I said this before and I'll say it again; Sometimes, life just shits on you. THAT adds realism, even if it's really, really, camp.

Not to mention Hanako won't be as likable or understandable in this demo. What brought us to love KS is because the characters were actually realistic and were believable, along the lines that they weren't cliche' and not sex tools. Hanako in this demo sounds like a psychotic attention grabber, who cannot be sane and of course Hisao has to go all depressing too. He's not zombie like, never was and if anything he would try to least help Hanako no matter what (even in Hanako's bad ending, he tries helping her despite getting screwed over which he pushed Hanako over the edge).

Beta!Hanako isn't cliche, and is at least somewhat realistic in context. When you say Hanako won't be as likable, I think that'd only be true in hindsight, which as we all know is 20/20.

Also, you just made me realize something. Beta!Hanako and Final!Hanako's bad ends are very similar, just subtracting death.

Another thing, in Hanako's bad ending in the original she just yells and shows her anger. In this one, the demo.. she goes crazy and ends up in the mental institution over Hisao having a heart attack? .. Sure she could get highly scared and freak but it's understandable for people to act that way when they're trying to save someone. See, as I mentioned this demo just wants to darken Hanako's character but to a standard it's grim for the sake of wanting us emotional when really it's not fitting for Hanako in the least.

That's not true, Beta!Hanako ends up in the mental institution regardless. The bad end is Hisao deciding he doesen't have to wait and flipping out Hanako in the process.

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

...

Yea, no.

Is it just me, or are they just sort of forcing the tragedy down our throats? I can take sadness, but that just seems like something you'd put in your story to make it more "emotional" than it really was.

 

[Marik2]

The number of people who went on to play other visual novels, on the other hand, is probably much smaller, being a small minority of the people who played KS.

Yeah the popularity of KS polarized the audience from "This is the best game ever and I dont care about other visual novels" and "I want to see what the genre can offer"

Which is usually what happens when something "mainstreams" a genre

 

[loudestmute]

Maybe the dev team figured that they've already gotten their "dark and edgy" cred from featuring a school of handicapped kids. Or that the scenes set a tone that getting to know the disabled people in your neighborhood will only lead to pain and suffering, an idea that they set out to debunk from the start.

Spoiler: About Misha...

Also, Misha was supposed to be a tranny/futa or something.

So yeah. You ask 4chan to design a game, it helps to have a little editing and rewriting.

 

[Spector29]

So yeah. You ask 4chan to design a game, it helps to have a little editing and rewriting.

True that. In a hundred different ways.

 

[In Search of Username]

For those of you not wanting to play to find out information, Hanako's endings are as follows:

Spoiler

Looks like there's a lot of missing text, but it seems Hisao had another heart attack, and Hanako saved him with CPR. Hisao wakes up in the hospital with broken ribs, and they plan to put a pacemaker in. Hanako is in a locked facility for mental patients. The doctors tell Hisao about how Hanako ran from a boy who confessed to her in middle school, and when the boy chased her he got hit by a car and died. I'm not sure what happened when Hisao had the heart attack, but apparently he was also chasing Hanako.

You can choose to disobey the doctors' orders to not see Hanako. Hisao and Lilly go to her room and find her mumbling "I killed them all." She sees Hisao and freaks out and shoves him in the chest and he starts puking blood and dies.

If you wait, Hanako visits you after the pacemaker is put in and the doctors allow her to leave. Everyone goes home but Hanako is unresponsive and just stares with her head down. Over the next few days, Hanako continues to act all zombie-like, barely conversing even with Lilly. Eventually she is in Hisao's room, and asks him why he loves her. Hisao can't really answer immediately, and Hanako claims that he wants her body and begins to undress, and lays down emotionless on Hisao's bed. You can choose to have sex with her or tell her to get dress.

If you choose sex, as soon as you penetrate her she freaks out about how Hisao really does only want her body. Hisao stands up quickly in shock, trips because of the pants around his ankles, and breaks his neck on the desk. He is paralyzed, and dies right after Hanako calls him disgusting.

If you tell her to get dressed, she does and leaves your room in tears. Hisao realizes that Hanako isn't the same person anymore and goes into her room and tears it apart looking for her pills. He flushes them down the toilet. The next morning, Hanako acts normal, claiming that it feels like the fog has been lifted from her mind. Hisao excitedly invites her on a date. They go to a park or something where they had their first kiss. Towards the end of the date, Hanako acts more depressed than usual. She says she's sick so she wants to take the subway home instead of walking. At the subway, she talks about how all she ever does is hurt and kill people, and that she doesn't want to hurt people anymore. She throws herself in front of the train.

Man, that is just... like, who would even write that? Where's the happy ending?

That said, I might prefer Shizune's beta route to the bullshit that was the real one. It was just bad in countless ways.

 

[In Search of Username]

For those of you not wanting to play to find out information, Hanako's endings are as follows:

Spoiler

Looks like there's a lot of missing text, but it seems Hisao had another heart attack, and Hanako saved him with CPR. Hisao wakes up in the hospital with broken ribs, and they plan to put a pacemaker in. Hanako is in a locked facility for mental patients. The doctors tell Hisao about how Hanako ran from a boy who confessed to her in middle school, and when the boy chased her he got hit by a car and died. I'm not sure what happened when Hisao had the heart attack, but apparently he was also chasing Hanako.

You can choose to disobey the doctors' orders to not see Hanako. Hisao and Lilly go to her room and find her mumbling "I killed them all." She sees Hisao and freaks out and shoves him in the chest and he starts puking blood and dies.

If you wait, Hanako visits you after the pacemaker is put in and the doctors allow her to leave. Everyone goes home but Hanako is unresponsive and just stares with her head down. Over the next few days, Hanako continues to act all zombie-like, barely conversing even with Lilly. Eventually she is in Hisao's room, and asks him why he loves her. Hisao can't really answer immediately, and Hanako claims that he wants her body and begins to undress, and lays down emotionless on Hisao's bed. You can choose to have sex with her or tell her to get dress.

If you choose sex, as soon as you penetrate her she freaks out about how Hisao really does only want her body. Hisao stands up quickly in shock, trips because of the pants around his ankles, and breaks his neck on the desk. He is paralyzed, and dies right after Hanako calls him disgusting.

If you tell her to get dressed, she does and leaves your room in tears. Hisao realizes that Hanako isn't the same person anymore and goes into her room and tears it apart looking for her pills. He flushes them down the toilet. The next morning, Hanako acts normal, claiming that it feels like the fog has been lifted from her mind. Hisao excitedly invites her on a date. They go to a park or something where they had their first kiss. Towards the end of the date, Hanako acts more depressed than usual. She says she's sick so she wants to take the subway home instead of walking. At the subway, she talks about how all she ever does is hurt and kill people, and that she doesn't want to hurt people anymore. She throws herself in front of the train.

Man, that is just... like, who would even write that? Where's the happy ending?

That said, I might prefer Shizune's beta route to the bullshit that was the real one. It was just bad in countless ways.

 

[Denamic]

I thought dating sims were like... happy? Haven't played it myself, but from what I understand there's some bad stuff in mid-game and the bad ends are usually depressing but... jesus damn.

Katawa Shoujo is a visual novel. Dating sims are something completely different.
If you think this is dark, you really have no idea what's out there.
Shit like Swan Song can put anyone into a week-long depression.

 

[scorptatious]

Wow. That's just... Wow. That's some pretty crazy stuff there.

I have a feeling that people who wanted a Misha arc would get pretty pissed at this version of Shizune's endings as, if I'm reading this right,

Spoiler

she dies no matter what you do. As if having no arc wasn't bad enough. :/

...

Nope.

Nope.

Spoiler: I CAST ADORABLE ON THIS THREAD

The girls in their younger years? Also, Misha looks especially adorable here.

 

[Spector29]

Agreed, I can see how overlapping one tragedy to another can break people especially if they're as young as this. However, the case of the little boy dying with the car hitting him makes me question something... was no one around to stop them from running outside the school? Usually schools least in America have fences all around and quite a bit of supervision.

Well, it's supposed to be set in Japan, which has notoriously unsafe road traffic.

Another thing, was there no one to comfort or help Hanako? Not the boy's parents, none of the school's teachers, no friends? What about those who are looking after Hanako? Also what of Lilly? Why does her friendship not toll or matter to Hanako as time progresses when Hisao is around? Yeah he had the heart attack and she freaked but to send her to the insane institution[...]

Well, no one stopped her bullying before. If the adults somehow thought she was responsible for a 'normal' boy's death, they might well encourage bullying her.

That has happened. Not in that exact way, mind.

[...]thus Hanako wanting to kill people along with other crazy matters? This just seems like it need more depth or reasoning before I accept it to be possible.

Whoa Woah, hang on. Beta!Hanako does not want to kill people, she just feels responsible for killing them.

As true as that is... I dislike the concept. Personally, this should only be for the bad ending or least an alternative manner. I don't want to play a KS game I get so deeply attached to or towards a character for that matter just so I (if not Hisao too) gets screwed. Realism can have something like that happen, but to make it so dramatic where there's not even one good thing coming out of the ending for Hanako, you might as well call both her endings bad and crappy.

You could make a case that the Good Ending is only good because one person dies, not two. Because Hanako would totally commit suicide if she directly killed Hisao.

Other issue I see with this factor is Lilly's importance. She is a great deal to Hanako, I assume. Why does Hisao's heart attack cause her to go down this road and doesn't ever recover? How come Hisao allows this to harm his personality so badly he is dead inside? What does Lilly do to help anyone out at this point in both parties? To me, it seems like the message is, "Hanako is a girl you just can't save, and though you love her... she's going to die thanks to your dumb mistake." ... Jeez ..

To answer those in order; She deems herself responable for the death of two potental lovers and her family. One friend will do zilch.

Two: Hisao isn't ever portrayed as dead inside, i'm farely sure.

Three: "What could she do?" is a better question at that point, honestly.

Four: Well, maybe my theme was more right than I joked. "No matter what you do, bad things happen."

Must say, I have to disagree on this. A lot of animes including some Dating Sim games go for the psychotic road for a character. I could name and link you to three of them if you'd like, which deals with a girl having a troubled past and snaps into insanity only for things to fall flat. Here are the links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_Days_%28visual_novel%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yume_Miru_Kusuri:_A_Drug_That_Makes_You_Dream

Also, I disagree because she won't be likable at all to those who've adored and loved her character in the original.

Well, there's also the Shrinking Violet Wallflower character too. I imagine a hypothetical Finished!Beta!KS would deconstruct that particular trope too.

And yeah, the whole unlikeable thing is probably a given.

.. Oh, I just realized that too lol. But least Hanako in the original just subsided into sadness instead of killing herself. It's more of a 'no one understands me, please leave' then the 'time to kill myself because screw life!' moment.

That's a little subversive of her motivations. Screwing the life that killed two potential lovers and her family, plus put her on the path on constant bullying is kinda reasonable.

I'm at least glad they gave you the option to not make love to Hanako, because sadly in the original Hisao does her no matter what when she was opening up to him in an emotional manner *facepalm*. Still, Hanako to me is nothing of insane. She's just misunderstood and everything in the original is fine as it is. Not against this demo, nor will get on people for liking it but I don't approve of the demo's methods in trying to shock us especially with the endings especially how in the good you lose Hanako anyways.

I don't "Approve" of it ether, but I at least understand why it could exist.

 

[lacktheknack]

Wait a second. People play dating-sims nowadays? Since when? I thought this was a Japanese thing.

Is this like a thing that is spread around schools or just some minority?

It's a dating sim that 4Chan collectively decided they wanted to make.

So they did.

And then pretty much everyone who heard of it played it and liked it.

It's an exception, not the rule.

 

[springheeljack]

Well I think it is a good thing that they kept everything the way it was because that sounds overblown and a little stupid