R-90-2's Review node.

Hey there, folks. This is where I'll stack up all of my game reviews.
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Freespace 2
Developer: Volition software
Release date: 1999
Platform: PC
Genre: Space-combat shooter.
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Freespace 2 is the sequel to Descent: Freespace, a space-combat shooter created by Volition and Interplay in order to enter the void left by the seeming conclusion of the Wing Commander franchise with Wing Commander: Prophecy. While the original was certainly a competent game, the sequel takes the story, and the gameplay to new and interesting places.

The backdrop for the game is this. After the destruction of the Shivan battleship Lucifer, the formerly warring Terran and Vasudans found themselves in the same boat. The destruction of the Lucifer has cut off Earth from the rest of the Galaxy, and the Vasudan homeworld was destroyed by the Shivans. Now, thirty years later, the two races have forged an alliance, and have greatly expanded their own technologies in order to defend themselves against incursions from yet other unknown species. However, dissension in the Terran ranks about allying with a long-hated enemy has flared out into open, armed rebellion, and now the new alliance fights for its survival against enemies from within- and the Shivans are still out there, too.

Gameplay is quite familiar to anyone who has played games like Wing Commander, Freelancer, or other such games. All of the relevant information is easily accessible on the heads-up-display, including your weapons loadouts, ammunition, radar displays, objectives, and the status of major friendly and enemy targets, as well as the energy you have currently assigned to the functions of your fighter or bomber, such as guns, shields, and engines, plus the status of any enemy ship you have targeted. Flying and maneuvering is easy enough, and the interface is well-enough designed so that one could easily target an enemy warship and whatever individual turrets and systems one would like to do away with with only a few taps on the keyboard. The controls are easy to get a handle on, and don't require referencing the manual too often- the tutorials provided in-game are very thorough and cover all of the necessities for playing the game effectively. The tutorials will teach you all you need, and you'll need all that they teach.

While the ability to customize your own loadout for missions has been a staple of the genre since Wing Commander III, the Freespace series has taken it further. In addition to selecting your missiles and what ship you take out into space, you also have choice over your own primary weapons... As well as the ability to configure all of the above for all of the squadmates that are flying out with you, giving you the ability to change the composition of almost your entire fighter force on the fly to better suit your plans for tackling the mission at hand. This becomes immensely useful, especially as more craft become available in later missions. There is a rather large number of craft available throughout the game, as well, from interceptors to heavy bombers.

The missions themselves can be quite challenging, but, with a rare exception or two, never really unfair, boiling largely down to how you prioritize your presence among all of the things that demand your attention in battles that can proceed at a very hectic pace. One real triumph of the game's mission design is that it has managed to make escort missions interesting and fun, largely by turning many of such missions into battles of mutual support rather than babysitting- you take care of the bombers, and the warship's powerful weapons can help you destroy other warships or enemy fighters, and so on. On that note, large warships have real teeth in Freespace 2, often sporting powerful anti-fighter weapons like shield-piercing beams, flak guns, missile launchers, and cluster missile pods. Destroying the larger vessels requires real coordination with friendly warships and bombers.

The game presentation works well enough. The game's graphics were top-notch in 1999, and are still serviceable even nowadays. One of the major leaps that the original Freespace brought to the table was that warships were scaled correctly to the fighters, and the warships used by all sides are absolutely massive, creating some impressive flyovers even when in the middle of a dogfight. Battles between those warships are equally impressive, lashing out with massive beam cannons that can instantly vaporize your fighter if you stray into their path. The sound creation and editing is extremely well done, each weapon having their own unique sounds, and the anti-ship beams of each race has their own distinct sound, from the shrill whine of Terran beams to the deep rumble of Shivan weapons. Perhaps the real achievement, though, are the nebula sections, which not only cut down visibility but also your sensor range, making sudden attacks a real threat- plus ships emerge seamlessly out of the mist, with no clipping or pop up at all. perhaps the most effective use of this, though is in the mission titled "Monster in the Mist", where you have to carefully creep close to the hull of an enormous, three-and-a-half mile long Shivan warship, finding your way over and around its ridges and spines with no clue where this monster of a vessel begins or even ends.

The game structure itself is a rather linear campaign, but there are two sets of difficult special operations missions once can undertake in order to gain access to new craft that one wouldn't normally have available if one decided to pass them by, one of which is actually extremely powerful. The game does come with a tech room where you can access and replay any mission you have previously cleared, along side fluff and information about all of the vessels, friendly or enemy, that you have encountered in the game. A fair warning, though- the story ends on a cliffhanger that's unlikely to be resolved, as there was never a Freespace 3 and there won't be one in the forseeable future.

It's definitely worth playing, or at least giving a try, given that it's now about $6 on gog.com. Since the source code has been released, fans have also created the Freespace SCP mod, which adds in a great number of enhancements to the game to raise its graphics standards, including things like enhanced lighting and textures, as well as new, high-polygon models for all of the craft in the game. It's a must for fans of the genre, or even people looking to break into it.

Intro is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khIWdolT9xY

Screenshots: (All screenshots taken from the SCP 3.6.10 version)

There is no truly excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
-Franacis Bacon

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Katawa Shoujo
Developer: Four Leaf Studios.
Release Date: January 4, 2012.
Platform: PC
Genre: Visual Novel
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So, this may require a bit of explanation.

IN THE YEAR 2000, a doujin author who went by RAITA (who, to best of my knowledge, is now the head character designer for Valkyria Chronicles), decided to have a little fun in the back of one of the Comiket fanbooks. He sketched out ideas and broad outlines for a few principal characters for a bit of a novelty dating-sim where the main character was perhaps disabled in some way, and went to a special high-school for disabled folks. The idea was tentatively titled "Katawa Shoujo"- literally, "Disability girls". His final words about it at the bottom of the page were basically- "Wouldn't it be funny if someone made this game? Fast forward to 2006 or so, and the sketch eventually made it to 4chan's /a/ board. Aside from the usual jokes, a few people said "This game must be made", and it appeared that some people actually took that challenge seriously. While the organization began on 4chan, the team eventually drew in about 21 different people from various countries, and work began in earnest, soon divorcing themselves from 4chan and forming their own entity, Four Leaf studios. In the middle of 2009, the first demo was released, and it was soon apparent that this wasn't going to be about endless cripple jokes or other such low shenanigans, but that this was going to be taken perhaps more seriously than anyone believed. After four more demos, some complete rewrites, and the usual intra-staff strife, the Visual Novel was finally released on January 4 of this year, becoming an immediate sensation in certain circles. For some, it was the indie game equivalent of Brian's Song. Stephen Lea Sheppard of VICE magazine called it, in essence "The best joke ever told at the expense of bad visual novels." (also "I'm glad this came out when it did, otherwise I'd have to review Modern Warfare 3) How does it stack up over here? Well, that's what reviews are about! for those of you interested in trying it yourself, the thing is entirely free- Aura, one of the writers, said that "Money would make things complicated, so we decided not to deal with it."

So, Katawa Shoujo is an original English-Language Visual Novel (which amusingly, a few Japanese folks are fervently working on a translation patch for). this is to differentiate it from a full-on dating sim, which keeps track of simulationist-level concerns via stats, timekeeping and other sorts of math that the player has to manage through various actions they need to take throughout the game. Katawa Shoujo dispenses with all of this math, opting instead for a rather pure storytelling experience, acting instead more like a choose-your-own-adventure graphic novel than what might be conventionally called a game. As there are FAQs for other VNs on GameFAQs, I have decided to class this as a game, despite the lack of math, as you, the player, can make bad choices throughout the run of the story that lead to experiencing a loss condition. Besides:



So, the plot of the game is roughly this: In a scene that might remind some folks of the endings of other visual novels, our dude, Hisao Nakai, has gone out into the falling snow, having received a letter from his school crush, Iwanako, saying that she really needed to tell him something, but in private. He arrives as obligated, and she begins to confess her love for him. the tension of the scene mounts, and Hisao begins to sweat, his heart pounds... and then suddenly stops entirely, causing him to keel over in the snow. Hisao Nakai, high-school student, has suffered a near-fatal heart attack.

After spending 4 months in the hospital with not much to do but read and endure the teacher-mandated sympathy of his classmates, Hisao is informed that he will be released, but that returning to his old school would be highly dangerous due to his Cardiac Arrhythmia, so he's being sent off instead to Yamaku Academy, a well-funded school made to handle the needs of the physically disabled like himself, leaving everything behind while only seeming to gain a stack of medications for his rebellious blood-pumper. The only upside that he can find in the whole raw deal is that he's actually getting what amounts to a fresh start- and where it goes from there is largely up to the player.

The story itself is divided into four acts. The first act is a "shared act", where you make the decisions that affect which girl's "route" you end up on. As each route was handled by a different writer to keep attrition from halting the whole project, it is best to think of Act 1 as a sort of "character creation"- where you influence the kind of person who Hisao might get entangled with. However, even with this influence, Hisao does remain his own distinct character throughout- he's hardly the faceless protagonist one might find in other VNs- whatever route you choose, Hisao does still have at least a fairly consistent and distinct "voice" with which he relates the proceedings. He is also minus the usual romantic-protagonist foibles that plague other similar characters in anime- he doesn't, as Deskimus Prime said "Have chest-attracting magnets in his hands when he trips." As he's the character the player will spend the most time dealing with, it's good that he doesn't have any "quirks" that overstay their welcome. Each route will take about 4-8 hours to play through, depending on reading speed- my experience was at the lowest end of that range.

So, there are five characters who Hisao can become caught up with. Shizune, the competitive, deaf, gets-things-done-at-all-costs student council president who relies on her overly-loud best friend Misha to communicate to the outside world. Emi, a girl who lost her legs below the knees in a car accident, but, thanks to prosthetics, is now the school's track star through sheer determination. Rin, a seeming space case who, despite lacking usable arms, has managed to make do being a talented artist though amazing control of her feet. Lilly, who is tall, classy, and enjoys tea, the open country, and reading even though she's limited to braille due to being blind from birth. Finally there's Hanako, a shy bookworm who has difficulties with people, and spends much of her school time in the back of the library, as books tend not to care much about burn scars (and yes, being a burn victim is considered to be disability in Japan- there was a great deal of research done for this game).

The five routes vary a bit in their general quality, but what one can expect is the conspicuous lack of forced drama- that is, drama haphazardly imposed on the story from the big ol' cliche box. There are no sudden drunk speeding drivers, and better yet, no vague yet terminal diseases that only affect love interests. Any drama that exists tends to flow naturally from the characters, and the game isn't really necessarily about 'fixing' the issues of others. Making it to the good ending means that everyone involved is better for the experience, certainly, but Hisao is a high school kid, not a therapist, and no one is going to undergo a full 180, personality-wise, but everyone does get better for the whole thing, which I think is really he best way to handle this sort of thing, considering the general timeframe. It's not as though any of the characters is really "broken", either, and that's even the whole point of at least a couple fo the routes. Careful attention is paid to how each of the characters get around their disabilities or deal with them, done generally though describing action rather than out and out dialogue. Shizune slams doors all the time because she can't really hear it, Lilly is talked about as moving slowly and deliberately in all of her actions, as she is not nearly as aware of her surroundings as the sighted folks- there's even a fun bit involving a special chessboard made for blind players. Of course, the game really isn't "about" the disabilities more than is absolutely necessary, which is probably he greatest strength- it is, ultimately, a game about people, people with flaws and beautiful things and all that essential human stuff that I think most other games generally lack.

The secondary characters that make up the rest of the cast are fairly few, and some are also rather route-specific, but most of them do have something to add, from atmosphere to even advice to point you towards the good ending. In fact, in another break from tradition, most of the adults actually have useful advice to hand out to our protagonist, rather than being stupid or even actively adversarial to Hisao's romantic interests- even the most aggressively jerkish of the adults doesn't even really try to stop the girl from being with Hisao.

As for the actual play of the game, I am given to understand that Katawa Shoujo hits a sweet spot, as far as decision points go. The solutions are neither glaringly obvious, nor actively counter-intuitive. While the solutions may not seem immediately clear, but do become apparent if you've been paying attention to not just the dialogue, but also the character's mannerisms- the writing does place a fair emphasis on conveying body language as well as actual dialogue, so you'd best read things outside of quote marks. Just to be absolutely clear, however, the decision points are the entirety of the gameplay- it is, after all, billed as a visual novel.

Now, the thing I've kinda avoided talking about is the little rag on the side that reads: R18+. I've spoilered the following because genuine spoilers.



Art is king when it comes to the presentation of visual novels, and KS doesn't really disappoint. the art does have a fairy consistent feel for most of the characters involved, despite the fact that the game had multiple artists on hand for such duties. The only weak point I can think of are the backgrounds, which are fairly obviously real life photographs given a photoshop filter (the exterior sots of Yamaku Academy are actually pictures of Brown University in New England, for example). Still, it does stand out for what's technically an "amateur" project.

The soundtrack is excellent. It doesn't overwhelm the scene each piece was attached to, acting, as music should, as a compliment to the other aspects of the scene, and the actual sound effects, while limited in use, are also properly used- most notably the ominous heartbeat that pops up at certain points that reminds the player that Hisao is the only character in the main cast whose disability is directly life-threatening.

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Now, this would generally be the part where I come to a conclusion, but that's rather difficult, as KS seems to deliver an intensely personal experience, based on not only what character they connect with most, but indeed even on their own life experiences- such as how Veteran's Association psychologists seemed to connect most with Emi's route, and so on. So, the only experience I could reasonably expect to relate would be my own. Basically, after I played all five routes from front to back shortly after the game was released, I ended up being completely unable to play any other games for about two months afterwards (and I certainly tried). I'm not saying this to hype the game, and your own after-play experience would very likely be very different than mine, but this has never, ever happened before, and I'm what some might consider to be an old-school gamer- the original NES was my third gaming platform, my first roguelike was Rogue, and I can't say a game has ever had such an effect on me before. while I still stand by most of my Freespace 2 review, which as written pre-KS, I came out of the whole thing willing to be a fair bit harder on all games, even ones generally considered to be 'classic'. So even if i didn't come out of it as a better person, I think i came out of KS as a better gamer, at least.

So, really, I do at least recommend giving this game a try, and see what happens. no better price than free.
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Screenshots:

Katawa Shoujo looks awesome! Is there a download link?

Prince Rhys 83 wrote:

Katawa Shoujo looks awesome! Is there a download link?

I knew I forgot something.

http://katawa-shoujo.com/download.php This is the official download page, but you'll need a torrent client in order to download it from here. I recommend uTorrent, as it hasn't let me down yet.

There's also a direct download here, in case torrents make you nervous.

I do hope I didn't oversell it- nothing hurts an experience more than unrealistic expectations.

Oh, it's a great game! I now recognize your avatar as Hanako. I find myself intrigued by her story, the super shy girl who's always frightened to be around people. This game definitely has some replay value as you try to get the good ending with all the girls. I was up until close to 10 AM playing even though I had to be up five hours later! I'm only on the beginning of act 2 though. Yeah, I kinda was a bit indecisive in the first act and died. You're right, the right choice is not always glaringly obvious. Damn, good thing I had a save state not too far back so I could fix my mistake. ^_^"

Prince Rhys 83 wrote:

Oh, it's a great game! I now recognize your avatar as Hanako. I find myself intrigued by her story, the super shy girl who's always frightened to be around people. This game definitely has some replay value as you try to get the good ending with all the girls. I was up until close to 10 AM playing even though I had to be up five hours later! I'm only on the beginning of act 2 though. Yeah, I kinda was a bit indecisive in the first act and died. You're right, the right choice is not always glaringly obvious. Damn, good thing I had a save state not too far back so I could fix my mistake. ^_^"

Yeah, I tended to drop a save whenever I reached a decision point past act 1. there was a time I needed to go back quite a bit to fix some mistakes.

It's nice to see a review that goes to such depth in evaluating a game. Usually, even sites that make their living off reviews don't seem to put this much thought and effort into a review. I look forward to seeing what you might review next.

R-90-2 wrote:

So, Katawa Shoujo is an original English-Language Visual Novel (which amusingly, a few Japanese folks are fervently working on a translation patch for).

I feel like the whole world has been twisted upside down. The concept of an English game getting a Japanese translation patch is just so different from most of my experience with patches.

Oh man, a visual novel involving attraction to disability? That is something unusual...
... but my reputation here means that I've already downloaded the game

Dude, this game is freaking awesome. The music, illustrations and dialogue, along with the facial expressions really help you get into the story and feel deeply about it. I'm man enough to admit that I wept over four times at different parts, and that's only from the story about one of the girls! I want to play through again with the same girl, to learn more about the story that I may have missed on the first time through.

tilinelson2 wrote:

Oh man, a visual novel involving attraction to disability? That is something unusual...
... but my reputation here means that I've already downloaded the game

I wouldn't say it's about attraction _to_ disability, but if you've been playing the game since you made that post, you've probably figured that out by now.

Prince Rhys 83 wrote:

I'm man enough to admit that I wept over four times at different parts, and that's only from the story about one of the girls!

I think hat the most amazing thing about this game is that this seems to be a fairly common reaction.