An amazing game that has a unique undertone that will leave you wishing it didn't have to end.

User Rating: 9 | Katawa Shoujo Act 1 PC
I've gone through a few of these visual novels before. As such, Key has produced the majority of my favorites amongst my collection. Anyone who's played Clannad should have the bar for visual novels set to 11, which makes most games seem to pale in comparison. I was completely unaware of this game's existence until 3 days ago when a friend of mine shared a wallpaper depicting one of the heroines of the game. Reading the comments, I discovered the name of the game and Google'd it out of sheer boredom. I can thoroughly say that I'm glad I did. The website for the game has its history on its development so I won't bore people with the details, suffice to say: ITS FREE!

As this is a completely indie game, its length is nowhere near comparable to so visual novels, but that doesn't mean the game isn't good. This is honestly one of the best games I've played in the past few months, reviving my interest in visual novels all over again in the hopes that I can find something this quality story-wise.

The game takes place at a school for physically handicapped children, and as such, you quickly realize that the heroines in this game are stronger than the main character in many rights. They each have something uniquely wrong with them, but they each have found ways to overcome their problems, and further more, they help the main character grow.

I've completely finished the game, and as such I can say that each story line is good, but some definitely shine over others. Unfortunately for me, I think I finished the best story line second in my play thru's, and as such the rest felt to pale slightly in comparison. Be that as it may, all of the stories are touching and are very well written. They also paint each of the heroines, including their deformities or problems, in such a light that they are each lovely.

The visuals are fairly good quality, especially coming from an indie development team and as a free release. Unfortunately, there are no voice-overs, which in this day and age seems to be a necessity. I've been playing with them for so long that, at first, I missed it, but I eventually imagined a voice for each girl. I couldn't imagine them sounding a different way now and am glad for the lack of voice-overs. The back-ground music for this game is top notch as well. Its very sweet and moving when it needs to be, and its just active enough to keep you entertained when it has no sentimental need.

I recommend this game to anyone who likes visual novels, especially of the Key variety. That being said, the only reasons this game didn't get a perfect score from me are the lack of voice-overs, though not a huge gripe from me as previously stated, and the length of the game itself, I believe the good ending for my favorite story line, Lilly, only took ~8 hours to reach without using the skip function from the beginning. I know that seems like a good amount of time considering that there are 5 heroines each of similar length, however, I found myself not wanting several of the stories to end, though they all did at logical places. Go download the game, its free, and they even provide a tracker for your favorite P2P program.