By all common logic, this game shouldn’t exist. A joke sketch from a Japanese image-board gets mocked, and then adopted by an english-speaking team, and adapted slowly over time into a full-length romantic visual novel. After five years in development, this bizarre project is finally complete, after a successful demo release last year which even resulted in a translation back into Japanese for a growing number of fans over there. Today, Katawa Shoujo is released.

You can read up on most of the history of this game in our preview from last month. And let’s get this out of the way in advance – yes, there are adult scenes at the end of each potential story arc – if you’d rather not see any naked people, there’s an option right in the main menu to automatically skip such scenes and instead tastefully fade to black. So, no worries about that, then. No, this isn’t a porn game – the fact that any adult content is small enough to be automatically skipped is evidence enough of that.

So, Katawa Shoujo is a visual novel (80% reading, 15% pictures, sound and music, 5% interaction) about a boy with an unusual heart condition who – after a long period in hospital – is transferred to a school for youths with special medical needs. The story (told almost entirely in first-person) revolves half around his own coming to terms with his disability, and getting to know the various students around campus, including a variety of potential romantic interests. It’s high-school romance with a twist.

The box-art for the Japanese release of the 'Act 1' demo version.

To be honest, this really isn’t my sort of game – or interactive media, or whatever you might call it – my initial interest was only because of the unusual genesis of the project, and I wouldn’t have given it a second glance had it not sounded so weird. However, the demo from last year did raise a couple of smiles, with a few vividly oddball characters providing some solid comic relief. My girlfriend adored it and has been eagerly awaiting the full version for some time, though.

It’s hard to fault the craftsmanship on this project. Strange as the concept might be, a lot of people have worked very hard for a very long time to get this complete, tested and released. I wouldn’t be surprised if a full Japanese language translation was already in progress, so that the full game can be sold commercially at the next Comiket event in the summer.

The first classmates the protagonist meets. Vastly improbable hair ahoy!

At the time of writing, the game is pretty hard to get hold of – the main site was crushed under a tsunami of internet traffic within moments of release, although the torrent mirrors seem to be picking up speed now. Things should clear up later in the day, so just have patience. Still, being overloaded due to popularity is one of the better problems you can have on launch day.

Anyhow, Katawa Shoujo is entirely free, and available now  for Windows, Mac & Linux PCs, with system requirements so low as to not need mentioning. Put aside your preconceptions and at least give it a look – you might even find yourself enjoying it.

[Katawa Shoujo]