What can I say except *UGLY CRY FACE*?
Seriously, for being made by a forum board that is populated by degenerates that put us to shame, this game is the epitome of wholesome and adorable.
The premise is unbelievable, but simple enough. You are Hisao, a blond haired Japanese boy (kek), whose heart is set aflutter by the confession of plot-point-chan, the cutest girl in your class. The main issue of this is that your heart is quite literally set aflutter. You have arrhythmia, a heart condition that causes your ticker to beat rather erratically when you become too excited or overexert yourself. (That'll never be an important thing to remember, right?)
Worry not, however! Your mother and father, while you were whiling away the hours of your agonizing recovery, decided that it would be best to pull you from the school system you've been a part of for so much of your life to dump you into an entirely new school: the live-in school, Yamaku Academy, a place where even a filthy cripple like you can attempt halfheartedly to get an education.
Great, well, where do you start? By meeting your teacher, of course, but not before meeting the head nurse, who seems to be potentially banging the mother of one of your possible waifus, Emi, but more on her in a moment.
So, you met your teacher, found your bland, prison cell of a dorm room, and even have your trusty medication that makes it so your heart doesn't literally fucking die if you get too stressed, what next? Well, silly, next you get to do what is probably the most stressful part of being an adolescent male: Attempt to form meaningful relationships with the females of your age group. So, let's meet our lucky contestants!
*Spoiler Warning*
First up, we have my personal favorite, Hanako. Hanako is a timid, jumpy, burn victim with a complex about her parents not loving her. She has shiny burn marks along one side of her body, but that doesn't stop her from being a cutie. Once you work your way into her route, you'll peel back the layers of a terrified little onion to find a loving sweetheart of a girl in the center.
Second is the very, very, extremely attractive Lily. What's her problem, you say? Well, she's fucking blind, which, over the course of her route, creates a number of situations that display just how capable, yet vulnerable, she is as a blind woman. Lily is definitely the most normal of the girls, though she apparently has a thing for older men, so keep an eye out for that. Also, remember to chase after what you love, or it might just escape from you.
Third up is Emi. Emi is, well, there's no other way to say it; she's the loli of the group. An extremely talented runner, Emi's main disability is her lack of legs, which were removed in a car accident that took the life of her father. Her desire for independence and the inability to say how she really feels will put a damper on your relationship near the end, but if you persevere, you get a truly emotional scene where you visit her father's grave with her, a tradition she's fulfilled every year since he passed. Emi's route is perhaps the one that I felt left the most to be desired. The scene in the graveyard should have culminated in Hisao asking Emi to marry him, but it didn't. ~Le Sigh~
Fourth up is Shitzune, I mean, Shizune. Nothing against the Shizune lovers of the world, but her route just didn't capture me in any meaningful way. Perhaps her being deaf, and therefor uncomfortable with talking, really damages the meaning in the conversations you have with her. Her sex scenes are a little weird, riding on the bdsm level, though she really doesn't take it farther than tying you up. Honestly, the part that really kills this route for me is her father, who makes a number of appearances. I found his character annoying and irrelevant at the best of times. Admittedly, the night of the festival where you sign to her to ask her out is really good, but amongst the others, her route really doesn't stand out as anything brilliant.
Finally, we have the little oddball, Rin. Rin, right from the start, is weird. This gives players a good chance to see just what they'll be getting into when they go along her route. Hisao spends a good majority of the time trying to figure out what's on her mind. An impossible task at the outset, and one that gets no easier as time progresses. Rin, I believe, is autistic... well, aside from the unimportant fact that she has no arms. Her disjointed, often senseless thoughts offer the player a maddening experience as they watch Hisao try to get through to her again and again, failing each time, yet not ever truly losing hope. Honestly, I played through Rin's route just because I wanted to say I had played all of the routes to the end. I didn't like or dislike it, but again, much like Shizune's route, it just never really grabbed me.
Oh, and there's Kenji. Kenji has a leaf for a crotch, and believes that women are trying to eliminate men and take over the world, which, looking back on it, seems scarily accurate. Oh well, in the context of this game he's a nutcase that one should be relatively quick to ignore, before he pulls you into his room to see his charts.
The game is good, and was the first visual I ever played. It could be said that this VN is what made me such an avid porn game lover, so you should probably thank Katawa Shoujo, at the very least, for giving you my wonderful personality.
An easy 5 stars, play this game, you're welcome.
