Starting a new series if you will about things I am not supposed to like
because people tell me otherwise. The series starts with a photo.
This a picture of Lilly from Katawa
Shoujo a free visual novel novel. She is appropriately enough waiting in
line for a tea sampling. Neither she nor I got into the room, but that is not
the point. What motivates someone to cosplay as such an obscure character? I
have seen two Lilly cosplays in my life and barely anyone recognizes them. This
is from a game that has no retail release, had no marketing. A game whose
popularity is purely through the words of others. And yet here she is. If that
is not all the indication you need that is game is special, I doubt my poor
skills at wordsmithing will convince you otherwise.
This game is unique in its ability to capture moments. You have a game like
Call of Duty that can very skillfully capture a feeling. COD makes you feel
tense, or excited, or angry, but has it ever captured a quiet moment? Some of
Bioware’s offering get close, but all these big budget triple A games fail
again and again to capture the moment. What do I mean when I say this? A
moment, as defined here, is a single interaction between people. A moment is
not bombastic, its not life changing, its just people talking, just
conversation. Here is
a perfect example. It is not special, nor unique, but its eight minutes and 54
seconds of a dozen or so people’s lives. Its raw, its unscripted, its life.
This is a moment and Katawa Shoujo is a game that captures these interactions
between its characters better than any other game. There is a clarity to
dialogue that makes the interactions seem so natural, so unforced. That is why
I love this game so much. Who cares that it is anime inspired, or a dating
game, or a made by a bunch of people from 4chan. This game offers the greatest
thing any form of media can give: a brief look into the lives of others. Is
that not what anyone wants? Some games are empowering, they make you feel
things. To be fair this game makes you feel a lot of things, but that is not
the point here. The point here is to see a person’s life over a few months.
That is unique amongst video games, it is awesome, and it is why I love this
game despite what others thing.