Rewrite & Harvest Festa

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by Gordy Lechance

This is the code that allows Japanese to be read on blocked websites, right?

For us computer dummies who only know how to point and click, where would we input it, sir/madame/miss?

No, it's not. It's for us people who use a tricky little thing to be able to read Japanese in the VN itself even though we aren't all that good at it.

For which I am eternally grateful.

As far as getting around Japan-only website locks, I am not currently aware of one.

[lightl]

Originally Posted by spawnofthejudge

As far as getting around Japan-only website locks, I am not currently aware of one.

just use a jp proxy server should get you buy most of blocks

[Varion]

Finished!

That was really good. I can't wait for the full version now.

Spoilers for the whole demo, don't click unless you've either a) finished the demo yourself or b) don't care about spoilers for whatever reason.

Spoiler:

First, the story. Probably the most un-Key-like aspect of the whole thing, they really went all out with the supernatural elements, starting with the night events around Kotarou (in his bedroom and the silk curtain outside), then with him turning out to have full out ESP abilities, and then on with the 11eyes-style empty alternate dimension scenes in the city and school building. The demo revealed a lot about the story but naturally left more questions than answers. I guess the most obvious questions that come to mind are:

- How did Kotarou get his ESP abilities? Was it the experiments his parents seem to be involved in? Or something else? He doesn't seem to have any ill will towards his parents if that's the case.
- What is the empty alternate dimension he ended up in twice? Before the first time he definitely used his powers, the second time it's not specifically stated that he used them when punching Yoshino, but it seems to be implied somewhat.
- Who is the creepy hooded guy that Kotarou encountered, anyway? Is there any significance to that scene having the same background CG as the whole fake digital cameras incident? I'm sort of assuming not, but that camera scene seems like an odd one to insert for no reason, unless it's just to reinforce that area of town is a little dangerous.
- How does Chihaya know Akane from before? She goes straight up to the Occult Club room and talks to Akane as if they know each other. Judging by the OP (and her ridiculous strength and resistance to injury), Chihaya seems to have some kind of power herself. Maybe Akane's not as anti-supernatural as she makes herself out to be? Assuming Kotarou's night episodes are real, at the very least the Shikigamis she gave him seem to be having an effect. And that first red silhouetted figure in the second half of the OP looks an awful lot like her.
- Why is Yoshino so against arrogant people and hypocrisy? Alright, they're not exactly desirable qualities, but there seems to be more behind his hate than that to me, especially after the scene in the school.

As far as favourite scenes go... there were just too many I was laughing a whole lot while reading most of the school scenes, there weren't many boring bits and on the whole the writing was pretty good stuff. So much Engrish though First few to come to mind would be Yoshino's dramatic appearance at the end of the bonus club activities and him screaming WHAT IS YOUTH at the top of his lungs then having it played back right at him, the epic duel complete with FMVs and sword slash aftereffects being smashed as a total lie followed by a childish brawl, and Kotori the little moneygrubber being led out the forest by Kotarou dropping coins only to tell him she'd had a wonderful dream about a machine that kept dispensing coins forever There were just too many.

Secondly, the characters. I ended up really liking them. Kotori is pretty unique for a Key heroine - although I found it interesting that other than the whole herbs-with-magical-properties thing she didn't seem to have anything particularly unusual about her in relation to the story. Seems a little odd, considering the game's tagline leads you to assume it's her fate that's being rewritten. Perhaps everyone but her has supernatural powers and has to help change the innocent girl's fate? Perhaps.

Chihaya is... interesting? I wasn't sure about her initially because she seemed like a typical tsundere, but then a few later she gradually started softening up a bit and by the ends seems to be the token idiot of the cast I still found myself liking her though, even if so far she isn't exactly a complex character.

Shizuru is moe incarnate. I have no idea how much more there'll be to her than that, but I don't really care if there's nothing more. She's just adorable.

Akane is perhaps the most interesting character in the cast to me. The revelation that she doesn't support magic at all, she's just completely manipulative and has connections everywhere that can make things happen was just... As was her being a total FPS nut. Assuming standard character routes I think she may well be my first in the full game.

Lucia is the only heroine I don't like very much. She seems a lot more tolerable later, judging by the sample you get of club activities later in the game, but initially she just seems like a annoying violent character obsessed with uncleanliness. Not particularly interesting, but considering it seems like Ryuukishi will be writing her route, hopefully she'll get better.

As far as route writing goes, I'm not sure how they're going to divide them. Lucia is almost definitely Ryuukishi considering the writing style, and I would be surprised if he wasn't doing Akane as well with all the witchiness and the magic vs tricks stuff - seems like it'd be completely his style. Shizuru is bound to be Tonogawa. Kotori most likely Romeo. As for Chihaya, I don't know. Apparently the scene with Kotarou activating his powers read exactly like something Romeo would write - if it wasn't for that I'd be assuming he'd do most of the main branch of the story. As it is perhaps they'll divide that up another way.

The new engine is great, having widescreen is a long overdue step up that I'm grateful Key are finally taking, while I still can't bring myself to say Itaru's art is *good*, it's at least improving, and some of the special effects were pretty fancy - especially the aurora at the start and the effects during the fake 'fight' between Kotarou and Yoshino. The music was all great too, the soundtrack is miles better than Little Busters' and I'm really glad Maeda and Orito decided to take a seemingly more active role in the music this time. The other composers they got to help with Little Busters' music just aren't in the same league. Favourite tracks were BGM11 (the empty city/camera buying scene music), BGM05 (the title screen music), BGM14 (Music when Kotarou first activates his powers), and BGM90 (The fake fight theme?). So mostly Orito. Honourable mentions go to BGM12 for being creepy, BGM36 for making me think Beatrice was going to appear any minute, and BGM34 Yoshino's theme for suiting him oh so well.

[boggart]

I won't click through the spoilers, but just checking, what day does the demo finish? It seems like it's fairly lengthy...

[Varion]

Originally Posted by boggart

I won't click through the spoilers, but just checking, what day does the demo finish? It seems like it's fairly lengthy...

October 15th is the last day, followed by an extra scene from a future day (they don't say which).

[momobunny]

Originally Posted by Varion

Finished!

That was really good. I can't wait for the full version now.

Spoilers for the whole demo, don't click unless you've either a) finished the demo yourself or b) don't care about spoilers for whatever reason.

Spoiler:

First, the story. Probably the most un-Key-like aspect of the whole thing, they really went all out with the supernatural elements, starting with the night events around Kotarou (in his bedroom and the silk curtain outside), then with him turning out to have full out ESP abilities, and then on with the 11eyes-style empty alternate dimension scenes in the city and school building. The demo revealed a lot about the story but naturally left more questions than answers. I guess the most obvious questions that come to mind are:

- How did Kotarou get his ESP abilities? Was it the experiments his parents seem to be involved in? Or something else? He doesn't seem to have any ill will towards his parents if that's the case.
- What is the empty alternate dimension he ended up in twice? Before the first time he definitely used his powers, the second time it's not specifically stated that he used them when punching Yoshino, but it seems to be implied somewhat.
- Who is the creepy hooded guy that Kotarou encountered, anyway? Is there any significance to that scene having the same background CG as the whole fake digital cameras incident? I'm sort of assuming not, but that camera scene seems like an odd one to insert for no reason, unless it's just to reinforce that area of town is a little dangerous.
- How does Chihaya know Akane from before? She goes straight up to the Occult Club room and talks to Akane as if they know each other. Judging by the OP (and her ridiculous strength and resistance to injury), Chihaya seems to have some kind of power herself. Maybe Akane's not as anti-supernatural as she makes herself out to be? Assuming Kotarou's night episodes are real, at the very least the Shikigamis she gave him seem to be having an effect. And that first red silhouetted figure in the second half of the OP looks an awful lot like her.
- Why is Yoshino so against arrogant people and hypocrisy? Alright, they're not exactly desirable qualities, but there seems to be more behind his hate than that to me, especially after the scene in the school.

As far as favourite scenes go... there were just too many I was laughing a whole lot while reading most of the school scenes, there weren't many boring bits and on the whole the writing was pretty good stuff. So much Engrish though First few to come to mind would be Yoshino's dramatic appearance at the end of the bonus club activities and him screaming WHAT IS YOUTH at the top of his lungs then having it played back right at him, the epic duel complete with FMVs and sword slash aftereffects being smashed as a total lie followed by a childish brawl, and Kotori the little moneygrubber being led out the forest by Kotarou dropping coins only to tell him she'd had a wonderful dream about a machine that kept dispensing coins forever There were just too many.

Secondly, the characters. I ended up really liking them. Kotori is pretty unique for a Key heroine - although I found it interesting that other than the whole herbs-with-magical-properties thing she didn't seem to have anything particularly unusual about her in relation to the story. Seems a little odd, considering the game's tagline leads you to assume it's her fate that's being rewritten. Perhaps everyone but her has supernatural powers and has to help change the innocent girl's fate? Perhaps.

Chihaya is... interesting? I wasn't sure about her initially because she seemed like a typical tsundere, but then a few later she gradually started softening up a bit and by the ends seems to be the token idiot of the cast I still found myself liking her though, even if so far she isn't exactly a complex character.

Shizuru is moe incarnate. I have no idea how much more there'll be to her than that, but I don't really care if there's nothing more. She's just adorable.

Akane is perhaps the most interesting character in the cast to me. The revelation that she doesn't support magic at all, she's just completely manipulative and has connections everywhere that can make things happen was just... As was her being a total FPS nut. Assuming standard character routes I think she may well be my first in the full game.

Lucia is the only heroine I don't like very much. She seems a lot more tolerable later, judging by the sample you get of club activities later in the game, but initially she just seems like a annoying violent character obsessed with uncleanliness. Not particularly interesting, but considering it seems like Ryuukishi will be writing her route, hopefully she'll get better.

As far as route writing goes, I'm not sure how they're going to divide them. Lucia is almost definitely Ryuukishi considering the writing style, and I would be surprised if he wasn't doing Akane as well with all the witchiness and the magic vs tricks stuff - seems like it'd be completely his style. Shizuru is bound to be Tonogawa. Kotori most likely Romeo. As for Chihaya, I don't know. Apparently the scene with Kotarou activating his powers read exactly like something Romeo would write - if it wasn't for that I'd be assuming he'd do most of the main branch of the story. As it is perhaps they'll divide that up another way.

The new engine is great, having widescreen is a long overdue step up that I'm grateful Key are finally taking, while I still can't bring myself to say Itaru's art is *good*, it's at least improving, and some of the special effects were pretty fancy - especially the aurora at the start and the effects during the fake 'fight' between Kotarou and Yoshino. The music was all great too, the soundtrack is miles better than Little Busters' and I'm really glad Maeda and Orito decided to take a seemingly more active role in the music this time. The other composers they got to help with Little Busters' music just aren't in the same league. Favourite tracks were BGM11 (the empty city/camera buying scene music), BGM05 (the title screen music), BGM14 (Music when Kotarou first activates his powers), and BGM90 (The fake fight theme?). So mostly Orito. Honourable mentions go to BGM12 for being creepy, BGM36 for making me think Beatrice was going to appear any minute, and BGM34 Yoshino's theme for suiting him oh so well.

Now I wanna read this... I've never played through a Key game before, but this sounds very interesting.

[ameskitty]

Originally Posted by Varion

As far as route writing goes, I'm not sure how they're going to divide them. Lucia is almost definitely Ryuukishi considering the writing style, and I would be surprised if he wasn't doing Akane as well with all the witchiness and the magic vs tricks stuff - seems like it'd be completely his style.

Oh, come on, you could've got that from the FPS nut part alone .

(probably only about halfway through, but...) I'll have to agree with those character rankings, with the big exception of Shizuru, whose character type just bores me to no end : P.

But I'll cut to the bulk of my impressions so far: Yoshino is just...love. Seriously, all of my favorite scenes so far somehow involve him and/or his Engrish. (outlaws on the flat cart, woohoo! ...hey wait!) You just can't help but feel sorry for the crazy guy, sometimes. It's probably going to be the Yoshino bad end first for me ! *fujoshi dash*

[Orrin]

Originally Posted by Varion

As far as route writing goes, I'm not sure how they're going to divide them. Lucia is almost definitely Ryuukishi considering the writing style, and I would be surprised if he wasn't doing Akane as well with all the witchiness and the magic vs tricks stuff - seems like it'd be completely his style.

Are you sure about Akane? I'm quite convinced that Romeo has written the parts with her judging from the text. She's also the most scientific minded character in there which pretty much falls under his normal style.

Lucia's parts is without a doubt written by Ryuukichi and I'm also quite sure that Kotori's are written by Romeo. That would leave Shizuru's and Chihaya's that I would guess are written by Tonogawa.

[Varion]

Originally Posted by Orrin

Are you sure about Akane? I'm quite convinced that Romeo has written the parts with her judging from the text. She's also the most scientific minded character in there which pretty much falls under his normal style.

Lucia's parts is without a doubt written by Ryuukichi and I'm also quite sure that Kotori's are written by Romeo. That would leave Shizuru's and Chihaya's that I would guess are written by Tonogawa.

I'm not sure, no - especially as I'm much more familiar with Ryuukishi's writing than Romeo's or even Tonogawa's. Akane just seems like his kind of character - witches and logic, the FPS fangirl references (half of Ryuukishi's blog entries have been about his love for FPS games for a while now), etc.

Also I want to believe he wrote hers because as a Ryuukishi fan having him doing only the route of the one character I don't like would make me sad.

Originally Posted by ameskitty

Shizuru, whose character type just bores me to no end : P.
*fujoshi dash*

Okay gotcha

[ZeroBlitz]

Originally Posted by Varion

I'm not sure, no - especially as I'm much more familiar with Ryuukishi's writing than Romeo's or even Tonogawa's. Akane just seems like his kind of character - witches and logic, the FPS fangirl references (half of Ryuukishi's blog entries have been about his love for FPS games for a while now), etc.

Also I want to believe he wrote hers because as a Ryuukishi fan having him doing only the route of the one character I don't like would make me sad.


Okay gotcha

Read Cross Channel and you'll be a Romeo Tanaka fan soon enough. He was hired because of CC so it's probably best to read that before Rewrite.

[kyosak]

Well that was just about the longest demo I've ever played, lol.
Can't wait for the game to come out now... Ugh I hate waiting. ><

Spoiler for not spoiler just long:

To be honest, when some of the artwork for the game first came out I thought the character designs looked really generic and boring, but I was pleasantly surprised by the whole cast in this demo... They are all very charismatic in their own way and I don't find myself hating a certain character like I do in most games...

Kotori was pretty much the biggest surprise for me. Definitely the most unique main heroin I've seen in a Key game. I honestly can't see what role she will play in the story or how she is even the main heroin yet, but the unique sense of humor really sets her apart from main heroins of past Key works. xD

Akane is great too... I like how cynical she is and I can't help but smile when she is bossing Kotarou around. She gets kinda talkative at times so some of her scenes kind of dragged but I can see the appeal.

Shizuru is the must have in every game loli character. Not a big fan of these but again, I can see the appeal.

Just from first impression, I'd have to say my fav. were Lucia and Chihaya. They pretty much had the least to do with anything story related in the demo but I'm weak towards these ツンツン 照れ屋 types. xD The OP movie seems to hint at these characters being involved in the action-y scenes later on? Chihaya seriously looked badass. How is Kotori gonna end up the main heroin!!! Must... Play... Moar...

I liked Yoshino more than the entire female cast though (no homo). This guy is just hilarious, lol.

Some scenes that I really enjoyed were all the ones with Yoshino in them and the part when Kotarou was getting trolled by some kid on the club website, lmao.

The BGM is just really great. My fav. are Lucia's theme, Shizuru's theme, and the title screen music.

Really can't comment on the whole supernatural powers/alternate world stuff yet. I just hope the main routes will be just as entertaining as the characters are charismatic.

[Leo_Otaku]

I want to play the demo now too buu >.< I like how people are writing more in this than Kudo XD

[boggart]

Originally Posted by Leo_Otaku

I want to play the demo now too buu >.< I like how people are writing more in this than Kudo XD

I think we were all expecting this to be a quick demo like what Little Busters! was and decided to read it all first; but were then pleasantly surprised by the length of it.

I'll get to Kud Wafter after I'm done with this.

[blitz1/2]

Who were the seiyuus for which characters again?

[Varion]

Originally Posted by blitz1/2

Who were the seiyuus for which characters again?

We don't know, hasn't been revealed.

[swtrooper42]

I'm pretty sure that Akane is voiced by Eri Kitamura if my ears are correct.

The music in this game is so good. I have the BGMs if anyone is interested.

[blitz1/2]

Originally Posted by swtrooper42

I'm pretty sure that Akane is voiced by Eri Kitamura if my ears are correct.

The music in this game is so good. I have the BGMs if anyone is interested.

Does Eri Kitamura have an eroge alias? Well, sankaku says that Izumi Maki is Kotori and Agumi Oto is Akane. Which doesn't sound right as I can almost recognise Agumi's voice anywhere, and it does NOT sound like her.

[Okagamin]

Hope I'm not invading a club or anything by posting here.

Though I don't have much to say, I guess I just wanted to comment on how I'm really impressed with what I've seen so far for this. Granted, all I've seen are the spoilers posted in the thread, wikipedia info and merely an intro on youtube, the whole project just seems very non-Key-ish.

Not that I consider that a bad thing, but I must say I'm curious to see how Tanaka and Ryukishi will contribute their respective scenario elements (Specifically how Ryukishi will implement his style) into the mostly drama heavy with light tones of supernatural elements we've seen from Maeda in the past.

Also, philosophyz is just an incredibly amazing song. Lots of energy, a great combination of instruments, fantastic vocals that have this sort of haunting and frightening feel to them while keeping a very 'serious' tone if you will... I'm just really really impressed.

Now if only I could read japanese and had a JP OS for Windows, I'd check out the demo in a heartbeat. D:

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by Okagamin

Hope I'm not invading a club or anything by posting here.

Though I don't have much to say, I guess I just wanted to comment on how I'm really impressed with what I've seen so far for this. Granted, all I've seen are the spoilers posted in the thread, wikipedia info and merely an intro on youtube, the whole project just seems very non-Key-ish.

Not that I consider that a bad thing, but I must say I'm curious to see how Tanaka and Ryukishi will contribute their respective scenario elements (Specifically how Ryukishi will implement his style) into the mostly drama heavy with light tones of supernatural elements we've seen from Maeda in the past.

Also, philosophyz is just an incredibly amazing song. Lots of energy, a great combination of instruments, fantastic vocals that have this sort of haunting and frightening feel to them while keeping a very 'serious' tone if you will... I'm just really really impressed.

Now if only I could read japanese and had a JP OS for Windows, I'd check out the demo in a heartbeat. D:

Club or not, you are invited to partake in the discussion, I'm sure.

And yea, with Maeda not writing the story, the game will definitely have a different style than what Key has presented us with before.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by blitz1/2

Does Eri Kitamura have an eroge alias?

Why would she need an alias? This isn't even an eroge.

I'm pretty good at recognizing voices... I'll run through a bit of the game and check.

Originally Posted by Okagamin

Granted, all I've seen are the spoilers posted in the thread, wikipedia info and merely an intro on youtube, the whole project just seems very non-Key-ish.

Which I consider to be a very good thing.