The cynic in me says that this is just an attempt to cater to more fetishes.

I'm kind of in the "this particular hentai dating sim freaks me the hell out" camp but I would want to know more about it before I can say I'm official weirded out.

[b]More chance of this being read if I summarised it so I did:[/b] For I believe it is worth reading. I read the article she wrote, http://kotaku.com/5461619/romance-with-disabled-girls-how-and-maybe-why-an-unusual-video-game-came-to-be The piece was very well thought out, balancing the fetishes against an actual depiction of disabled life for young people. The conclusion is overwhelmingly positive, "Katawa Shoujo is, perhaps against all odds, deeply respectful of its subject matter." But she was criticized for linking a cooperative effort between 4chan and 4leaf studio. Any effort she made of raising the curtain on 4chan as the scums of the internet were thus in vain. Many personal stories of carers of disabled people have emerged on the comments section. Others are less receptive and describe their usual[i] 'weirding out'[/i]. The executive is best summarised in: "Even if this game ends up being some twisted view of having a disability, there is always hope that it may somehow inspire others to make games with disabled characters playing a prominent role, like Joker in Mass Effect," The bottomline of her piece was: Katawa Shoujo is a surprisingly realistic depiction of disabled life and from a critical standpoint, Leigh agrees. (my words, not hers)

I had never played an erotic visual novel, let alone any visual novel, until Katawa Shoujo was first mentioned at gamesetwatch.com. I grabbed the Act 1 demo that had been put up online and found it absolutely engaging. I played through it repeatedly to witness every story branch and to "beat" Act 1 with every possible ending. I think they're handling the subject material really well considering the taboo behind it. Of course it's mostly just a choose-your-own-adventure novel so it won't be for all gamers but it's still worth checking out. Besides, since playing it I decided to find one of the popular professional efforts and have since nearly completed Fate/Stay Night. I don't know if it's a matter of the original writing or a sub-par translation but I find it nearly impossible to slog through at times because it's so poorly worded and ridiculous. Between the two eroge titles I've tried, one recognized as a great professional title that people gladly paid for while the other a first attempt by an amateur studio spread across the internet. And honestly the latter seemed to be a much better title. I'm rambling. Give the game a shot before lambasting it, that's all.

Seriously, when I saw Eroge and Kotaku, I totally knew it was a Leigh Alexander article. She is one of the only person on the internet who can write about hentai games with a straight face and give us something genuinely interesting. I still think that this whole game will flirt(oh silly pun) too much with fetishism and forget the whole "understanding disabilities" aspect, but maybe the internet made me cynical. Tell me Snake, can love still bloom on the cyber field.