Tag: Kira Kira

1157: The ‘Fandisc’ Experience

So having finally completed Kira Kira (which is excellent, by the way — one of the best visual novels I’ve had the pleasure of playing to date) I decided to make a start on its semi-sequel Kira Kira Curtain Call, which is considerably shorter and more of a spin-off than a full sequel. Technically, it’s a “fandisc”, which is a concept I hadn’t come across prior to getting into the visual novel medium.

I’m assuming this probably means that you aren’t familiar with it either, in that case, what with VNs being rather niche and all. Basically it’s exactly what it sounds like: it’s a disc (or download) of extra content that continues where the main game left off. Sometimes it involves the same characters, sometimes it has side stories. It’s usually considerably shorter than the original game, too, but it’s a standalone game in its own right rather than an addon. I guess the closest equivalent in Western gaming would be a standalone expansion pack or piece of DLC.

Not many of these fandiscs make it over to the West, for some reason, though there are a few that have. Persona 3 FES could be considered a fandisc, for example, due to its 20-hour extra campaign that ties up the loose ends left by Persona 3’s main campaign. Corpse Party: Book of Shadows could be considered a fandisc for the original Corpse Party, too, since it fleshes out (no pun intended) a number of the incidental characters from the original before continuing the plot in preparation for a true sequel. And Kira Kira’s English-language publisher Mangagamer have taken to translating and releasing some of these fandiscs for the more popular visual novels out there — Kira Kira is one of them.

Kira Kira Curtain Call is a two-part follow-up to the events of Kira Kira, and stars a mostly new cast of characters. Unfolding several years after Kira Kira’s conclusion (and assuming that the “True End” was, well, true), the game initially begins with the player in the role of Souta Honda, a passionate, fiery-haired young man who is angry and frustrated at the world, and wants nothing more to express himself through the medium of rock music. At the same time, though, he doesn’t want the trappings of fame that being a famous musician begins — indeed, shortly after the game begins, we see him thrown into a sexual situation with two groupies and an old senpai who is now a member of a successful band, and he refuses to take part.

Souta, you see, is desperately in love with a girl named Yui, and herein lies one of the reasons why Curtain Call is such an interesting and distinct experience from the original game. Rather than the first part of the game allowing the player to get to know the characters and then, through their choices, progressing down one of their “routes” to their eventual conclusion, in Curtain Call we begin with a protagonist who is already obsessed with the object of his affections. In what I’ve played so far, Yui’s feelings towards Souta are somewhat ambiguous, but it’s clear that there’s some affection there despite Souta’s previous advances leaving her with mild androphobia.

Souta is a marked contrast to the original game’s protagonist Shikanosuke. Initially, Shika was a guy very much caught up in a tidal wave of events that you always felt were slightly beyond his control — though it was abundantly clear by the end of the story that he was genuinely enjoying himself despite spending a good half of the game in drag — but he grew and changed in various ways according to which of the three heroines’ paths he proceeded down. Each of the paths had something in common, though: the fact that the main cast’s band left an indelible mark on their high school of Oubi Academy, and you get a real sense of this fact in Curtain Call. In a nice touch, Shikanosuke’s sister Yuko, who was often heard but never seen in the original Kira Kira, is one of the main supporting characters in Curtain Call and has even been very obviously designed to resemble Shikanosuke in drag to an almost uncomfortable degree.

Other characters put in an appearance, too: the second half of the game (which I haven’t reached yet) focuses on one of Kira Kira’s supporting characters and his attempts to make his own band. In one of the routes through the original game, Shikanosuke becomes part of this group as he attempts to [SPOILER REDACTED] but in the “True End”, we simply hear that this band exists.

All in all, I really like the idea of a “fandisc”. It provides the potential for a story to continue and for the game’s world to be considerably more fleshed out even after the main game has concluded. Of course, you have to be careful not to outstay your welcome — Persona 3 FES ran into this issue with its immensely frustrating, cheap boss fights — but if you handle it well, it gives the player the opportunity to spend just a little more very welcome time in a game world with some characters and settings that they have become very fond of. While I was completely satisfied with the way Kira Kira concluded in all its various routes, I’m happy to have the chance to see “what happened next” and take part in the extension of that story.

1053: Kira Kira, Sparkle Sparkle

Page_1Having completely and utterly 100%-ly finished classic visual novel Kana Little Sister, which you can read all about here (and in the book I’m still fully intending on writing and have already written just under 3,000 words of), naturally I immediately started on a new project, and one of a markedly different tone.

Kira Kira (which, apparently, is Japanese onomatopoeia for “sparkle sparkle”) is a game about a bunch of high school kids (natch) who decide to put together a band. I haven’t got far enough to know whether or not their band is particularly successful, but given the intro sequence showed them well and truly rocking out with suitably ridiculous hairstyles and outfits, I can only assume that they enjoy at least a small degree of success. Given that there is also a sort of sequel called Kira Kira Curtain Call, too, it’s probably a fair assumption.

The reason I’m playing Kira Kira now is actually because of a completely different game I picked up a while back called Deardrops. Deardrops is also about a bunch of high school kids who decide to put together a band — I think, anyway, as I haven’t played that one at all yet — but a fellow (and considerably more experienced) VN enthusiast on Twitter recommended that I play Kira Kira first, because some of the characters have cameo appearances in Deardrops. Got all that? Good.

I like this sort of “crossover” idea, and apparently it’s not all that uncommon — I understand that the story of Kana Little Sister is depicted as a movie in another game by the same developer called Crescendo, which is also in my growing pile of shame. (I have a sub-pile purely devoted to VNs, but given that the damn things are so time-consuming yet enjoyable, I’m not getting to anything outside it at the moment! That’s… fine by me, to be perfectly honest. But I digress.)

Anyway. Kira Kira. As I say, I’m not all that far into it yet so I’m hesitant to say too much right now, but so far early impressions are very positive. Coming off the back of Kana Little Sister’s 640×480 visuals and distinctly synthesized music — both of which are great, I hasten to add, just obviously dated — the super-sharp, crisp visuals, glorious digital music, quality voice acting and wonderfully atmospheric ambient sounds of Kira Kira make it obvious that this is a much more recent production. It’s a much more multi-sensory, “multimedia” sort of experience, and it makes a massive difference. Kana immerses the player with its compelling story and interesting characters despite its relatively simplistic aesthetics; Kira Kira has, so far, immersed me with its presentation — it’s a bit early for me to comment on the characters and plot so far, but they seem to be an interesting enough bunch.

Kira Kira isn’t just interesting from an audio-visual presentation perspective, however. No, the way it’s written and the way the text is presented is quite interesting, too, adopting a full-screen “novel” style similar to that seen in Kana Little Sister rather than the more common “adventure” (smaller text box, larger, unblocked image) interface seen in many other titles.

In terms of the way it’s written, it seems to be quite wordy so far, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It allows the player to understand the thoughts of the protagonist quite deeply, and the narration is presented almost as if the protagonist is talking to the player at times — not quite breaking the fourth wall, but certainly testing its structural integrity. Maejima-kun, it seems, thinks about things a lot, including his feelings about people, the things he’s seen and where his life is going. His introspective nature makes the beginning of the game seem rather slow paced — it’s a good hour or two before the OP video plays — but, as I say, I have no issue with this personally; he seems like an interesting character thus far, so I’m happy to have the opportunity to get to know him. Plus on subsequent playthroughs, the “Skip” button is right there if I want to fast-forward through all his exposition.

What’s really interesting about the writing, though, is that it provides a uniquely Japanese take on something that is peculiar to the Western hemisphere — rock music. The setup of the game is that the school’s “Second Literature Club”, which Our Hero is a member of having quit the tennis club some time back, are struggling to think of something to do for the upcoming cultural festival. Naturally, after Our Hero and the resident squeaky-voiced, faintly annoying ditzy girl Kirari attend a live show by local legends “STAR GENERATION” (the capital letters are important), they decide that forming a band is The Right Thing To Do, despite the fact that none of them play an instrument or indeed know anything about music whatsoever. Enter Our Hero’s friend, a fan of punk music that hasn’t been to any live shows himself, who decides to educate the club with an informative video about The Sex Pistols and the punk movement. The club are understandably rather bewildered about all this, having hilariously little understanding of culture outside of Japan (“R&B? Isn’t that music for black people?”) but decide that yes, they’ll give it a shot.

That’s as far as I’ve got so far, but it’s an intriguing setup with potential for plenty of hijinks — yes, hijinks — along the way. I’m looking forward to seeing how it progresses — and to hearing more of the excellent soundtrack.