Narcissu

since i got sick of doing my matrix calculations and i don't feel like rehearsing for tomorrow's project presentation, i shall waste a fraction of my precious youth talking about another game.

Follow up:

today i am going to talk about narcissu. i have a feeling if i keep on doing this, i will only end up talking about games and stuffs which people got bored of a few years ago. blog some updated stuffs... well that is nearly impossible. i don't know enough japanese to play visual novels and games, and by the time it gets translated it is considered old. so i will be forever reviewing and writing ancient stuffs.

but ancient as it is, i am sure some of my readers will still find it new, not having played it before.

narcissu can be considered a kinetic novel, like planetarian. you read through the story with pictures and music (no voice acting in this case). it is a short story by the doujin group stage-nana.

the plot:
a terminally ill man met a terminally ill woman in a hospital. there is nothing the both of them could do except to wait for death. not satisfied with the way their lives were going, they decided to escape the hospital and drove all the way up somewhere in japan to see the narcissus flowers.

the ending:
go read on your own.

this is a short read, and you can finish it in about 3 hours or so. storywise, it is something much closer to life compared to other visual novels. facing with death, sickness, the feelings of getting trapped...etc. these are all feelings we as humans would have experienced at one point of time or another. as for thrills and action, there isn't any, so don't look forward to it. you won't get pretty excited, but i don't think you will regret reading it.

in fact, i think it is a good enough read that i am looking forward to narcissu side 2nd. although that was released in japan since the stone age, the translation had not been done yet. well what could i say? the translators are doing us a favor by translating for us, and they have their own lives to lead. we can only wait patiently. i knew i should have learn japanese 10 years before i was born.

i love the background music for the opening scene. that's all i have to say about the music.

languages:
obviously it is available in japanese. but translations has also been made for english, chinese and korean.

availability:
congratulations. there is no need to buy the game. the creators had allowed for distribution on the net. anyone can get it for free. well, since this is the case, then i guess it is no harm putting the links for download here. get it at http://narcissu.insani.org/ for the english version. for other versions, you will have to find it yourself. well since you are reading my post all the way till here, chances are you are proficient in english.

anyway i am still waiting for clannad to get translated. i am resisting all temptations to see the anime, so that when i play the visual novel i will not get spoilt. aww after waiting for so long... it is still not out yet. the translation had entered the editing face though... hopefully i will be able to play it soon.

or maybe... i should do and search for any chinese translations. they usually are much faster. well maybe i should do that. then what about my exams? maybe i should just repeat one academic year. LOL