VisualArt’s made a rather surprising and sudden announcement on Sunday morning via their Facebook page, that they would be officially releasing updated versions of fan translations of Little Busters! Perfect Edition and Tomoyo After ~It’s a Wonderful Life~ via Steam. This announcement follows new kinetic novel Harmonia going up on Steam Greenlight, and hopefully is an indication of good things to come for Key visual novels in English.
Little Busters! Perfect Edition is the newest version of Little Busters, and it includes the character routes for Sasami Sasasegawa, Kanata Futaki and Saya Tokido added in Little Busters! Ecstasy without the sex scenes. As far as I see it, not having them is no great loss to the game; as I mentioned in my review, they always struck me as somewhat unnecessary.
Tomoyo After ~It’s a Wonderful Life~ is a sequel/spin-off to Clannad featuring Tomoyo Sakagami. It has two main versions: the original and updated Perfect Edition, which are 18+, and the all-ages Memorial Edition. The Steam release will most likely be the all-ages version, but with Kindred Spirits on the Roof coming to Steam uncensored it is possible that Tomoyo After may follow suit with Perfect Edition.
Readers who have been following reviews in the last month should know that I am incredibly fond of Key’s stories, in particular Little Busters! I gave it a pretty glowing review, so I’m definitely excited to see it getting an official English release with the extra routes, and look forward to what this means for Key visual novels in the future. The Facebook post mentioned the possibility of more games coming west if the upcoming Steam releases do well, so hopefully people will support them and we will see VisualArt’s giving more love to us fans outside Japan in the future.
Maybe VisualArt’s will even release the Angel Beats! visual novel in the west. A man can dream, right?
