Summary: (VNDB's) Riki was a child when his parents died, leaving him hopeless and depressed. What saved him was a group of four kids calling themselves the Little Busters. They took Riki out and played with him during his time of need. He really enjoyed being together with them, and his grief gradually faded away. Now in his second year of high school they still hang out, fight and live together, and enjoy their school life.
Little Busters! Contains several mini-games, including a baseball practice game and a duel battle system. Ecstasy extends the story further, adding H-Scenes and more in-depth to the original game's heroines. 3 New heroines also jump in, 2 of them who were already in the original game (Sasasegawa and Futaki) and a whole new heroine (Saya). As for Memorial, it's simply Ecstasy without the H. (Correct me if I'm wrong though as I didn't play it) Game Downloads: (Thanks to warninglimit) Password (Part 05 and 10): craneanime (Thanks to Chibi Musashi)x2 Translation Project (Original Game, but also contains info. On EX/ME and the same team will translate them): Partial English Patches: Note: All H-Scenes, new scripts and new characters are desactivated until after Refrain.
Don't be alarmed though, you're given a choice when you first start the VN which ask if you have already completed the original game (e.g. Or if you just want all the new stuff) then if you choose yes, all of these are available right away. I do say half-done, but I might be wrong since I didn't play completely through the game yet. But, I can say that every heroines, except for Saya, Sasami and Futaki, should have most of their routes done. If you played the original game, you'll have to skip through the game completely quite a number of times before seeing the new scenes and scripts that were added though. Again, I may be wrong, but I think that looking at it technically nothing is translated except for all the scenes that were already present in the original game. I've uploaded the Memorial edition of Ecstasy, which is the same game without the sex.
I'm considering creating a new post, but since its so similar to this version, maybe it would be better to only edit the first post. Anyways, here are the, or the from which i got the game. Edit more than 2 and a half years later: For the convenience of those that dont have a shitty connection and downloads dont cancel in the middle(and since I was able to upload without it dying), here's a alternative without split files. No bumping with a new post because this is in the first page of the thread, so hopefully anyone searching this will be able to see it.
D-Don’t get me wrong, y-you’re cute and everything, b-b-b-but I’m married! And if Kohaku finds outwell yeah she does mess around with Shiki, but there’s this alter ego called “Magical Amber” The fuck happened to Masato!? Little Busters! Isn’t very new (or extremely well known), but I haven’t done a full-out visual novel review in a while and I thought it’d be a nice in-between while I segway back into writing about anime weekly. I’ve been playing the Ecstasy edition (EX), and it’s been pretty entertaining and relaxing. Let me start out by discussing it’s current English translation status, since that’s what a lot of people who look at this post for months to come will be looking for. For starts, Little Busters EX is not translated (nor is Key’s memorial edition version), and only as of the writing of this post.
You can apply parts of the original patch to the EX version by using something like Universal Extractor, but it will be buggy. The translation team seems to be working at a somewhat steady pace, but you could probably learn a lot of Japanese in the year (or more) it’ll take to be 100% completed Ah! Character depth has always been my favorite part of a story, and Visual Novels usually do a good job of expanding on just that. Little Busters! Is no exception, providing a very well rounded introduction before you even enter any specific character route.
All the characters are pretty entertaining, and knowing only a few phrases of Japanese I haven’t played it enough to pick a favorite character but overall Kudo and Masato are pretty comical and fun to converse with. Let me explain to you, Shōnen. Basically the story starts out introducing Riki, the main character, a member of the Little Busters!
Which consists of him, his friends, and their leader’s little sister, Rin (the main heroine, of course). When your fabulous/gar/charismatic/otaku leader Kyousuke gets bored you form a sandlot-baseball team to add a bit of productivity to your after-school antics with you and your friends, who are hell bent on fighting each other. Basically, it’s up to you to gather your harem baseball team of diverse females each with their own in-depth backstory up to you to explore. Little Busters! Does a good job of melding all the stories together for a solid 25 hours of gameplay, and has (on estimate) 6-12 additional hours per character after the common route is over to explore each route after completing the game successfully the first time. The characters are fairly diverse and you can expect something different from each of them. Would it be boring if I kept doing captions of what the characters say?
There’s a few things that sets Little Busters! Apart from your other Key games. One, the original Key staff brought on a lot of people specifically for Loli Little Busters. Half the cast is done by the original character designer, and the other half (you know the interesting ones, Kudo and Rin included) are done by the new designer. This lets it stand out from other Key games alone in adding some serious different styles, having two separate key writers. SHUT UP AND FIGHT! But the writing alone isn’t what sets it apart.
The game has an array of small minigames, most notably the battle/ranking system added to help your friends combat their boredom – using an assortment of random weapons and turn-based battling. It’s a pretty interesting system, but it still lets you turn it off if you don’t want it. I of course kept it on, but the option is still there for those who want to sit down to a traditional VN. K Lollipop gives me strength! A nice portion of the common-route half of the game is dedicated to this battle system, preparing for the baseball game, and missions fabulous-leader Kyousuke gives you. The interface system is very updated and gives one what you would expect of a modern day visual novel.
It’s got all the options (font selection, auto read speeds, full screen options) that an experienced visual novel company like Key should provide (I’m looking at you, Kagetsu Tohya) and it seems like the programming has been re-done from ground up compared to the previous games. The sprites are fucking amazing if you couldn’t already tell, and so is the music.
I think it’s pretty safe to rate Little Busters play quality a pure 10/10, as far as visual novels go. Since the fights and random weapons are rather silly, anyone on your baseball team can fight pretty well. Dem ears The battle system gets stale after 3 or so play throughs, but it’s the highlight of the game your first time around. Collecting good items, and giving strange titles to your friends builds a lot of the visual novel-feeling that you’re spending time with your friends, since you’re doing more than just dialogue. You know about the visual-novel feeling, right? Don’t tell me you play these games for 60+ hours and don’t lose a little base touch with reality. Dat cat The main heroine, Rin, is more entertaining than most, but she never struck me as the main-character type (like say, Ayu did).
According to Jason Miao’s harem statistics the title of childhood friend is always the most common heroine in these sort of stories, so I guess she was selected mostly because her backstory to be the “main girl”. I wouldn’t be disappointed if the anime focused on her the most, but I know Key is releasing (or have they already released?) a spin-off/sequel to Little Busters!
Starring Kudo as the main character ( ). Her route feels as much disjointed from the main group as the others do, so I don’t think you’ll have any problem playing through any specific route and getting the taste of too much of one character or another. The only annoying one that shows up too much is Haruka. That troublesome girl Repeat Again.
The only thing that really bothered me in the game is the end of the common route Higurashi/Kagetsu Tohya style. Though it’s no where near as bad, you still have to go through most of the common route again to get to set yourself on a specific heroine’s route, since that builds up your relationship with that character. What’s nice is a sort of new-game plus starts so you can keep some of your battle stats and do a bit better in the missions, and of course make other choices, giving you extra scenes.
You can skip previously read text, though I don’t know if it’s the game or English patch, but it’s a bit buggy (I swear it stopped on some scenes I have read before, and maybe skipped a couple I hadn’t seen, though that could just be me.) Anyway it’s not too bothersome, and once you’re past the common route and on a specific heroine’s route it changes the game completely, but I suppose this is becoming a little too commonplace in some visual novels these days. Anyone know of any visual novels trying to do something really new in the genre with the limited programming-setup other than to go back, change choices, or repeat again? I would like to see just how far they can push the limits without ruining the traditional feeling and gameplay. Eitherway, I still found it surprising (before the after thought) while playing, and it hardly took away from the game (albeit forcing me to find and google translate a Japanese after raging from 3-4 CTRL-speed playthroughs). Muscle Festival!
Yahoo, Masato!!! Muscle no Jikan?! Yeah, the game even comes complete with your token idiot friend who surprisingly isn’t a blonde-haired idiot (Like Sunohara or Jun from Clannad/Kanon). Key went all out on Little Busters! And it’s common route is the relaxing laid-back style I expect from a well done visual novel, while each heroine has their own in-depth background story which brings out the background of the overall story in it’s own way.
Good interactivity, top notch music, writing, and visual novel mechanics. You’d be passing up a good opportunity if you skipped even the already translated common route by not playing it.
You’d also be missing a good opportunity if you didn’t start a battle ranking with your own friends, should you have any awesome enough in close proximity to you. Shy girls don’t need exposure. I was never sure if this was a mock-up troll (I would think so from looking at the eyes), or something actually featured in a magazine, but considering Key has Kyoto Animation hooked by the balls and KyoAni should be looking for a new hot seller (after they finish milking their K-ON cash cow for the upcoming season 2 in April), I like to think the Little Busters! Anime will appear sometime in the next year. Judging from the difficult Kagetsu Tohya-esque plotline, awkward main characters, I think it would be a difficult anime-transition, but I know KyoAni could probably do it pretty well.
In the mean time I’ll be learning Japanese to finish Kudo’s route. Except it has swords, dramatic reveals, and I’ve only played half of it, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find explosions. Mecha and battleships is a stretch, since it’s Key, but I wouldn’t put it past any Japanese company. Saying what you just said is akin to saying “F/SN, huh? Where’s the mecha, battleships, or dramatic plot points? What’s the selling point?” Trust me, Little Busters is FAR from your average visual novel. You just played the 5 minute demo, Darkslime.
Little Busters! Was the number one top seller between July 26, 2007 and August 17, 2007 for Japanese PC game sales on Amazon only shortly after it came out. Exstasy sold out in Akihabara on it’s first day out. After three days, Key had sold all of it’s copies produced (over 100,000). This is basically one of the biggest sleeper hits in Visual novel history. It’s far from your “average” VN. It’s akin to sales the original Xenosaga had.
Obbsworld said: Ohh a friend of mine told me I need to play this game. That was about 5 months ago though, I wanted to wait until the all of the english patches were completed. Is this game continuously being updated? (Mention of additional girls) Should I just start it now despite it being incomplete, english-wise? The game is finished, its just the bonus material that isnt in english yet, so you can complete all the 6 girls and then the true routes in english fine. You just cant do the 3 additional girls that get unlocked as bonus material at end after you finish the game.(not in english anyway) so yeah, go for it, play it now:). Obbsworld said: Ohh a friend of mine told me I need to play this game.
That was about 5 months ago though, I wanted to wait until the all of the english patches were completed. Is this game continuously being updated? (Mention of additional girls) Should I just start it now despite it being incomplete, english-wise? The original game is complete, what they haven't done is the route for the 3 girls of Ex. Play it, Little Busters is another superb job from Key. And without seeing an anime adaptation anytime soon why not?; you will enjoy it.
NBloo said: since we talking about the Little Busters! VN game which one should I get?: Little Busters! - all ages version or Little Busters! Ex - 18+ or is the EX version an expansion?? Correct me if I miss anything.
Thank you nn Obviously get the EX version. Regular LB has just only 6 heroine routes + True Route. LBEX has 9 heroine routes + True Route, additional new contents for the 2 regular(Not the EX routes) heroine routes and H-scenes for the all heroine routes. If you don't like H-scenes, you can get the ME or PE version which it's totally the same as EX but only without the H-scenes. Regular routes: Rin, Komari, Haruka, Kud, Nishizono, Kurugaya. EX routes: Sasami, Kanata, Saya(Exclusively new character on the EX version). Free download insaniquarium deluxe 2 full version for pc.
So I played through the VN using TLwiki's patch a few years ago, and beat the game, even did some of the secret stuff. Could never do the EX routes (Sasami, Kanata, Saya) because they weren't translated at the time. Even after having beaten the game, I only have 56% completion on the gallery, and I am missing multiple CGs, Songs, and I have 0 scenes (not even really sure what the scenes are). Spoilers: Links to pictures of my game: Can anyone tell me what these CGs/Scene im missing are and how to get them? Also, I have beaten the game and watched the anime (LB + Refrain) but never watched the Ecstasy anime because I wanted to play the routes in the game before seeing them in the anime, but since the translation never got finished, and now won't until the steam release comes out, should I go ahead and watch the anime, or hold out even longer for steam release?.
Watch the anime for the story. It is summarised, so the main points of the visual novel are there.
You are missing the H-scenes for EX. Go through the routes again. I don't have the EX version or the English patch for it, but if I am not wrong, the English patch for EX will skip the H-scenes.
I completed all routes except Saya's on the CE version, and I have 89% completion for CGs. What you are missing for the songs are very likely the EX songs, like Saya no Uta, Will and Wish, or Glassware. You will have to go through the arcs (in Japanese) to get them. (I will not recommend doing so unless you already know the stories for the 3 heroines.
Little Busters Ex English Patch Full
Their H-scenes are, according to rumours, hilariously bad.). The steam release will be far out into the future.
I assume you don't really understand Japanese, so completing the VN in Japanese won't allow you to fully understand the stories of the three heroines, of which Saya's and Kanata's are quite good. The anime did not fully capture the sacrifices they made too. I would say the anime prepared me for Saya's arc.
Little Busters Ex English Patch
It is painful, therefore I have not completed it on my CE version. (I completed it thrice before I reset the game, so now I dare not play her route.).
By / November 2nd, 2017. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect those of oprainfall as a whole. Before I begin, I would like to encourage anyone reading this piece who has a knee-jerk reaction to my stance to fully read before commenting. I have reasons for preferring the all-ages version of Little Busters! Over the 18+ version, and it has nothing to do with the simple fact that it’s 18+. Hentai content is not something I have a problem with in and of itself – see my past eroge reviews – but rather I take issue with poorly-implemented 18+ content.
Now on to our regularly-scheduled programming. As most who have been following the game are most likely aware, Little Busters!
English Edition is based on the Japanese Perfect Edition – or more specifically the console Converted Edition – which contains the extra routes added in Ecstasy without any of that game’s 18+ content. Naturally, some are upset by this decision, releasing the all-ages version as opposed to the technically more content-rich 18+ release.
However, I think the decision to localize the all-ages version is a good one, the reason ultimately boiling down to it having the aforementioned poorly-implemented 18+ content. I should also note that this is all based on the Japanese version of the game. There was no complete English translation, with the scenes added in Little Busters! Ecstasy being largely untranslated.
As a result, my knowledge of the new scenes is based on a combination of machine translation, word-by-word translation, and my own rather limited knowledge of Japanese grammar. I acknowledge that there may be things I missed.
However, as I will explain, I don’t think it matters a whole lot. Also due to the language barrier, I didn’t read the extra routes added for Sasami, Kanata and Saya. For the original routes, I was reading along in the translated original version for context and to see where things were changed. Since I couldn’t do that with the new routes, and I’m not familiar with them to begin with, I figured it would take a lot of extra time that I don’t have to sink into this project. So, if you think that this lack of experience invalidates my opinion, then so be it. All that said, the biggest reason why is because the all-ages version is the original.
There’s no cut content in the main routes, but rather restoring them to their original version. Since the 18+ scenes were added after the fact – usually inserted into existing scenes and changing nothing else – most of the routes are not structured properly for them to make sense or serve any purpose.
H-scenes serve a purpose in most eroge; they may advance the story, they may help naturally develop the relationship between characters, or they may provide emotional payoff that is built up to throughout the story. The only route where this is the case is in Kud’s route, where the H-scene is inserted at a point that is appropriate both for the scene itself and for Kud’s route as a whole, since it was accompanied by a number of small changes to the growth of Riki and Kud’s relationship that also appropriately built to the H-scene. The other routes did not receive the same treatment, with H-scenes inelegantly inserted into scenes where they didn’t belong – and for Mio and Komari’s routes, into bad endings. Every good ending in the main routes can be obtained without seeing any H-scenes. This actually threw me off initially; especially since I did Komari’s route first, where the H-scene is only in the bad ending. This means that, by necessity, none of the H-scenes can contribute anything important to the story, and whether you read them or not you get the exact same text after the scene ends.
Even aside from Komari’s, they seem easy to miss, with some, such as Rin’s and one of Mio’s, seemingly only being available after finishing Refrain once. Because none of the H-scenes are necessary to see, it’s not difficult to go through the entire game without seeing any of them. As a result, anyone who objects to the H-scenes themselves can easily avoid them without consequence. On the other hand, since none of them (aside from Kud’s) contribute anything at all to the story, nothing is lost by not including them. VisualArt’s is seemingly trying to move away from being an eroge publisher. Little Busters!
Ecstasy was the last new eroge released by the company back in 2008, aside from some re-releases, including downloadable versions of Air, Little Busters! Ecstasy and Kud Wafter in 2013, and Tomoyo After It’s a Wonderful Life Perfect Edition in 2014. In a about Little Busters! English Edition, Kazamatsuri asked VisualArt’s president Takahiro Baba about Ecstasy, who said that the 18+ version was released “due to fan feedback”, and that despite the fact that “the results of doing so were very good” from a business perspective, they will “probably not do it again”, due to the difficulty of creating that type of story. The response seems to be supported by the fact that neither Rewrite nor the Angel Beats! Visual novel is 18+, and with Summer Pockets on the way we’ll see if that is also all-ages. If nothing else, the game would definitely need to have a different song for the H-scenes, because the song in the game as-is, titled “Sha La La Ecstasy”, is hands-down one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard in a visual novel.
It’s so cheesy, and, quite frankly, really funny: The ideal situation would be VisualArt’s releasing two different versions of Little Busters! English Edition, both an all-ages version and an 18+ version. However, since that’s clearly not happening, I don’t see only the all-ages version being available as a great loss.
The H-scenes add very little to the story, with very little effort seeming to have been put into integrating them into the story. They certainly don’t seem to be Fate/Stay Night-level of terrible, at least from what I could understand, but they’re far from being implemented as well as H-scenes in a game where they’re included as an actual creative decision rather than a shallow attempt to sell more copies.
The game is written to be complete without the H-scenes, which ultimately amount more to empty fluff than actual substance. If all the H-scenes were done like Kud’s, it would be a different story, but as it is, any worries about cut content in Little Busters! English Edition are somewhat overblown. Avoid the game on principle if you like, but rest assured that the story of Little Busters! Is still complete even without the H-scenes.
About Chris Melchin Chris is a computer science student who has been gaming ever since he knew what to do with a Super Nintendo controller. He's a fighting game player, with a focus on BlazBlue and Under Night In-Birth games. His favourite games include Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Persona 5, and Little Busters.
He started watching anime in high school, and his favourite series is Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. He also writes Vocaloid music for his personal YouTube channel, and has a (slight) obsession with Megurine Luka.