Today aNCHOR announced the release date on Steam of Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien: Enhanced Edition, including the first official English localization.
Fans have been waiting for 23 years to be able to play this beloved visual novel in English, and that wish is finally coming true on October 18, 2024.
Those who backed this Enhanced Edition (the definition is due to the inclusion of additional content) during the crowdfunding campaign held a few months ago, have actually already received their codes and can already play. Everyone else will have to wait a a few months longer.
The Steam page is already available for your wishlisting pleasure. Below you can check out a few screenshots showing the two main heroines, Mitsuki Hayase and Haruka Suzumiya.
If you’re unfamiliar with Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien, it’s a visual novel released originally in 2001 as an eroge for PC, and then re-released with the removal of the adult content in following years on multiple console platforms. As you can imagine, this new version is suitable for all ages as well.
Its developer, Âge, is quite popular for the Muv-Luv series (which many, yours truly included, believe is the best visual novel series of all time), partly set in the same world. Many consider Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien as Muv-Luv’s prequel, and several of its characters appear in Muv-Luv Alternative and its extended universe.
The popularity of “Kiminozo,” as its fans lovingly call it, exploded and expanded to the West with the release of the anime TV series, titled in English “Rumbling Hearts” and aired in Japan between 2003 and 2004. You can currently watch it via streaming on Crunchyroll.
Here are the features that you can expect from the Enhanced Edition:
- Massive Narrative: Immerse yourself in a mature, dramatic storyline that explores the depths of human emotion and the consequences of life-altering decisions.
- Unforgettable, Realistic Characters: Connect with a cast of deep, well-developed characters whose growth and relationships evolve throughout the story.
- Expanded Content: This definitive edition includes the original game plus three afterstories and a full-length retelling of Chapter 1 with new endings for each heroine. It also includes the the bonus episode “Kanashimi wa Kaze no You ni” (“Sorrow, Like the Wind”) from the first edition printing of “Kimi ga Nozomu Eien Latest Edition”!
- Hours and Hours of Gameplay: Dive into a rich, branching narrative that offers tremendous replay value and multiple endings to discover.
And below you can read just a few hints about the story. Let me warn you, it becomes much, much more complex than what it sounds like. It’s romantic, tragic, incredibly emotional, and even a bit crazy.
Narumi Takayuki is a young man in his last year at Hakuryo Hiiragi academy.
There’s not much time left before he graduates, but he still has no idea what he’s going to do with the rest of his life. He spends his days not doing much of anything in particular, and feeling a vague sense that he’s running out of time.One day, his classmate and female friend Hayase Mitsuki invites him and his buddy, Taira Shinji, to a summer festival. There, she introduces him to a friend of hers, Suzumiya Haruka. Haruka is an extremely shy, introverted girl, and since Mitsuki’s trying hard to make her feel like part of the gang, Takayuki does his best to make her feel comfortable as well. But for some reason, instead of thanking him, she goes out of her way to avoid him. He leaves the festival frustrated and annoyed.
Days later, though, Haruka calls him out to the hill behind the school and tells him that she’s in love with him. Knowing how much courage it must have taken a shy girl like her to ask him out, he says finds himself unable to say no. The two begin dating, even though he’s not really interested in her.
Just like he predicted, his conversations with her are strained and awkward.
But as time passes, the two of them grow closer, and Takayuki finds himself falling in love with her sweet, innocent nature.And then one day…
If you’re playing the Muv-Luv mobile game Muv-Luv Dimensions, a crossover event with Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien has also just started today.
Full disclosure: the author of this article has backed the Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien crowdfunding project.
