Kindred Spirits on the Roof: Drama CD Volume 1, Playing Girlfriends review by Lolinia – Developer: Liar-Soft – Publisher: MangaGamer – Genre: Drama CD
Kindred Spirits on the Roof is a wonderful experience. It envelops you into its own world and creates an engaging story for the reader to enjoy. (If you want to read Eivmoe’s and Lolinia’s joint reviews of the game, read here.) However, what happens after the game is over? The same as a movie, there’s a sense of longing for more; a longing that makes you wish you could stay in that world just a bit longer even after a satisfying ending. To go even further, there are some things based on original movies, games, toy lines, comics, and more that make you want to find out more about the original source. To know the characters better from the spinoff you love, you go find the source material and see how it all began. Published onto Steam by MangaGamer (and available on their website), you can once again step into the world of Kindred Spirits on the Roof (KSotR) through the KSotR Drama CDs! Many thanks to MangaGamer for the review copy!
When it comes to translated Drama CDs, there is not much to talk about. KSotR’s Volume 1 CD was the first Drama CD that I ever watched. Not listened. Watch. These CDs are given a video format and a translation on the screen. Think of it as a short kinetic visual novel that you never have to click to advance the text. When it comes to the visual part, there is not much. A few pictures stretched out over a length of time, but again, that’s because they were originally CDs, not videos. Overall, the presentation isn’t what matters most; the story does.
In this reviewer’s humble opinion, a Drama CD is meant to invoke a return to a world that was once finished. On the other hand, they can also be tools to enrich character development, knowledge of that story’s universe, and more on an unfinished world. KSotR’s Volume 1 Drama CD has a lovely story that focuses on a select few of the characters in the game. (Each of the next three volumes deals with different sets of the characters.) By focusing on only a few characters, the relationships between those characters are deepened to the reader/listener. KSotR is both finished and unfinished. By that, I mean that the stories we read in the game are finished, but the characters’ lives extend past that year in Shirojo in the game. They live on and they continue to have experiences beyond the end of the game. This is where the Drama CDs come in to play.
Without spoiling the story of the game, the Drama CDs tell us new stories. They return us to the world of KSotR without need of the game, in fact. At the price of $9.95 USD on the MangaGamer website ($9.99 USD on Steam), this is a bargain. Both on the MG site and Steam, you do NOT need to own the KSotR game to gain ownership of the Drama CDs.
I’ll be following each release of the KSotR Drama CDs, so keep an eye out for the next one!
Pros:
- Beautiful extras. (Wallpapers, Hanging Hina image, MP3 files, etc.)
- Even more so, the Hanging Hina graphic.
- Very clear audio
- Great story
- Superb voice acting
Cons:
- For those not used to translated CDs, can be a bit boring to just stare at the screen, but the story and voice acting kind of make up for it in the long run.
- Names flicking on subtitles when the next line is spoken by the same person. This one is personal preference, and hasn’t taken the score down, but was an issue that irked me.
Lolinia gives the first volume of the Kindred Spirits on the Roof Drama CDs a Drastik Measure 9.0 out of 10.0 (90).
