Since this community has a bit of users who know Japanese, I was wondering if anyone here has played Towelket, and bring attention to it for people who haven't heard or played it.
Towelket: One More Time (タオルケットをもう一度) is a series of RPG Maker games that feature a cute art style juxtaposed with a story that's very dark in tone, often very philosophical, yet still finds time to be light-hearted, because of this it's often compared to the Mother series. There's currently 7 games with an 8th one in development, as well as 3 spin off games. The games aren't a continuous story, but they share similar elements and sometimes characters recur. (Though not as themselves) Much in the way Final Fantasy sequels are.
I've played through two of them fully, and am in the middle of one more as well as one of the spin offs. The first one I played, Towelket 1, (which is the 3rd game) has been the second piece of fiction to ever get a tear to come down my eye. It easily became one my all time favorite games, and my most favorite RPG. The second one I finished ~fury~ has probably the darkest story I've ever encountered. It makes Saya no Uta look like a nice picnic in a sunny park.
I'm not very good at explaining things myself so heres the description of the games from the wiki:
Here's some screenshots if you're interested in seeing the art style:
I hope that people will take an interest in it! While there's currently a partial translation of the first game, it would be amazing to see the others get translated so everyone can experience them because they're really moving. They make you really think a lot about why you're alive, what makes somebody a person, and what is time, while keeping a smile on your face, and have a few laughs along the way!
You can download them at:
http://www.freem.ne.jp/brand/1039 official site
http://www.mediafire.com/?29mkm8hk8uo1r33 zipped collection
You'll need the japanese RPGmaker RTP to play them.
The game works great with Visual Novel Reader if you need furigana or want to be able to copy+paste lines, but
machine translation works worse than normal due to a lot of the characters unusual names.