If the brief time that I had reading through the short demo of Pulltop's If My Heart Had Wings is any indicator of the type of quality that players can expect, then fans of visual novels and bishoujo games can be rest assured that MoeNovel's debut into localizing visual novels will be something memorable.
If My Heart Had Wings, or Kono Oozora ni, Tsubasa wo Hirogete, tells the tale of a young man named Aoi Minase who returns to his childhood town of Kazegaura after his dream of competing in bicycle racing is shattered by a cruel and unexpected twist of reality. After a chance encounter with the alluring Kotori Habane, a paraplegic teenager that talks to ducks, he becomes the head dorm mother of an all-female dormitory and together the two decide to revive the school's defunct Soaring Club.
The number one thing that jumped out at me during my playthrough of the demo, aside from the cute moe girls, was that the game is beautifully rendered in widescreen HD resolution so players don't have to worry about staring at a letterboxed or cropped presentation for 30-50 something hours. The hand-drawn static images are done exceptionally well and looked incredibly vibrant on my workstation's high-definition monitor.
As you can probably tell from the title, the visual novel uses both the sky and flying as heavy motifs, so players can expect an emotional tale of youth and romance as Aoi begins to discover a new meaning in his life. If My Heart Had Wings previously won the third place overall prize in the 2012 Bishoujo Awards and fourth place for best scenario. The professional-quality translation was provided by Active Gaming Media (AGM) who translated a number of console games, including Demon's Souls and No More Heroes.
Although the game will be available on June 28th, 2013, in both digital and physical media, you can save a cool 5% if you pre-order it via MangaGamer's official website.
The visual novel has been rated T for Teen by the ESRB, 12 by PEGI. Its original adult content has been removed for its localized English release.
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For more information about the release, visit MoeNovel's website here: http://moenovel.com/imh/