At least, I and Kud are the same lolicon. 
Kud Wafter anime is apparently in the works
http://blog.livedoor.jp/geek/archives/51539308.html
Same staff/studio hopefully!
So will this VN ever be translated? Iāve been waiting years to be able to read my favorite Little Busters heroineās VN but my Japanese is not at that level yet.
It looks like Project Wafuu has all but announced cancellation so will this VN never achieve the blessing of an English translation?
Dog knows.
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Kud Wafter makes me skeptical from the premise alone. A game spun-off from a visual novel that, while featuring a nominal amount of romance, was far more interested in exploring friendships and how they hold up to the test of time, instead honing in almost exclusively on the fluffiest aspects of romance. Itās why Iām kinda glad the film is bring back the old gang for at least a couple scenes.
I played this game over the past couple of months and posted a review of sorts for it on an /r/visualnovels thread, and a friend encouraged me to make an account on here and share it in this thread as well. So yeah, I hope some of you enjoy reading my thoughts on this game (which are pretty different from most of the opinions Iāve seen on this game until this point) and am willing to respond to any comments on it.
So a couple months ago the crowdfund for the Kud Wafter anime started on Tokyo Otaku Mode and I watched the really cute trailer and started feeling nostalgic for the parts of LB! (and Kudās route specifically) I liked, which idly got me thinking about playing the actual game and uh yeah I decided to go ahead and play it.
There was a weird condition that led to me enjoying this game as much as I did I think. Namely, that itās been years since I played Little Busters. I barely remember what kind of characters Kud and Riki were but was already incredibly fond of their pairing when I played it and over the years itās boiled down to just ādang those side routes were pretty ultimately pretty eh, but Kud and Riki were really fucking cute togetherā so Iāve if anything invested myself more into the couple than when I actually played the game. The time gap also meant I could not notice any meaningful character discrepancy. I have the idea in my head that Kud was a lot more zany but it isnāt solid enough to start bothering me when I perceive Kud as a relatively mellow character in this game. Riki in particular has lost all of his identifying characteristics in my mind other than being ānormal and meek-ishā so who knows if he changed at all here.
Yet, probably more than anything else when it came to influencing my eventual enjoyment, I expected this game to be truly trite awful garbage. Iāve only ever heard how insanely bad Key h-scenes were, that this game was a loli fanservice nukige hell, and it had basically no redeeming value whatsoever. Instead I got a game that had a really earnest slice-of-life story of a couple living day to day on their summer break with some of the better ero Iāve read in this entire medium?
In case that sounds like Iām overpraising it I should clarify, Kud Wafter is an incredibly āboringā game. I meant living day to day very literally. Almost every single in-game day would follow a pattern of wake up, eat breakfast, do some stuff (bottle rockets), eat lunch, do some more stuff (more bottle rockets), eat dinner, then do some homework, shower, sex, sleep. Occasionally the scene depicting a meal would be skipped, but Iāve read dozens of conversations between these two characters about what Kud decided to cook that day and how ćććć it is. There was a loosely ongoing plot but for the bulk of the game it never takes over everything that happens, the game continues to depict all the little moments where you just do something else not related to whatever is actually going on in your life. All the haphazard āI feel like ordering this todayās and āletās eat here instead because they have air conditioningā kind of decisions. Itās a really just a relaxing time with nothing wacky or over-the-top occurring at all. Riki and Kud were cute and led a happy little life together that I felt I was voyeuristically creeping on as opposed to just reading the story of. Thatās all I ever really wanted out of the game anyway.
The most surprisingly stand-out part however, was the porn. It was just veryā¦ genuine? I can see being bothered by these characters being sexual (I wanted to play the all-ages version myself but couldnāt really find it) but when the scenes started it seemed like such a natural evolution of where they were with each other and the way the scenes developed over time was so believable and adorable as they went from fumbling over each other and not even being able to have penetrative sex successfully (with multiple blueballed scenes as a result) to engaging in awkward roleplay and teasing each other over random small kinks. The scenes did become more porny as the game went on (with the final one even being over the top multiple round simultaneous orgasm stuff), but itās one of the few games where I felt like the ero was a real important part of the story being conveyed rather than just ātime to press the porn buttonā.
Of course there isnāt only good things to say. Once the first route ended the game had a second more serious route (which was basically the exact same through the time range covered by the first) that offered a bunch of sweet romantic scenes between Kud and Riki in place of the newly gone fanservice/ero ones, but once it reached new territory it basically became a true successor to the Kud route itās a sequel to. That is to say, it had some so-so drama that just got worse and worse as it went on (for way too long). The most positive comment I could make about it is that the voice actors did a good job and itās not as bad as the original Kud route. Fortunately the drama is actually a pretty small part of the script (around 1/8th of the total thing by line count) so Iām able to compartmentalize it well and pretend it isnāt there as much as it was (but it was pretty dang bad lmao).
All in all though Iām glad I played Kud Wafter. It wasnāt amazing, but it was fun to be able to go through a game I only had passing interest in when I exclusively read English because I assumed it just wasnāt in the cards. Especially since in the process I got to form my own opinion on this game Iāve heard demonized so much by people who never even got to give it a chance. So yeah. Fun cute game.
Fun fact 1.5% of all lines in the script contain wafuu~.
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This is probably the most surprising thing Iāve read from your review. I mean, the way you describe it does sound quite genuine and down-to-earth, at least more than most other eroge with focus on the h-scenes.
At the least, saying that:
is very contradictory from what I have heard from other people, most notably from @HeliosAlpha (though I wager he wouldnāt be the most objective source of opinion on this subject, heh)
I guess the biggest issue is, especially with Key works, that we have been coddled with countless amazing works over the course of the years, such that the moment they release something mediocre at worst but decent at best, it is instantly marked as āshitā. The exact same thing happened to Charlotte, and then again to Harmonia, and it seems Kud Wafter started the whole thing to begin with.
Although when you mention:
I guess thatās where it gets hit the hardest. I donāt think itās a lie to say that, for most people, their main expectation when getting into a Key work is compelling drama. With Kud Wafter apparently lacking that, I would imagine that most people would be highly disappointed when it comes to that sort of thing.
I guess the best way to describe it (based on your review) is that Kud Wafter is a decent game in the sphere of visual novels but suffers from the stigma and expectation that comes from being a Key work.
(then again it seems to me that in the sphere of visual novels, nowadays, being ādecentā is no longer good enough lol)
Thank you for confirming this, for scientific purposes 
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Yeah I can definitely see why some people take that point of view conceptually, though where I differ is I think what it does well it does better than most Key games (admittedly saying this off just LB!, Clannad, and Rewrite, excluding Planetarian as itās more than a bit different) since outside of a few fun events I did not really enjoy my time with the laid-back slice of life stretches in those three games (with Little Busters coincidentally enough doing the best in comparison). And the places where it fails I think are merely comparable to the weaker portions of the other games (Little Busters and Clannad side routes, Rewrite routes are completely different in tone and thematics so I wonāt try to compare them).
But yeah it definitely lacks the āwow true routeā that Key games are so renowned for.
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