The crowdfunded English release of Aokana: cuatro ritmos a través del azul was always coming to PC, but whether or not it would be available on Steam was quite the mystery… until today.
NekoNyan announced that the romantic, sci-fi visual novel will release on Steam at the end of the month after being approved by Valve.
The new came via a tweet sent out by the NekoNyan Soft Twitter account on September 13th, 2019, announcing that Aokana‘s translation is complete and the editing is done, and all they have left to do is some quality assurance before release. They also made it clear that Valve gave the game the thumbs up for release on Steam.
Aokana – Four Rhythms Across the Blue!
We are happy to announce that Aokana was approved by Valve and will be released at the end of this month, on the 27th of September!100% Translated, 100% Edited and QA 75% pic.twitter.com/p2fMh2wKUU
— NekoNyanSoft (@NekoNyanSoft) 13 de septiembre de 2019
For those not in the know, Valve has a tendency of approving a game’s store page but then later banning the visual novel or anime-style game when it comes time for release. They just recently did that with Taimanin Asagi from Lilith, where they approved the game’s store page on Steam but then later banned it from the storefront claiming that it contained young looking characters.
En cuanto a los Aokana, the game will release on Steam as an all-ages release, but a free patch will be available to bring the visual novel up to its R18+ standards. You can check out the Kickstarter actualización, where they explain that not only will it be available on Steam, but also MangaGamer, Nutaku, and more…
“The game will be, like our other games, released simultaneously on the NekoNyan store, Denpasoft, Fakku, JAST, Mangagamer, Nutaku as well as Steam (with a free patch available). The launch price will be $34.99 with a 10% launch discount.”
That really is the best way to do it in this day and age, especially with so many games getting banned for nebulous reasons.
Even then, some all-ages visual novels will still get hit with the ban hammer from Valve over the most infantile of reasons, as evidenced with the ever-expanding Lista de Waifu Holocausto 2.0.
But since the store page has been approved, and the app has been approved, it looks like Aokana is a go on Steam.
You can wishlist the visual novel right now over on the página de la tienda de vapor or look for it to release on September 27th, 2019 at the end of the month.
(Thanks for the news tip MaverichHL)
