Symphonic Rain

• Taiwan & Hong Kong: November 11 2004

• China: May 25 2005

• Taiwan & Hong Kong: December 22 2005

• Korea: September 18 2007

Symphonic Rain
Symphonic Rai original visual novel cover.
Developer(s)	Kogado Studio
Publisher(s)	Kogado Studio T-Time Technology
Platform(s)	PC
Genre(s)	Visual novel
Mode(s)	Single-player

Symphonic Rain (シンフォニック レイン, Shinfonikku Rein) is a Japanese musical visual novel developed by Kogado Studio and released on March 26 2006 for the PC platform as part of a series of "music adventure" games done by its Kuroneko-san Team. The game is rated for all-ages, and contains themes themes which revolve around romance and relationships. The game was later published and released in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Mainland China by T-Time Technology. Symphonic Rain was released twice more in Japan, first on June 24 2005 as a collector's edition, and again on November 22 2007 as a popular edition at a reduced price.

Gameplay

Similar to other visual novels, Symphonic Rain is highly text-based and most of the game requires little player interaction apart from clicking a few options presented to the player, usually dealing with where he wishes to head to after school. At certain points during the course of the story, the game switches into a "song-playing mode" where the player is required to hit keys to the beat of a background music track, usually sung by one of the heroines of the game, guided by different-colored musical notes scrolling from the right of the screen to the left. Each one of the notes are inscribed with a letter on the keyboard, which the player has to press when the note reaches a boxed-up region beside the treble clef. Points are awarded for the accuracy of keyboard input, starting with zero points for an inaccurate attempt, eight points for being slightly off, and thirty-five points for being exact. The value of each exact attempt increases as the player successfully creates chains of such accuracy, breaking the chain when an error is made or becomes slightly off.

Exact attempts also raise the evaluation meter at the bottom left corner of the screen by a single point each (marked by a small ring, which lights up with every point earned). When ten of these rings are lit, a large circular lamp directly above lights up while the rings revert to their darkened state. Similarly, an inaccurate attempt will darken a ring or a lamp should there be no lit rings. A minimum of four lit lamps are required for the song to be evaluated as a "pass", and this directly affects the story in a usually positive way. Players who are not proficient with this "song-playing mode" can switch on the autoplay function in the menu to enable the computer to hit all the notes. However, in this mode, the score will remain at zero.

There are a total of six good endings and three bad endings. The player would have to complete the three main heroine's story (also known as the Da Capo scenario) before the Al Fine scenario is made available. In Al Fine, the world is shown through the perspective of Tortinita Fine, and many questions about the story are finally answered by the end of the scenario. This is considered the "true end" of the game. Chris, the original protagonist, is voiced in this scenario while Tortinita is not. Da Capo and al fine are actual music terms and are both appropriate names for the story's parts in relation to the game's nature, as the story has to be repeated three times (one for each heroine) before ending with Al Fine's part of the story. After going through both the possible endings for Al Fine, players who return to Da Capo will make available Phorni's scenario. The events that make up this scenario highlight the truth about Phorni and finally tie up all the loose ends of the story.

Plot

Symphonic Rain takes place in a fictional city of Italian heritage where rain falls everyday. The locals there have adapted to this peculiar phenomenon, and carry on with their lives as if the rain was never there. No one uses umbrellas, or rain coats. The main character of the story is seventeen-year-old Chris, a Fortelle student of the famous Piova Communal School of Music (Scuola Comunale di Musica Piova, in Italian). Separated from his childhood sweetheart Arietta when he left his home town for the city, he keeps in touch with her through weekly letters. Penning their thoughts on these letters, Chris treasures and keeps her weekly writings, for he had promised her that should his drawer become totally filled with them, he would return to her. The story begins during Chris's third year as a student, a few months before he has to take the school's final graduation examination: a stage performance. As an instrumentalist, he is required to search for a vocalist partner before he is eligible for the examination.

Characters

Chris Velding (クリス・ヴェルティン, Kurisu Verutin)

Voiced by: Michio Miyashita (in Al Fine only)

The main protagonist of the game, whom you play as. A seventeen-year-old who came to the town with his childhood friend Tortinita to attend the music school. He is a third-year student of the keyboard-like instrument Fortelle, and dreams to become an accomplished musician. Apart from Tortinita and Asino, he virtually has no other friends at the school. A laid-back person, he is very talented at music. A week before he was to enter the school, he and Arietta got caught in a traffic accident where he damaged his ears and Arietta went into a coma. This accident also caused Chris to lose a lot of his memories. Ever since then, he kept seeing rain, even if the sky is clear. In order to maintain his sanity, Tortinita had been posing as Arietta and writing letters to him every week.

Tortinita Fine (トルティニタ・フィーネ, Torutinita Fīne)

Voiced by: Mai Nakahara

A seventeen-year-old childhood friend of Chris who is likewise attending the music school, and arguably the leading female of the cast. The younger twin of Arietta, she's an active girl with a strong personality. Tortinita is a third year vocalist student of the school, and as such has the option of being able to give a solo performance for her graduation performance. Her nickname is Toruta. She has likes Chris ever since they were young, but since Chris chose Arietta, she decided to hide her feelings even though she like Chris before her sister did. After the accident, Chris and her families decided to send them to the music school and possibly help Chris recuperate. They eat lunch together in the school cafeteria almost everyday.

Arietta Fine (アリエッタ・フィーネ, Arietta Fīne)

Voiced by: Mai Nakahara

The elder twin sister of Tortinita. She stayed in her hometown while her sister and Chris went to attend the music school, seemingly because she lacked the ability and talent, though the truth is that she is in a coma. A quiet girl who's good at cooking and domestic work, she's introduced at the beginning as Chris' girlfriend, and they communicate every week by sending letters to each other, even though it was actually all written by Tortinita. Her nickname is Arie.

Falsita Fawcett (ファルシータ・フォーセット, Farushīta Fōsetto)

Voiced by: Masumi Asano

The former president of the student's council, Falsita is a talented third year vocalist student who's searching for a Fortelle-playing partner for her graduation concert at the end of the year. She appears to be a gentle and graceful girl, but is known to be highly calculative and demanding, and is popular with the students of the school. She often does favor for people (such as writing a speech for the teacher), this habit, plus her part time job of working at a restaurant, makes her very busy. Her nickname is Fal.

Liselsia Cesarini (リセルシア・チェザリーニ, Riserushia Chezarīni)

Voiced by: Fumiko Orikasa

A fifteen-year-old Fortelle student who loves to sing. She is the daughter of the famous Fortelle player Grave Cesarini and hence is constantly pressured by her father to follow in his footsteps. She is a shy girl who hides in the abandoned school building to practice her singing in secret, away from her father's notice. Her nickname is Lisel. When she was small, her mother ran away from the house in order to be with a singer whom she loved. After wards, Grave sent Liselsia into the orphanage. A few years later, he discovered that she had a lot of talent at Fortelle and adopted her again.

Phorni (フォーニ, Fōni)

Voiced by: Hiroko Kasahara

A small, fairy-like creature no taller than fourteen cm and possessing tiny, translucent, fluttering wings. But, even though she's so small, she can sing and speak at a normal person's volume; even though she has wings, she cannot rise above a certain height. Phorni is the self-declared, 'fairy of music' who shares the room with Chris ever since he moved in. Apart from Chris, no one is able to hear her, see her, or touch her. She enjoys singing (which she's very good at), and would pester Chris into playing the Fortelle so that she could sing along. She has a habit of saying "miyah" when she is surprised.

Asino Altiele (アーシノ・アルティエーレ, Āshino Arutiēre)

Voiced by: Hayato Watanabe

Chris' best and only male friend, he supports Chris from the side and seems to be very popular with girls. He had originally planned to partner with Falsita, but she was only using him to get information about Chris and dumped him soon after.

Cordell (コーデル, Kōderu)

Voiced by: Yu Asakawa

Cordell is a strict but impartial teacher of great repute in the school. She is liked by many of the students there.

Grave Cesarini (グラーヴェ・チェザリーニ, Gurāve Chezarīni)

Voiced by: Kōichi Nagano

A nobleman who is both Liselsia's father and a famous Fortelle player. He looks at his daughter's efforts in singing with great disdain and frustration, and this has resulted in him employing rather drastic methods to force his daughter to follow in his footsteps.

Ninna Fine (ニンナ·フィーネ, Ninna Fīne)

Voiced by: Michiru Wada

The grandmother of the Fine twins, she chose to live in the city because of her love for music. She lives together with Tortinita and gives much moral support to her. She's quite fond of Chris. She is blind but still very good at cooking.

Development

Symphonic Rain was produced by the Kuroneko-san Team, one of seven development teams that make up Kogado Studio. Symphonic Rain was the fourth game in a series of "music adventure" (ミュージックアドベンチャー, myūjikku adobenchā) games produced by the team, and Kuroneko-san is the only team to produce such games in Kogado Studio. Art direction and character design was headed by Shiro, and background art was provided by Kazuo Ebisawa of Ufotable. The game's scenario was written entirely by Maoto Nishikawa who is credited as Q'tron for Symphonic Rain. Music in the game was written and composed by Ritsuko Okazaki through the music producing company Copyrights Bank. The Kuroneko-san Team collaborated with King Records on the game's production.

Release history

Symphonic Rain was first released as a limited edition version in Japan on March 26 2004 as a DVD playable only on a Microsoft Windows PC, and came bundled with a small figurine of Phorni. The regular edition of the game was released in Japan on August 27 2004. The game was released abroad in Taiwan and Hong Kong on November 11 2004, and again on May 25 2005 in China. A collector's edition of the game was released in Japan on June 24 2005, and was later released in Taiwan and Hong Kong on December 22 2005. A downloadable version of the collector's edition was released in Korea on September 18 2007. A popular edition of Symphonic Rain was released in Japan at a reduced price from the original release on November 22 2007.

Music

The ten songs available for the player to play are released on two different albums. The first one, Symphonic Rain: Rainbow features the original voice actresses singing the songs. The second album For RITZ has Ritsuko Okazaki singing all the songs.

• "The Other Side of the Sky" (空の向こうに, Sora no Mukō ni) by Ritsuko Okazaki
• "Even When Crying" (涙がほおを流れても, Namida ga Hō o Nagarete mo) by Okazaki
• "Secret" (秘密, Himitsu) by Mai Nakahara
• "Always Smiling" (いつでも微笑みを, Itsudemo Hohoemi o) by Nakahara
• "The Music of Rain" (雨のmusique, Ame no musique) by Masumi Asano
• "Melody" (メロディー, Merodī) by Asano
• "High school Girl" (リセエンヌ, Rise Ennu) by Fumiko Orikasa
• "Hello!" by Orikasa
• "Fay" by Hiroko Kasahara
• "I'm Always Close to You" by Kasahara

External links

• Symphonic Rain official website Template:Ja icon