Interested in Playing Higurashi

[Amano Sora]

I am interested in reading Higurashi, but dont really know the order since it has many releases, some with better sprites. What is the correct order for it?

[WinterfuryZX]

If you know japanese you should play higurashi SUI, the extended version with all the 20 arcs.

If not just follow the order of mangagamer's releases and apll ps3 patches and whatnot, you will get only the 8 "basic" arcs, though.

[akaritan]

You're best off going with the steam releases. Read in this order: Onikakushi, Watanagashi, Tatarigoroshi. Those are the only ones that are out on steam right now. The old tl is bad, so you should wait for the next ones to come out instead of resorting to that, unless you're reeeally impatient.

[WinterfuryZX]

5 minutes ago, akaritan said:

You're best off going with the steam releases. Read in this order: Onikakushi, Watanagashi, Tatarigoroshi. Those are the only ones that are out on steam right now. The old tl is bad, so you should wait for the next ones to come out instead of resorting to that, unless you're reeeally impatient.

Yeah, unfortunately, we will never see the 12 additional arcs with tons of new characters in english.

[Vokoca]

1 hour ago, WinterfuryZX said:

If you know japanese you should play higurashi SUI, the extended version with all the 20 arcs.

If you can still get a copy that is. The game is out of print and the digital version is no longer available either. New copies start at around 15k yen and up on amazon, and at around 140 dollars on play-asia. The PS3 version is a big cheaper, but it's not much of a win either.

For the English release, as others have mentioned above, the new MangaGamer release is your best bet. You can even patch it with the compatible Sui content (art, voices) if you can get your hands on that - you'll just have to wait for MG to work their way through the rest of the original arcs. 

[Amano Sora]

Ill wait a bit then, i guess. Ive waited this long for DC III after all...

Hows the anime for this? Does it stray from the VN?

[Funyarinpa]

1 hour ago, WinterfuryZX said:

Yeah, unfortunately, we will never see the 12 additional arcs with tons of new characters in english.

That's actually wrong. While I don't think it's *all* of them, way back in '15 Mangagamer did confirm that they would be translating some extra hitherto untranslated arcs after the original eight.

Related- Gangamamer might finally be picking up the pace with the translation (this is the fourth chapter):

 

 

[Mkilbride]

Steam release has awful art, I hear. No voice acting.

 

I played one version with the PS3 Sprites + Voices last year.  It was pretty good.  Still, it drags.

 

As for the anime, avoid it at all costs. Some of the worst animation ever seen in a big name adaption and like most VNs, cut alot.

[Vokoca]

2 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

That's actually wrong. While I don't think it's *all* of them, way back in '15 Mangagamer did confirm that they would be translating some extra hitherto untranslated arcs after the original eight.

Just to clarify - what MG is translating is the Higurashi Hou release. What this means is that they're translating the Higurashi Hou specific arcs, that is:

Higurashi no naku koro ni - also known as the "Question Arcs", this includes the first four main arcs (Onikakushi, Watanagashi, Tatarigoroshi and Himatsubushi)
Higurashi no naku koro ni Kai - also known as the "Answer Arcs", this includes the last four main arcs (Meakashi, Tsumihoroboshi, Minagoroshi and Matsuribayashi)
Higurashi no naku koro ni Rei - also known as the fandisc, including the non-canon bonus arcs (Saikoroshi, Hirukowashi and Batsukoishi)
Higurashi no naku koro ni Hou - the 2014 release containing all of the above and the prototype Higurashi arc (Hinamizawa Bus Stop) and the written form of the non-canon movie (Outbreak) and its continuation (Outbreak - Kamikanshi)

As if this mess of releases wasn't confusing already, that is just the PC ones. There were remakes released on the PS2, DS, PS3 and Vita - and all of these brought their own new arcs into the mix. I won't list all the releases and arcs here before it gets even more ridiculous than it already is, but basically the "complete 19 arcs" that Higurashi Sui compiles into one release are the original eight arcs (Higurashi + Kai) and two of the Rei ones - that means Sui has 9 console specific arcs that aren't in the Hou release. On the other hand it also doesn't have the new Hou arcs, even if these are as non-canon as it ever gets.

Higurashi was milked to hell and back, and the result is an incomprehensible mess of releases with varying contents. What we're getting in the west is about a half of what's actually out there - but what matters the most is that we're getting the original eight arcs, and these are most definitely the best part of the entire Higurashi clusterfuck.

 

EDIT: As for the anime, I'd say go for it. The art and animation quality is pretty bad, but the OST is top-notch. It also does a pretty good job at retelling the story, with a new arc of its own to fill in the blanks they had to gloss over while adapting the others. It's by no means a perfect adaptations, but it's one of the better ones out there.

[Funyarinpa]

8 hours ago, Mkilbride said:

 

Steam release has awful art, I hear. No voice acting.

 

That's true, it's also 4:3, but for the first two chapters there are asset patches that add voices and PS3 graphics (16:9, redrawn backgrounds and CGs as well as new sprites). A patch for the third chapter is on the way.

[Dreamysyu]

I personally recommend avoiding the anime. It's certainly one of the better VN adaptations out there, but, to be honest, it still fails to capture the atmosphere correctly. If you start with the anime, you will be bored when reading the first two chapters of the VN since they are adapted pretty well. At the same time, they miss out quite a lot of important scenes in the later chapters, to the point where it stops making sense. Character development is also done much better in the original.

[WinterfuryZX]

The anime has a mjaor adaption flaw that ruined it copmpletely:

 

The abscence of the GHD sequence at the end of Tatarigoroshi-hen

They tried to retcon this later in the series but the damage was already done.

The 2016 live action is better even with the poor (poor is a compliment) actiing skill of thhe idol group impersonating the female main characters.

[Ningen]

38 minutes ago, WinterfuryZX said:

The 2016 live action is better even with the poor (poor is a compliment) actiing skill of thhe idol group impersonating the female main characters.

Those live action adaptions are truly disgusting.

Not only are the lolis basically Japanese adults (can't really use little girls in those... whatever).

They didn't even bother to try portraying the characters like in the source.

Every single character has black/brown hair.

Cosplay porn is better than that piece of shit.

[WinterfuryZX]

Of course they have black hair, they are Japanese. LOL. Do you expect an anime-like nonsense shit? This is a ridiculous expectation lol.

Come on, really... you can't make a live action with anime hair, that's just trash.

The idol group are not composed of adults anyway, Satoko and Rika are a little out of age but that's it. (and that's why they suck as actressess)

[Ningen]

17 minutes ago, WinterfuryZX said:

Of course they have black hair, they are Japanese. LOL. Do you expect an anime-like nonsense shit? This is a ridiculous expectation lol.

Come on, really... you can't make a live action with anime hair, that's just trash.

Of course you can, cosplayers nowadays use great wigs and dyes.

If you want to see something realistic, don't watch a movie.

[WinterfuryZX]

14 minutes ago, Ningen said:

Of course you can, cosplayers nowadays use great wigs and dyes.

If you want to see something realistic, don't watch a movie.

That would just be trash, horrible to watch, not only unrealistic but without any sense at all. They actually have balck hair even in the VN, anyway, they are Japanese (even if they are drawn with different hair color).