(Updated August 4 2009):
Hi everyone!
In case you haven't heard, MangaGamer has announced plans to release an English localization of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni in October of this year.
But if you'd like to have the original Japanese Higurashi games to use with our patches, here's how you get them:
The easiest and cheapest way is to try out the free Higurashi demo. We have an already-patched version of the demo available on our Aquiring our releases page; if you'd rather not have that, you can download the original release of the demo from this site. Don't worry about the Japanese - the download mirror sites are at the bottom of the page, so scroll down and follow the directions in English for which mirrors to use, labeled "みら〜#”. You might have to right-click and select 'save link' if it doesn't automatically begin to download the .exe file.
If you like what you've seen of the story and wish to get the full visual novel Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (Himatsubushi) with the first four arcs, there are a few retailers you can order the CD from - we ordered ours from Himeya Shop, which is in English and fairly straightforward.
To get the same content for cheaper and without shipping costs, you can buy it as a paid download from one of these Japanese merchants. Here are some handy instructions for buying if you don't know where to start:
- Go to this page at a place called melonbooks.com. You should see something like the image below.
Click the circled button to put the game in your cart.
- You will now be at the cart page, which should look much like the image below.
(Note the price: 1575 Yen, or about $15 in US Dollars.)
Click the circled button to buy the game as a guest - one reason we chose this site is because you don't have to register to purchase.
- This is the page where you select your method of payment. About the only real payment option for people outside Japan is "Credit Card", so click the circled button to pay by credit card.
(They accept VISA, Mastercard, Diners Club and AMEX.)
- You will now be at the credit card payment page.
Here you need to enter some of your personal information in the blanks with the following labels:- クレジットカード会社 - Select your credit card type from the drop-down.
- クレジットカード番号
（半角数字） - Enter the 16 digits of your credit card number. Do not use dashes or spaces. - 有効期限 - Use the drop-downs to select your card's expiration month (月) and year (年).
- カードの名義人
（半角ローマ字） - Enter your full name as shown on your credit card. - メールアドレス - Enter your email address. There are 2 textboxes:
- 半角英数128文字まで - Provide your email address, which should be at most 128 characters long.
- 確認入力 - Re-type your email address to confirm it.
At this point, scroll down to the next section of the page:
The text suggests that you register as a member so that you can reuse your billing information. This is probably more trouble than it's worth for just Higurashi, so in the part labeled 一般メンバーに登録する, select the (circled) radio button marked いいえ.
After that, click the circled button at the bottom to go to payment confirmation.
- クレジットカード会社 - Select your credit card type from the drop-down.
- This is the payment confirmation page.
If your information looks correct, click the circled button to authorize your purchase.
- You may now download the software, either by clicking the circled button on this page,
or else by following the link from the email you should get from Melonbooks.com. You have exactly one week from the time of purchase to download, so you can try later if there's a problem while downloading or if you don't have time to download right away.
Their listed likely download durations:
4min 10sec at 100Mbps, 20min 51sec at 8Mbps.
Plan your time accordingly. - Once your download completes, you can unpack it (it's a zip file) wherever you want to install the game. (This works the same for Mac & Linux users too.) Then go to Acquiring our releases and follow the directions for getting & installing the full Himatsubushi (NON-DEMO) translation patch.
- Enjoy the story! ^^
