Real Sound: Kaze no Regret

Overview

Real Sound: Kaze no Regret ("The Wind's Regret") is an audio game released for the Sega Saturn by Japanese studio WARP, Inc. and directed and produced by the company's founder Kenji Eno. The game was released on June 15, 1997. The game was re-released for the Dreamcast in 1999 with a visual mode that included pictures and photos to accompany the story, but this version of the game also relies entirely upon sound and audio cues for gameplay.

The game came as a result of contact that Eno had with blind and visually impaired fans of WARP games. Eno was fascinated that the visually impaired would be fans of his games. He thought his games were very visually rich. He even went so far as to contact some of these fans to find out how they played his games if they could not see the games. As a result Eno decided to make a game that would be audio only, with no graphics at all.

Real Sound: Kaze no Regret was a very large influence on further games from Kenji Eno and WARP, Inc. Games that came afterward from the company would take gameplay elements from Real Sound. Enemy Zero featured invisible enemies that could only be through sound. D2, also from WARP, included parts of the game where the player's character was rendered blind and the player must rely on sound, following a voice to get through the game. D2 also featured a sequence where the character was rendered deaf.

Story

Real Sound: Kaze no Regret's story and plot revolve around a love story; the love story between Mizu Sakura and Hiroshi Nonoiti. The two characters meet while still very young in school and fall in love. Mizu and Hiroshi decide to meet one evening to elope. Mizu does not show up at the clock tower where they planned to meet and shortly afterward is transferred to a new school, separated from Hiroshi. The two characters meet coincidentally again. The game continues to follow the characters as Hiroshi is a college student and as Mizu is looking for a job and is starting her career.

The game features the voices of Ai Maeda, an anime voice actress, and Miho Kanno, a Japanese actress and idol singer.

Gameplay

Real Sound: Kaze no Regret is a completely spoken and audio game, as a result the game's game play elements were unique and different than most games that came before it. The player would listen to the game's story, similar in manner to a radio play, and would be prompted at particular times to make decisions in the branching storyline. These decisions would be prompted by an audible chime. Some have described the game play as almost like an audio "choose your own adventure" game.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to Kaze no Regret was composed by Keiichi Suzuki, who is most known for his work on the MOTHER series. It was distributed by Pony Canyon and released August 20, 1997. The song 'Takeyama's Wanderings' was written by Kenji Eno.

Real Sound ~The Wind's Regret~ The Music

Total length: 70:55

1. The Wind's Regret Main Theme ~ Piano Version
2. A New Nostalgia
3. The Wind's Regret Main Theme ~ Quartet Version
4. Let's Go by Transport
5. Her Name is Izumi
6. An Empty Place
7. Morning Saxophone
8. Was It the Same Dream
9. Her Name is Asami
10. Weather Forecast 1
11. Weather Forecast 2
12. Weather Forecast 3
13. Weather Forecast 4
14. Izumi's Question Mark
15. What a Fool I Am (Ambient Version)
16. A Sad and Beautiful Time
17. The Wind's Regret Main Theme ~ Piano Version by Nana
18. Izumi's Suspicion
19. Nana Runs
20. Takeyama's Wanderings
21. Fragments of Nostalgia
22. Nostalgic Ambience
23. Cardboard song
24. Driving High
25. What a Fool I Am
26. The Wind's Regret Main Theme ~ Orchestra Version
27. Regret

Trivia

• Real Sound: Kaze no Regret was to be the first game in a three part trilogy of audio only adventure games to be created by WARP. The second game in the series was to be titled Real Sound: Kiri no Orgel ("Mists of the Music Box"). Advertisements even appeared for the game in some Japanese video game magazines. The game was under development by the company but was never completed supposedly due to problems with voice and sound compression. The game was to be a horror game.
• The third game in the Real Sound trilogy was to be a comedy game, Spy Lunch. The game never made it past the planning stages and development never fully began.
• Real Sound: Kaze no Regret to this day is still very popular with the visually impaired and the blind as it is one of the few such video(?) games ever released.
• One branch of the possible storyline for Kaze no Regret was broadcast in its entirety on the radio in Japan.