Description
My deceased grandmother liked traveling. Strange scenery. Strange people. She liked to meet them. I am now a high school student and set off on a trip as well. It is just a camp for training of my club. We visit a town near the sea and go to a temple gate located at the cape. What we see there is....

Game OP: Aoi shiro - opening video

English Translation Main page: http://www.solelo.com/aoishiro/pc/index.htm
The patch: http://wingsofyuri.nekoslovakia.net/aoishiro/pc/aoishiro_pc_eng_patch.zip

Get the game here: http://www.hongfire.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95183
There are some direct download links, but i didn't try them. I use the torrent, which i also attached below.
This is not a proper ISO, just the installed contents. But i works for me.
I am using Windows XP SP3 (32-bit). At first i get some dll missing error. But after updating DirectX (as suggested by that hongfire page), it works.
DirectX update for Windows XP: http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/d/3/0d307649-9967-49fa-ab27-61f11024e97f/directx_nov2008_redist.exe
DirectX SDK for Windows 7:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b66e14b8-8505-4b17-bf80-edb2df5abad4&displaylang=en#dx

To avoid problem, please rename/move the Aoshiro game directory to something simple, like C:\Aoishiro.

This is one epic game, both in size and story.
It is fully voiced. In addition, the lips are animated when they talk, synced with the voice. First time i seen that in a visual novel.
As if that is not enough, they fully voiced all the menu items. When you mouse over the menu item, one of the character will say something about it. And there are 11 characters that you can choose to do this voice over.
I don't think this game is 18+ rated. But there are many beautiful CG, with sexy/suggestive poses, and plenty of exchange of liquids.
There are 6 major branches to stories with 56 endings in total.

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Foro MCAnime links posted by laplacian:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6RSR5SI8
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GO4R1DSQ
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GWT1UIDY
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DJE0GCJS
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HD7V28XX
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DKZLL1XP
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JWJ3CFI5
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RRNB072C
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B7ORRXJS
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3B0ETIHW
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LPAOI4B1

Password: kpoeira

Mediafire folder:
http://www.mediafire.com/?b987b63snhzg3

Hmmn thanks I will download and have a look. Glad to see you contributing and following tags.

also Attachments can only be viewed by members.

Mind explaining how to get the game to work? 

Hongfire thread doesn't seem to have any solution.

I extracted the directx redist into directx/setup and ran the game. not only was the game title screen not like the one in website screenshot, it never made it past the first sentence (and keeps freezing/error after that). I am on vista/7 with japanese locale and it doesn't seem to matter at all. Any input would be extremely helpful in getting this awesome-looking game running. Thanks O_o

I am not using vista. So no idea if it works the same there. But this is all the steps i do:
1. Copy the game somewhere, most likely doesn't matter where, for me C:\HGames\Aoishiro

2. Extract the english patch.

3. Then copy these to C:\HGames\Aoishiro\
Aoishiro_eng.exe
AoUtil_eng.exe

4. And these to C:\HGames\Aoishiro\SCRIPT\
EXE_CEL.AFS
SCRIPT.AFS

5. Run AoUtil_eng.exe, change nothing and just exit
Basically, i just try run it to see what it is, but see nothing to change. This may or may not do anything. I mention this in case it is important.

6. Run Aoishiro_eng.exe, in japanese locale. For me, i use agth.exe with /L /NH option. Can also use AppLocale, change your whole machine, etc. If you have run japanese games before, you probably know what to do.

The step 5 above, is when i get dll missing error. The missing dll file is part of DirectX, so after I run the directX update, this error is fixed. The error is in english, and will tell you the exact file name it is missing. So if you don't see anything like that, your problem is probably not related to directX.

That's problematic :/

Vista doesn't seem to like apps locale very much, because it already has the necessary language components installed. Mine has been japanese locale and everything from the beginning.

I followed the steps that the website posted of how to install the patch, and although I looked through the utilities apps I don't think I changed anything much. If it's not a direct X problem (and it seems many people from hongfire were stuck at the same place as I was) wonder if anyone else got it to work :/ with some possible solutions.

Title screen different, do you mean you have less choices? That is normal, when you first start you only have 4 choices on the left side (Start, Continue, Organize, and Option). The fifth option "Treasure Box" will only appear after you completed at least one route.

By first sentence, do you mean after you click "Start"?
Try move/rename your game directory, so that it is short.
My Game is installed to C:\HGames\Aoishiro
When i try renaming it to C:\HGames\Aoishiro12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
I can still start the game and get the title screen. But as soon as i click "Start", the game crash.

So uh, I managed to pass the beginning, but after a certain scene - namely after the intro movie, it crashes at a certain point and automatically closes. I don't know what's wrong this time -_- (It's the scene right when they were about to get off the bus and the picture was that of a sunset. the game closes as soon as it reaches there, whether by normal or skip...)

intro movie?  if it's a video scene maybe your codecs have problems?

I just check, the last sentence before the intro movie is "We went towards the Southern Sea...". Is there where you crash?

But you mention after the intro movie. So maybe you have seen it already? The intro is the youtube movie in the first post.

Anyway, if you suspect codec, there is another movie you can try. If you leave the game idle on the main menu (start, continue, etc screen), after about 1 minute, a different intro movie will play.

No, not a codec problem. I installed the CCP beforehand, so the intro movie ran fine. That's not the problem. The problem is that the game crashes AFTER the intro movie has finished and the game revert back to normal mode. The screen first turn black then the sunset. A few sentences after they talk about getting off the bus (and after mentioning how tired the bus driver was) it crashes, always at the same place. It's rather weird how no one else is having same problem... and I really doubt it's my computer's fault (the settings should all work) so... what's going on -_-

Edit: I think the game has something against windows 7/vista. I ran it on my old laptop xp and it's running fine, so I assume the OS might be the case after all... quite lame.

Well then, under Windows 7, ya should just run it under XP mode then. Anything that works under XP should work under Windows 7 using that method (basically it's virtualization, so you'd be running the game in a virtual machine). I do think ya need at least the pro version to make that work though.
Anyway, ya should read up on the function and see if it can help ya.

Unfortunately, that function isn't as reliable as we want, but this shouldn't be one of those cases. I had the opportunity to test several dozens of 98 and XP games on Windows 7 and from the few games that didn't run correctly, some of them were VNs translated by JAST about 5/6 years ago and what they have in common is that they use the same engine. All the other VNs worked just fine.

Not sure if Aoishiro uses same engine (it seems to be a better one at least) but I did beforehand try running with windows capability at xp, but that didn't work. I also transferred the save file from my xp laptop to windows 7. It got past that crashing part, but crashes a scene later. I think it has something to do with the character sprites generated because everytime they are suppose to appear from a screen without them speaking, it crash.

And yeah, if it takes the pro to work, then I have no way of getting it to work on windows 7 since mine is home premium (and it won't allow me to upgrade to pro rofl stupid microsoft) Ah well... as long as my xp laptop doesn't break down I can play the game... :/ until someone finds a real solution.

Aioshiro does work on Windows 7. I passed the intro, I passed the sunset images and it worked like a charm. For those having the problems, are you sure you're using the Aioshiro_eng.exe and not the other one? Plus I have it set it to window mode.

windws 7, aoishiro_eng, windows mode, nothing changed, default setting. maybe aoishiro simply hates my laptop :/