Nice Boat! 0verflow Officially Announces Cross Days

Great news! 0verflow, the maker of School Days and Summer Days, has announced their next installment in the Days series, Cross Days. Although the game itself was announced many a days ago, real information and screenshots are finally available as of October 21st following the release of the latest issue of Tech Gian.

So, what is Cross Days all about? First, the game takes place in the same world as School Days, in fact, the story happens in parallel to School Days' plot. Of course, there will be many choices that the player can make, which will either lead to happy ending (most likely involving having "intimate relationship" with multiple heroines) or endings that involve blood and gore (NICE BOAT).

The game'smain love story will be between the new male protagonist Yuuki Ashikaga (足利勇気) and Roka Kitsuregawa (連川路夏). Aside from having various School Days character appearing in the game, it's worth noting that Yuuki's sister is Chie Ashikaga, the girl behind the "filming incident" during School Days' school festival. Roka is a first year student member of the girl's basketball team, and that's where she meets Roka (a senior member of the team) who subsequently brings her home. Roka meets Yuuki, stuff happens.

So why the name Cross Days? Other than the fact that 0verflow is probably trying to milk off of their Days series, supposedly the game got the name Cross to show that the story happens at the same time as School Days, hence the crossing of stories. (I was seriously expecting it to be called Winter Days)

According to currently available info, there will be 3D animation in the game. Also the staff have mentioned that they're working hard on the story as well as making the male protagonist not so useless (as in previous games *cough*Makoto*cough*).

The game will be released on February 27th, 2009 and pre-order begins in November. Let's hope they don't mess up the release like they did with Summer Days, as I'm sure no one enjoys downloading gigabytes of patch.

*Scans from basicchannel, the "caption" of the second image with all the names was shamelessly stolen from Moetron.

Update: From moe.imouto.org comes some cleaned, complete, and most definitely NSFW scans of the Cross Days feature in Tech Gian, check them out!

And here is an actual translation of the official story summary of the game (much better than my own):

主人公『足利 勇気（あしかが ゆうき）』が、同じ学年の『桂 言葉（かつら ことのは）』に気がついたのは、2学期の始めだった。
This time the main character is Ashikaga Yuuki. It was the beginning of the second semester when he first took notice of Katsura Kotonoha, a student in the same grade.

単に、よく図書室に来るというだけの、ほんのささいな関わりだった筈なのだけど……。
Strictly speaking, she only comes to the reading room often and there shouldn't be any relation between the two.......but.......

図書室で『喜連川 路夏（きつれがわ ろか）』を見つけたその日、姉を通じて再び路夏と出会った。
言葉を交わすたび、彼女に惹かれる勇気。 路夏も勇気と親しくなるたび、惹かれていく。
When Kitsuregawa Roka showed up that day in the reading room, Yuuki's sister got in contact with her and in turn became a link for Yuuki and Roka to meet up again. And during all this, Kotonoha and Yuuki were getting to know each other, and Kotonoha became attracted to Yuuki, but Roka was also getting to know Yuuki at the same time and equally gotten attracted to him...

だが、その恋路は順調に進むことはなく……
At last, the trip down the "road of love" is not a smooth one...

勇気は、路夏の誤解と嫉妬から同じ学校出身の『伊藤 誠（いとう まこと）』を彼女が好きとの話を聞き、さらに誠が違う女の子とも親密な関係にあるらしい話を耳にしたため、 誠の彼女である言葉に問いかける。
Because of Roka's Jealousy, she told Yuuki that she likes Itou Makoto, a student from the same school. But Yuuki also heard that Makoto seems to be having an "intimate relationships" with another girl. So he decided to ask Kotonoha(who is Makoto's girlfriend) about Makoto.

そして、この日を境に、言葉に関わると決めてから、勇気の大変な日々が始まる……。
And when Yuuki started these ties with Kotonoha, his troubled days are just beginning...

2005年に発売された『スクールデイズ』の同じ世界軸で起こったラブストーリーがここに始まる。
すれ違う気持ち、重なる想い、彼女たちの恋物語は何処へ向かい、どのような結末を迎えるのか……。
Cross days sets in the same world as the 2005 popular game "School Days". With deep feelings and heavy thoughts, where will this new love story take them to? What what kind of endings awaits them....?