ef – the first tale

ef - the first tale

Otowa, a city once razed by a devastating earthquake and the resultant fires.
A beautiful European cityscape now marks the present, as if it were from a fairy tale; almost as if to mask the memories of that calamity…

Prologue: A beginning of the story “ef – a fairy tale of the two.”
The night before Christmas.
A man visited a church in Otowa.
He was to fulfill a promise made in the distant past.
A woman greeted him.
The two of them calmly talked about their bygone days.
“Each step of life would be taken together.”
“That was what we thought.”
“But then…”
“Our hands drifted apart, yet they arrived here through unique paths.”

What happened in the time they were separated?
They were there to find out.
The girl said,
“It was during this time, one year ago.
Those doors opened, and he wandered in from the cold. It was a lone young man.
A part of him resembled you… Yes, there was a pining essence within.
That may be why I acted the way I did.
For a short time, I thought I would involve myself in his fairy tale.”

Chapter 1: Otowa – Winter
Hiro Hirono is not only a full-time student, but also a professional shoujo manga artist. On the night of Christmas Eve, he happened upon two women.
The first, Yuuko Amamiya, was a mysterious lady who continued to wait for someone at the church.
The other, Miyako Miyamura, was a girl who had her purse stolen and snatched Hiro’s bicycle to pursue the culprit.
This winter, Hiro will waver between his artistic dreams and the reality of school.
Upon seeing each other again at Otowa Collegiate, Miyako presented Hiro this question: “It’s all too much for one person. Can’t you just run away from it all?”
He will be charmed by the free-spirited Miyako, who is bound by nothing.
However, there is yet another girl with her eyes on him: Kei Shindou, whom he thinks of as a sister and a childhood friend.
This driven and confident girl, a starter of the basketball team despite her short stature, will try to show Hiro another path.
These students will coalesce within this idyllic school life.
Their relationships will be taken a step further, yet what has tied them together is about to become hopelessly tangled.
The choice between dreams and reality…
His heart torn between two girls…
Hiro must find a single solution for these two conflicts.

Chapter 2: Otowa – Summer
Half a year after the events of the first chapter, the passage of time brings both new relationships and the birth of a new tale.
The girl who became hurt by the events at the conclusion of winter met a young man named Kyousuke Tsutsumi.
A cameraman in the film club, he was usually rather aloof, but the objective view passing through his lens didn’t overlook a fairy tale that hadn’t quite seen its finale.
Hiro Hirono had grown since the first chapter, and Yuuko Amamiya was still waiting.
While watching over everyone, she took it upon herself to take action once more.

105 comments on “ef – the first tale

  1. Can some one spoil me a little bit? a saw the TAG REVERSE NETORARE, does this mean that one girl may be stealing MC from our Heroine of our like?

  2. Well, just wondering. I haven’t started the game yet but since I’m not 18 yet, I’m hesitating. What is about this VN that makes it a 18+ ? Because I sometimes find some games that are for 18+ but only contain a few agressive (not in a sexual way) scenes. So, is this game also that way? Oh! And does it or does it not contain any “sexual contents”since it’s not written anywhere. Anyway, thank you for uploading it !

  3. Virustotal and Avira say that there is a virus in the Setup. Is it safe, and when not, what can I do against it?

    1. I’m getting the same problem. It’s an artemis trojan, right? It’s in the setup file, so it won’t run. This is weird, because none of the other ones on this site have that, so it’ might be something planted by the translators. Whatever the case, it won’t run because of this. Admin, please see what you can do about finding a different release or fixing this one.

      1. So it turns out that somebody says an internal file or folder just happens to use the same folder that an old version of Artemis uses. That is Artemis uses this folder to look convincing but this one is in fact clean and teh original whatever used before Artemis did, and my security software’s having a false alarm. Unfortunately, I learned this after I deleted the game from my computer. Guess who has to waste another week re-downloading this?!

        1. can anyone else confirm this? I’m a bit worried about this since my avira is also reading the 1st part as a virus

          1. Every game posted on this site is manually verified before being posted. I haven’t uploaded a single virus in past six years this site has been offline.
            The executable is exactly the same as official one you get by buying the game from Mangagamer (minus DRM component ofc). If in doubt, you can send the .exe sample to your antivirus vendor, who will manually verify it and update their database to whitelist it.

    1. Yeah, I’m getting the same thing when I try to run the game directly from the files it installed. When I try to run it through the other exe (The crack I think) It says something did not install. I’ve tried this several times and made sure to tell my anti-virus software not to scan any of the associated files when I run (It keeps coming up a false positive for a trojan and being overactive Mcafee, refuses to let me remove the quarantine, forcing me to delete and reinstall if it does) Is there supposed to be a CD Key or am I not using the right execoutable? Which file is it? And you do have to install it, correct?

    2. Okay for anyone in the future that’s having this problem…
      you see the crack shortcut?… copy it then go to Local disk C proram FILES Minori(Note:I just written the default location on my pc, but just look for the file location of Ef) then click the ef file then paste the crack there….

  4. Semi-spoilers ahead, warning+++
    +
    +
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    last warning
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    +
    OK, so I’ve played maybe two dozen VNs by now, and it bothers me that this VN has such a good reputation. Sure the art is nice but the story and characters make me downright angry.
    Especially Miyako and Hiro, the first heroine path and protagonist. Midway through the first half of the game, Miyako reveals an ugly side so ugly, and does something so unforgivable, it had me actually cursing the bitch outright. That wouldn’t have been a problem if we were able to make Hiro do the right thing and dump her, possibly also spit in her face. But Hiro just forgives her, despite possibly doing the worst thing she could have possibly done to his pseudo-sister and long time best friend.

    As a result, I have to completely flunk the story of Miyako – 0/10. GARBAGE. It’s a childish story of jealousy, pettiness, bitch teens and other shitty little things that makes you wonder why the developers wanted to tell such a daft little story about awful people.

    Kei’s story makes it almost worth it, the way she is able to get back her confidence after public humiliation and the scum she is surrounded by. But it’s somewhat soiled by the second protagonist’s weak/ flimsy motivation to get involved with her. 6/10.

    This has me annoyed as all hell, and I’m in no rush to play the second “tale”. This is like the VN version of Twilight. Utterly reprehensible – a story for small minds. If you’re a sociopath you might enjoy it.
    Overall story: 2.5/10.
    Characters: 2/10
    Music: 7/10
    Art: 8/10
    Translation: 9/10
    Total verdict: 4.5/10

    1. I believe the game could have been good if we had a clever ending between Hiro and Key. Those two are make for each other, I think.

  5. Hey, i’ve tried to download the multivolume da-free rar twice and each time i’ve gotten the error ‘bg.paz is corrupted’ when i extract the game and try to install. This could be just a problem for me with my hard drive or downloading, but if the admin could check it out or if someone else has found this i’d appreciate some feedback

  6. Hey, do I need to play this or “a fairy tale for two” first? I can’t find any list of the proper chronology…

    1. chronologically this takes place first I believe, but there isn’t much continuity outside a few recurring characters, so you might wanna play this first.

  7. When will the “ef – the latter tale”? She came out on December 20. I know that there is a full version, but I like more work Mangagamer.

  8. I already bought the game, but thanks to some inexplicable bug with the DRM, I can’t activate it, so I have to resort to this. Could someone tell me which file contains the cracked executable? That’s all I need.

  9. can anyone help me? I think im the only one with this problem. um…i can open the game and play it just fine. But there is no voice and sound at all. What should I do?

  10. Hey guys, to anyone and everyone wondering how to get the game to work, here’s a step by step guide.

    1. Download the game for any of the mirrors provided. I downloaded the one broken down in the numerous parts, but I assume the contents are the same regardless.
    2. There should be one big file if you downloaded it via torrent or one click. If, like me, you downloaded the 11 parts, it should be the same regardless: Just extract the files into any folder. I would recommend using Win rar as there is a 30day free trial and it automatically extracts ALL the files so you just need to click extract once.
    3. When you get the extracted fines, there should be 3 folders \Crack\ \Font\ And \Setup\. For get the other 2 files for now- For get the font one in general, as far as I can tell, it has no purpose. Still, it might be important to the game, that I’m trying to say is don’t fuck with it. Go into Setup and click, well, setup. It will try to install itself, just follow the instructions and install it where ever you like, just make sure you remember where, the installed folder is important. It will ask you for an activation code, but forget that, you don’t need to worry about it. I’ll explain in the next part.
    4. Remember where you put that installed folder? Good. Now the last part is real simple. The ef_first_en.exe (Don’t sweat if it doesn’t say exe, that’s not important, don’t do anything stupid like trying to rename it) in that folder will ask you for a activation code, right? That sure is a predicament right? Well, If you disobeyed my instructions and checked each folder regardless, You should already know there’s one in the crack file! If you didn’t, good boy/girl, 10 points for following instructions, and now you know regardless. Anyway, like I said, real simple. Just take the copy of the game in the crack folder and replace it, (i.e copy it in) to the where ever you installed the game! To clarify, what you need to do is move the copy of the game in your CRACK folder to the folder with the copy of the game that ask for an activation code! Got it? If not, read over what I said, cause I’m not saying it again.

    And there you have it~! Hope this was helpful to anyone who is confused~ To be honest a guy in the comments explained it to me, I just took what he said and made it a littler easier to understand~ Enjoy the game!!! ^_^

  11. There’s something wrong with this one, it has a Trojan Horse and the game won’t load onto the computer… I’d love to play, but I can’t get it to download correctly.

  12. I’ve installed the setup and it requires a product key, the crack file doesn’t work, it says “some file does not install properly”.
    I used the torrent link dl and I know Iv’e install it properly.
    Little help?

  13. you know this game would be perfect if it was uncensored its got a great story like cresendo or kira kira and yes i know you dont come for the sex scenes in those games so i should not matter if it censored or not but the scenes in EF are so tastefull that haveing them censored does not do the game justice o well still a great game

  14. For some silly reason I couldn’t install this game the setup program just sat there not responding. No big deal tho since simply copying the cracked exe into the setup folder worked just as well lol

  15. thanks pal! even the connection here is slow you make it posible for me to download this game because of the seeds. thanks again pal!

  16. Correct if I’m wrong but from what I’ve read the couples in each chapter are per-defined? Excluding the options that lead to bad ends?

  17. the biggest disappointment level eroge I’ve seen so far interresting story graphics really quite personal as well as original but will what is this linear scenario or one that has 8 choices maximun really disappointed I hate Kyousuke and Miyako and I had to type them in two chapters: ‘(

    1. Extract all the files, go to the “setup” folder, run “setup.exe”, install the font provided, and overwrite the original games application with the crack provided for in the download.

  18. please help. I installed the game and replaced the game icon with the crack one, but when I try to launch it, it gives me this message: Some file does not installed properly.
    so please help, or tell me what I need to do to get the game to work.

  19. i have a question well 2 i have te crack for this but norton keeps saying it malware or a trojan virus so it auto deletes the crack know of whys to stop this and my second if i follow your earlyer walkthrough of this can i get the good ending

  20. I can’t understand why those who make comparisons between ef Lite (the pirate version bundling the two halves of the story) and this new Official version of the game ALWAYS forget to mention that THE EXTRAS DO NOT WORK IN EF LITE:
    after you’ve finished, you cant’see either the cg collection, or the movie opening, or the BGM collection.

    You can finally see them in ef – First tale.

    1. There’s no need for the ID number. Just replace the ef_first_en.exe file in wherever you installed the game with the one in the ‘Crack’ folder.

  21. thanks for the torrent.. don’t worry I’ll seed too.. I just want to see what’s the difference of this to the the fansub

  22. Too bad Ef by Mangagamer still censored.Wait for nearly six years for see miyako and yuuko uncensored pxssy but no luck.

      1. so from mangagamers site looks like their like 4 or 5 chicks you can end up with so does that mean 4 or 5 chapters weird set up

        1. Yes, that’s how it is. There are 4 chapters in total – “first tale” is chapters 1 and 2. “later tale” is chapters 3 and 4.

  23. just as enflamed question. We need product ID number, does anyone be kind enough to tell us what we should input?

  24. does this version give you the option between the 2 girls in the first episode, i have a copy where there is only one choice and it is with the girl that pisses me off almost every other scene
    ill check back soon

    1. In the first chapter, you can only end up with Miyako to continue the story. Other endings will be a bad ending.

      1. Don’t tell people to shut up just because you don’t agree with them. Manga Gamer has a bad track record and everyone knows it.

        1. i dont know about that been playing ever released mangagamer all way back to kira kira and they never let me down

          1. I’m not sure how far back Kira Kira was released, but they’re first releases were allegedly terrible – ridden with bad grammar and errors. I *believe* one of these releases was Shuffle, but I’m having a hard time remembering. Especially since I made sure to steer clear of them. Don’t jump on me if I got the wrong title.

          2. be happy of a bad translation or sad becouse u have to learn japanese.

            if i could use proper japanese, i would give a shit of learning proper english to translate it into english, simple reason, i prefer my native language.

            so, be more friendly with the translators, even if its not 100% perfect english, be happy to not learn japanese.

    1. Just a more “official” translation. Less censorship of h-scenes and less “meme” like translations.. even though there weren’t that many in the fantranslated one.

    1. Nope. Old one was fantranslated version of both parts ( first tale and later tale). This one is official english release of first tale.

          1. Actually, this one is also a pick-up translation by MangaGamer by hiring the so-called “fans” (who are actually a translation group called No Name Losers)

            So by your “Shut up,MG’s works is perfect ever ¬¬” sentence crap, you’re actually complimenting the group who “fans-translated” the visual novel.

          2. They totally amended and revised it. The story and details are much more pleasant and understandable – mostly the subtlenesses in Miyako’s temper (my favourite character, indeed).

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