Shiny Days restore patch released + Installation guide

J-List

VNDB
Bugfix patch (v1.01e mirror)
(Un)official content restore patch
Walkthrough (Otaku Lair)
Alternate walkthrough (Google Doc)

After three long months the (un)official restore patch for Shiny Days has been released, finally giving fans the full uncensored experience.

JAST's release of Shiny Days has been plagued by problems.  Released on September 25, 2015, sexual scenes involving Kokoro Katsura, Yae Kanroji, and Kyomi Kasannoin were removed due to concerns that the offensive depictions of underage characters would cause legal issues for staff and customers, particularly in regions with strict laws against loli content such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Kokoro Katsura from Shiny Days

Naturally, many fans were outraged.  Reading inbetween the lines, I reassured fans that JAST would surreptitiously restore the cut content (Why I endorse JAST’s censorship of Shiny Days), just like they did with Starless.  Three months came and went, and JAST had the gall to put the game up for sale for 50% off in late November while pre-order fans still hadn't opened their packages.  In addition, the initial release had a long list of bugs, some of them game-breaking--including one that corrupted your global save file if you viewed a certain ending, preventing the game from even starting.

Bugfix patch 1.01e released on 12/22/15 fixes most of the technical issues, and the newly released restoration patch restores the cut content with demosaiced H-scenes.  However, many users have reported difficulties installing the restoration patch.  The following guide should help avoid common pitfalls.

Shiny Days Restore Patch Installation Guide

1. Buy Shiny Days (J-List).
2. Important: Disable the auto-protect / heuristic scanning function of your antivirus and anti-malware software before installing the game or any patches.  Add the installation directory to your exclusions before running the game, or files will disappear / be blocked and the game won't work.  Extracted files may also be preemptively crippled by security software, so keep the .rar and .zip files handy.
3. Download the game (or install from the DVD) and install following the included instructions. Important: Install to C:\SHINYDAYS (or the root of a different drive letter if you prefer).  Don't install to Program Files; this can cause various problems with patching and saving in-game.
4. (If you don't already have the latest game version) Download and apply Bugfix patch 1.01e (or the bugfix patch version corresponding to the current version of the restoration patch).  The official download version has the latest patch pre-applied (as of Dec 2023).  If the official link is down, use this temporary v1.01e mirror.  Update 1/31/17: The mirror has been updated (details) after user Zeromic reported a file necessary to fix the Manami ending crash was missing.
5. Download the Shiny Days Restore Patch 1.01e via torrent or direct download.  You'll need a BitTorrent client capable of utilizing magnet links to download the torrent (e.g., qBitorrent).  If you didn't install to C:\SHINYDAYS, Restore Patch 1.01e must also be patched by replacing the included patch.cmd file with the fixed patch.cmd (mirror) by Vktr. (Mirror link updated 3/23/23)
6. Extract the .rar compressed archive.  You'll need to install an extraction program that can handle .rar archives (e.g., 7-Zip).
7. Move the 'patch' folder from the restoration patch's current location to your Shiny Days install directory (e.g., C:\SHINYDAYS) and run patch.cmd.  Important: The unpatched patch.cmd will fail if there's any spaces in the directory path (e.g., a space between Program Files or Shiny Days).  Important: Do not run patch.cmd inside Program Files, as it will likely fail due to Windows protections on this directory.  Instead, move the Shiny Days folder (containing the 'patch' folder) to the root of your drive, patch the game, then move it back.  
8. If the patcher completes successfully, it'll display the message "Files patched! Enjoy your game."  To verify that the restoration patch installed correctly, check the size of Movie04.gpk in your 'Packs' folder.  The uncensored version should be 2.49 GB (2,617,184 KB), while the censored version is ~2.2 GB.  If the Movie04.gpk file isn't the right size, that indicates the patcher has failed.  See the Troubleshooting section below for a full list of successfully-uncensored files and their correct sizes.

Troubleshooting

Common reasons for patching failure include overaggressive security software, installing the game to a directory other than C:\SHINYDAYS, and putting the patch folder from the restoration patch in the wrong location.  If the game fails to start after patching, the patcher may have run out of free space during installation (~5GB needed, see comment).

A frequent fix is simply uninstalling and then reinstalling the game, following my guide step-by-step.  A failed attempt to install the restoration patch appears to corrupt the files it needs to initiate.  If the patcher fails once, don't expect the patcher to work without a reinstall.

If you get the error "One or more required files is missing" after running patch.cmd or patch-r1.cmd, check to see if you have all the required restoration patch files shown in the image below.  If files are missing, they were probably removed by security software.  Disable this software and re-extract the patch folder from the compressed archive.

Restoration patch files

'Packs' folder after a successful restoration patch installation

Shiny Days root directory after a successful restoration patch installation

WINE users on Non-Windows systems:
The restoration patch / game do not expect the OS to be case-sensitive.  After I installed the restoration patch in Windows, I noticed that some of the patched files in the Packs folder have the .gpk extension instead of the .GPK extension.  While this does not affect Windows users, this causes problems for WINE users on a case-sensitive host OS like OSX.  Such users may need to manually patch the game or rename files.  I can't replicate the problem so I have no specific guidance, but other WINE users have been able to patch the game successfully.

For frequent game crashing, try limiting the game EXE to a single core in Windows Task Manager, as reported by Rahul Shukla and described in detail by Lindien:

1. Run Shiny Days
2. Open Task Manager: CTRL+ALT+DEL > Task Manager
3. Navigate to Details for the process in Task Manger: Find SHINYDAYS in the list of processes and right-click "go to details"
4. Raise process priority: Right-click SHINYDAYS.exe > Set priority > Above Normal
5. Change process affinity: Right-click SHINYDAYS.exe > Set affinity > Uncheck all the CPUs except for one (CPU 0 or CPU 1)

Final Thoughts

I'm disappointed in JAST's handling of Shiny Days.  Three months is far too long to keep fans hanging, and even the restoration patch requires a guide to install.  Not to mention the game was released with game-breaking bugs that took them 3 months to fully address.  That's just not acceptable.

I am glad that JAST finally restored the cut content, but they failed to meet the high expectations I had of them.  Hopefully they've learned from the disastrous release of Shiny Days and we won't see a repeat of this in the future.

If you enjoy Shiny Days, make sure you check out the first game in the series, School Days, which is also fully animated.  For a free-to-play game with animated ero, try Kamihime Project. 

Cute free-to-play H-RPG with animated ero

If you want to stay up to date on other censored eroge and patches to restore cut content, check out my comprehensive censored eroge list, which is my most ambitious project to date.  You can also show your support by following me on Twitter.