A Sky Full of Stars 仰望夜空的星辰 Reviews

Great Visual Novel. The story is really interesting and deep, basically you play as a character that is in love with the stars, but for some reason he doesn't look at them anymore. You explore all his life and events that made him feel this way, including stories about your past and current friendships, life in general, school and some other interesting topics. It has 4 routes and they're all worth playing; worth mentioning that this VN is really long depending on your reading speed but it's so good you're not going to burn out. Art is really good and beautiful. OST also is really really good, it has a lot of beautiful songs which are worth listening after beating the game. It also has a gallery where you can see the art and listen to the songs.

I've read over a dozen slice-of-life visual novels, and A Sky Full of Stars is undoubtedly my favorite. It does everything so well: characters, setting, and story. Few VNs had me fully engrossed in its world like ASFoS did. One of my favorite things about this VN, is how concise the writing is. Visual novels (especially in the slice-of-life genre) are often guilty of dragging on with endless amounts of filler, but thankfully, it doesn't happen here. On the contrary, it feels like every sentence and every line of dialogue is written with a purpose, especially in the common route. As a result, this is one of the most information-dense VNs I've read, with the story and characters having far greater depth than most other VNs, even the longer ones. It's great that the writers respect the readers' time. The characters are all likeable with a decent amount of depth. The protagonist and two main heroines are all given a backstory and their own motivation for their interest in astronomy. Even the side characters are well fleshed out. In addition, there's no overused shallow archetypes present. For once in a VN, the protagonist's male best friend is not a joke character, and even the useless-single-adult-woman character has a decent amount of depth. I thought a story about astronomy would be simple, but it was a lot more interesting and complex than I imagined. The story spans six years, starting from elementary school all the way till high school. At any given time, there's usually multiple events interacting and happening at the same time, and before I knew it, I was fully engrossed in the events. Even as somebody with no interest or prior knowledge in astronomy, I still found the cast's passion for astronomy rubbing off on me, and I felt like I was part of the astronomy club, sharing the same victories and setbacks. Compared to other slice-of-life VNs, this is easily one of the most serious in tone, with the least amount of comedy. It's also one of the most realistic and least "pandery". The enjoyment primarily comes from watching the cast bond over a shared interest, grow, work hard, overcome obstacles, and achieve their goals. I find this much more preferable to the comedy-heavy VNs that rely on a series of one-off jokes. (Of course, your mileage may vary.) The music, while not the best, serves its purpose. The calm music, combined with the starry night sky background that's frequently shown, often make me forget I'm trapped on this tiny planet, and instead feel like I'm going on a journey through space with the cast. You may have heard about the controversy regarding MoeNovel's translation of If My Heart Had Wings. But don't worry- the translation of A Sky Full of Star sis actually decent. Everything makes sense, nothing is butchered in order to appeal to 12 year old French girls. The only real issue I've noticed is that the translation doesn't respect Japanese honorifics, and just uses people's first names. But that's not a big issue, and hardly detracts from the fact that the story is one of the best. This is an easy recommend for anyone interested in slice-of-life visual novels.