y'know, maybe a 4/5 is a bit much for this but i was really impressed with how much this manages to achieve in such a short runtime. the ending hit like a damn truck. it does something completely different from what i've come to expect from works by key, and still does a phenomenal job in terms of worldbuilding and atmosphere in spite of jun maeda's lack of involvement. plus yumemi and the junker's relationship was so strongly built i could easily have just watched them interact for a good few more hours.
i came here to cry and did cry so I am satisfied!
KEY SWEEP
Yumemi is awesome
please play this, it's honestly really impressive just how effective this is at communicating everything it wants to do and at building its world for how short it is
please play this, it's honestly really impressive just how effective this is at communicating everything it wants to do and at building its world for how short it is
Sigma Ohio Yumemi Gyatt Rizz in Mare Nectaris
Smurf Cat Junker Only in Ohio 2,497,290th Customer
Gigachad Sigma Alpha Fiddler Crab is calling
Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring
Smurf Cat Junker Only in Ohio 2,497,290th Customer
Gigachad Sigma Alpha Fiddler Crab is calling
Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring
This will be the bedtime story for my kids
Key's Duracell Bunny
I recently began my dive into "traditional" visual novels with Higurashi: When They Cry back in July, and since then I've opened myself to a whole world of these games that I am SO excited to get into and experience for myself. One of the more commonly brought up developers for when i brought up recommendations from friends were games by the studio KEY, mainly AIR, Clannad, Little Busters, and of course Planetarian. Looking up the length of this game and seeing it was only a few hours made me decide this would be my first KEY game to experience. So after wrapping up chapter 2 of Higurashi, I immediately hopped onto this.
Planetarian is not some mind boggling experience, but it is certainly a great one, and offers a lot despite its 3-4 hour run time. There's really only two characters here, the "junker" protagonist, and the robot Hoshino Yumemi. At first their dynamic might be hard to read through, but there's this eventual sense of understanding they have and it makes the story super captivating. Not only that, but the post apocalyptic atmosphere and theming is immaculate. There are aspects to the story that might feel cliche or corny, but there's a genuine heart to this game, and I think you have to take its release date into account. I also have to give props for this game being an early 2000's PC VN and not harboring any poor taste eroge content for the sake of sales, Planetarian is focused on giving you this comfy- yet sad tale in full honesty.
I would really recommend trying this. It's 10 dollars on steam, sometimes discounted to 3 or 5 bucks, which is absolutely worth your money. KEY, in my opinion, certainly earned the cash I gave them to experience this, and I implore you give it a try too.
Planetarian is not some mind boggling experience, but it is certainly a great one, and offers a lot despite its 3-4 hour run time. There's really only two characters here, the "junker" protagonist, and the robot Hoshino Yumemi. At first their dynamic might be hard to read through, but there's this eventual sense of understanding they have and it makes the story super captivating. Not only that, but the post apocalyptic atmosphere and theming is immaculate. There are aspects to the story that might feel cliche or corny, but there's a genuine heart to this game, and I think you have to take its release date into account. I also have to give props for this game being an early 2000's PC VN and not harboring any poor taste eroge content for the sake of sales, Planetarian is focused on giving you this comfy- yet sad tale in full honesty.
I would really recommend trying this. It's 10 dollars on steam, sometimes discounted to 3 or 5 bucks, which is absolutely worth your money. KEY, in my opinion, certainly earned the cash I gave them to experience this, and I implore you give it a try too.
this game is something special, it's such a short and simple game, having no alternate routes and only having 2 characters, but makes such a big impact. would definitely recommend this to anybody, it's only about 4 hours on auto but it makes good use of those 4 hours.
<reposted from my steam review>
Short, heartfelt and emotional, a beautiful short story with memorable characterization, world-building and plot with perfect pacing and emotional beats, a really enjoyable ride.
Short, heartfelt and emotional, a beautiful short story with memorable characterization, world-building and plot with perfect pacing and emotional beats, a really enjoyable ride.
✔️ Played on Steam Deck, it works smoothly (23/03/2023). You willl need to use the touchscreen for the menu and R2 button for advancing text.
The story didn't feel as touching and emotional as I was expecting. I liked it althought I'm a bit dissappointed since I thought there would be a wider plot development and more chapters but still found the story fullfilling enough.
The story didn't feel as touching and emotional as I was expecting. I liked it althought I'm a bit dissappointed since I thought there would be a wider plot development and more chapters but still found the story fullfilling enough.
A story about the fragility and ephemerality of digital hardware once the world that made them no longer exists. There's also something very cynical and bad in how it laments the death of a world gone by in the form of a demure service girl. But ultimately, I think it hits the emotional climax well and earns the tragic ending. A real exercise in the imagination of the utterly bleak 3 stars.
salganse de backlog quiero estar sola
for how long it was it was really impactful. finished in under 4 hours.
clever, tragic, short, and sweet. I will never forget the name Hoshino Yumemi.
key nous emmène encore dans un vn triste... mais beau
Planetarian was the first KEY visual novel and short length VN I read. It wasn't written by Jun Maeda but does have unique twists to make it stick out as a dystopian sci-fi. I kinda liked it, but prefer the longer KEY stories for sure. The anime adaptation wasn't bad.
This review contains spoilers
It's hard to say much about this story without spoiling something, partially because it's so short, and partially because the parts that are the most impactful are probably the most consequential to the narrative. If you're worried about experiencing the story blind and haven't yet, go play it now. It took me roughly 3.5 hours.
That being said, I'm going to mark the review as a spoiler but I'll try to avoid directly spoiling huge plot points, other than the setting, characters, and their general dispositions. The worst thing I will spoil in this review is a particular comment by one of the characters towards the end of the story, indirectly quoted, which refers back to their own disposition before and during the narrative.
To get the less thoughtful stuff out of the way: the music is well handled, the art is great for its purpose. I played the non-HD version which meant some struggling with old school menus and such, but was pleased that it still basically worked out of the box. The save system deleted my save once, but I started more cautiously returning to menu before closing the game and that seemed to help. Overall, the presentation and functionality of the VN is good.
I felt compelled to write this review, when I haven't written one in awhile, primarily because of a theme in the story. Hoshino Yumemi is a robot who has been tasked with operating and watching over a planetarium for an indefinite amount of time, and has a limited set of abilities. She is not aware that the world outside has been devastated and is in a post-apocalyptic ruin. Everything that she can do, and that she seems capable of understanding, mostly revolve around the planetarium and her years of experience working in the planetarium, both pre-and-post-apocalypse.
Yet she seems to be capable of understanding more, of being more, and therein I guess lies a large portion of our/my sympathy for this robot girl (aside from the natural sympathetic response humans have to things that seem sentient or human). If her planetarium conditioning was all she was capable of and was never capable of being anything else, she would just be a morbid reminder of the abandoning of the place by humans, similar to the journal-containing and building-servicing functioning computers of Fallout. That quality Yumemi has of seeming to be capable of more inspires pity, and hope, neither of which the protagonist seems to have felt for a long time.
In that way, the narrative seems to use the both of them to communicate something human within us. We're aligned with the protagonist, and in a way we feel responsible for Hoshino Yumemi. Especially as adults, most of us have become a little disillusioned with the world by now, and Yumemi's child-like love for her simple home, as well as interest in learning about people, helping them, and showing them the stars, are sort of like our inner-child in a way. We (and the protagonist) find that inner-child (and he, Yumemi) to be an annoying distraction but not one without charm. She's stuck in a mindset we can see past the edges of easily. She talks too much, has too much curiosity. She can't just be quiet and let us work, and she can't really seem to help much either. Yet, she shows the protagonist a natural beauty in a way they've never really been able to enjoy it, not just metaphorically but literally.
And yet there's a tragedy to the simplicity of her existence and it's one that operates within many of us too. Towards the end (here comes the small spoiler), Yumemi reveals that in her long years of standing in the planetarium waiting, she has wondered frequently when the humans would return, and could only come to the conclusion that they would not. However, being her usual anxious self with her limited abilities, she determines this to be a flaw, and spends time trying to find it and fix it, but cannot. This is a running theme to some degree in the story: although Yumemi is generally happy-go-lucky, she seems greatly embarrassed about her social mistakes, and explains several of her flaws with an abashed reference to her being a "Bargain Edition" model.
I was very sympathetic to this particular point. There is something of a phenomenon in people that have a certain anxious mindset wherein whenever they are confused about something, frightened about something, they turn the problem inwards and try to find the solution. Desperate for a sense of control over the situation, they determine that they are the ones that are broken, and try to find what's the matter inside of them and fix it, or they just blame themselves. In this case, Yumemi had every right to believe humans would never return, and the fact that one did is truly an unexpected, random occurrence given the circumstances. Yet given nobody to talk to, and no understanding of the world but the one she has with her limited abilities and scope, her only response was to take responsibility for this lack of faith in humanity. To try to find the flaw, and fix it. And she failed, for what one must assume was a very long time, because the flaw didn't exist. She had come to assume she was broken in ways that were undetectable and irreparable.
I don't want to moralize about the situation, and so I leave you to draw your own reflections from that, as the VN does. Yumemi is something of a tragic figure from beginning to end, but she also maintains a certain childish wonder and hopefulness throughout. She's a machine built for survival in an environment that no longer exists, much like all of us. Life having outstripped our evolution, we now have to cope with all our flaws and our limited scope of immediate biological responses to the world around us. One might say that the failure to do that by humans is what came before in the narrative that allowed the situation in the main narrative to exist, and so in a way, the protagonist may be given hope by Yumemi because she presents a sort of second chance to save the innocence of humanity in our self-created environment that has become hostile to it.
All in all, there are a lot of fascinating themes in the VN, and it was a good little story. If you have 3.5 hours, and some ten bucks for the HD version, it seems well worth it.
Anyway, I wish you luck always in tending to your inner-child and learning how to navigate this world with your limited scope and abilities. Don't forget to look at the stars while we all still can.
That being said, I'm going to mark the review as a spoiler but I'll try to avoid directly spoiling huge plot points, other than the setting, characters, and their general dispositions. The worst thing I will spoil in this review is a particular comment by one of the characters towards the end of the story, indirectly quoted, which refers back to their own disposition before and during the narrative.
To get the less thoughtful stuff out of the way: the music is well handled, the art is great for its purpose. I played the non-HD version which meant some struggling with old school menus and such, but was pleased that it still basically worked out of the box. The save system deleted my save once, but I started more cautiously returning to menu before closing the game and that seemed to help. Overall, the presentation and functionality of the VN is good.
I felt compelled to write this review, when I haven't written one in awhile, primarily because of a theme in the story. Hoshino Yumemi is a robot who has been tasked with operating and watching over a planetarium for an indefinite amount of time, and has a limited set of abilities. She is not aware that the world outside has been devastated and is in a post-apocalyptic ruin. Everything that she can do, and that she seems capable of understanding, mostly revolve around the planetarium and her years of experience working in the planetarium, both pre-and-post-apocalypse.
Yet she seems to be capable of understanding more, of being more, and therein I guess lies a large portion of our/my sympathy for this robot girl (aside from the natural sympathetic response humans have to things that seem sentient or human). If her planetarium conditioning was all she was capable of and was never capable of being anything else, she would just be a morbid reminder of the abandoning of the place by humans, similar to the journal-containing and building-servicing functioning computers of Fallout. That quality Yumemi has of seeming to be capable of more inspires pity, and hope, neither of which the protagonist seems to have felt for a long time.
In that way, the narrative seems to use the both of them to communicate something human within us. We're aligned with the protagonist, and in a way we feel responsible for Hoshino Yumemi. Especially as adults, most of us have become a little disillusioned with the world by now, and Yumemi's child-like love for her simple home, as well as interest in learning about people, helping them, and showing them the stars, are sort of like our inner-child in a way. We (and the protagonist) find that inner-child (and he, Yumemi) to be an annoying distraction but not one without charm. She's stuck in a mindset we can see past the edges of easily. She talks too much, has too much curiosity. She can't just be quiet and let us work, and she can't really seem to help much either. Yet, she shows the protagonist a natural beauty in a way they've never really been able to enjoy it, not just metaphorically but literally.
And yet there's a tragedy to the simplicity of her existence and it's one that operates within many of us too. Towards the end (here comes the small spoiler), Yumemi reveals that in her long years of standing in the planetarium waiting, she has wondered frequently when the humans would return, and could only come to the conclusion that they would not. However, being her usual anxious self with her limited abilities, she determines this to be a flaw, and spends time trying to find it and fix it, but cannot. This is a running theme to some degree in the story: although Yumemi is generally happy-go-lucky, she seems greatly embarrassed about her social mistakes, and explains several of her flaws with an abashed reference to her being a "Bargain Edition" model.
I was very sympathetic to this particular point. There is something of a phenomenon in people that have a certain anxious mindset wherein whenever they are confused about something, frightened about something, they turn the problem inwards and try to find the solution. Desperate for a sense of control over the situation, they determine that they are the ones that are broken, and try to find what's the matter inside of them and fix it, or they just blame themselves. In this case, Yumemi had every right to believe humans would never return, and the fact that one did is truly an unexpected, random occurrence given the circumstances. Yet given nobody to talk to, and no understanding of the world but the one she has with her limited abilities and scope, her only response was to take responsibility for this lack of faith in humanity. To try to find the flaw, and fix it. And she failed, for what one must assume was a very long time, because the flaw didn't exist. She had come to assume she was broken in ways that were undetectable and irreparable.
I don't want to moralize about the situation, and so I leave you to draw your own reflections from that, as the VN does. Yumemi is something of a tragic figure from beginning to end, but she also maintains a certain childish wonder and hopefulness throughout. She's a machine built for survival in an environment that no longer exists, much like all of us. Life having outstripped our evolution, we now have to cope with all our flaws and our limited scope of immediate biological responses to the world around us. One might say that the failure to do that by humans is what came before in the narrative that allowed the situation in the main narrative to exist, and so in a way, the protagonist may be given hope by Yumemi because she presents a sort of second chance to save the innocence of humanity in our self-created environment that has become hostile to it.
All in all, there are a lot of fascinating themes in the VN, and it was a good little story. If you have 3.5 hours, and some ten bucks for the HD version, it seems well worth it.
Anyway, I wish you luck always in tending to your inner-child and learning how to navigate this world with your limited scope and abilities. Don't forget to look at the stars while we all still can.
It takes a goddamn while for anything to actually happen but that's my only complaint, it's a short read so whatever
The music is fantastic, I love the postnuclear setting, and I cried like a damn baby. Definitely the hardest I ever cried playing a game. 4/5 ez
The music is fantastic, I love the postnuclear setting, and I cried like a damn baby. Definitely the hardest I ever cried playing a game. 4/5 ez
Even in it's shorter than usual runtime, Planetarian absolutely nails it's atmosphere and setting to the point that it creates such a down to earth story in it's post-apocalyptic setting, making it feel so interpersonal and connected to you. And it is all done by relying on nothing more than it's storytelling, pacing, and characterization to give you a story you will never forget and will always stick with you!
Please play this, everyone needs to experience this!
Please play this, everyone needs to experience this!
5/10
Why don't you come to the planetarium?
The beautiful twinkling of eternity that will never fade, no matter what...
All the stars in the sky are waiting for you.
The beautiful twinkling of eternity that will never fade, no matter what...
All the stars in the sky are waiting for you.
There's a lot of criticisms that can be said about Key's writing, many of which I agree with. For one thing, similar to Key's Air, the story takes place around a central adult male main character who develops a friendship with a young, or visually young, female character with an implied mental handicap, who is incapable of taking care of herself. In fact Key is often cited for helping develop this trope, known within anime fandom as "moe". To be frank, I find this trope incredibly uncomfortable. Perhaps it comes from the fact that as someone who has been diagnosed with ADHD, I find the kind of infantilization present in this trope kind of problematic. Due to this, the story was a bit difficult to get through for me, however that being said there is a lot of worth in it's story, even if it is quite generic.
Despite starting off incredibly pessimistic, it ends with a message of hope, promising that although things feel grim, it will get better. This message is told through the relationship the main characters share, and it's done decently well. I just feel that my whole experience was soured by how the female main character was depicted, and that it really sours the message of the work as a whole. She only really exists as a catalyst for the main character to change his world view, having no agency of her own. Perhaps then it is fitting that she is a robot, an object, perfectly symbolizing the way the genre has depicted these characters up to this point. A more optimistic view may see this as satire, but looking at how the story depicts and uses this character, and the overall tone of the work, it's clear to me that it isn't.
Overall Planetarian is a deeply flawed work, and while miles better compared to some of Key's other works, it still falls into the same old tropes, exhibiting the same old problems.
Despite starting off incredibly pessimistic, it ends with a message of hope, promising that although things feel grim, it will get better. This message is told through the relationship the main characters share, and it's done decently well. I just feel that my whole experience was soured by how the female main character was depicted, and that it really sours the message of the work as a whole. She only really exists as a catalyst for the main character to change his world view, having no agency of her own. Perhaps then it is fitting that she is a robot, an object, perfectly symbolizing the way the genre has depicted these characters up to this point. A more optimistic view may see this as satire, but looking at how the story depicts and uses this character, and the overall tone of the work, it's clear to me that it isn't.
Overall Planetarian is a deeply flawed work, and while miles better compared to some of Key's other works, it still falls into the same old tropes, exhibiting the same old problems.
Stories about technology and its foremost extension—the artificial simulation of consciousness, are typically best when they are as much about their potential to supplant humanity as they are sending us to a higher evolutionary stratum. It is too early to assess whether the retribalized digital age will spell destitution or reunite us in singularity so it is probably better to hold off on value judgments and stick with reports upon reality. This is why, as with most science fiction stories, the post-apocalypse of Planetarian is brought about by humanity's technological hubris and not the prevalence of tech itself. After all, it is the humble programming of a talkative pre-war gynoid that redirects the last man's eyes away from the folly of Earth and back towards the stars above. The irony of our greatest technological mirror image inspiring us through the most primeval of human traditions—oral storytelling—is manifest and brilliant. Were it not for its excessively mawkish ending, it'd easily rank among the finest gateway visual novels that aren't monstrously lengthy. As it is, it's pretty alright. Once we finally get our heads out of the gruel and start colonizing the stars we should give our A.I. moe personification.
This review contains spoilers
The starry sky now belongs to you.
At the time of writing this I am just about finished with the questions arc of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Hou. This game is probably going to wind up getting a gigantic write-up once I finish it - it should be towards the end of this month! - but I digress.
It's weird to think that Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet is the first visual novel that I have completed, but that's mainly just due to how short of a vn it is. I believe this sort of plays into how efficient of a story it is, though.
The three things that really stuck out to me the most in Planetarian is Key's efficiency, world building, and themes. The writing here manages to pack a massive punch despite it being around a 4-5 hour visual novel. The world building here is quite impactful too, and I again want to emphasize how fucking impressive that is for how short of a game it is!!!!
I think thematically this game really stood out to me, in a way that maybe was not the overall point of the work but I don't really like to think in those terms; I view it as rather binary, and fiction - art in general, really - should not be approached like that. Even so, I am not going to focus on what one might consider the "overall point" of the game because I would much rather talk about what stuck out to me, personally.
In the current world of constantly developing artificial intelligence and a general fear of something out of our control destroying civilization, there's a gentle reminder in Planetarian that technology can be good! Maybe these things that the tech industry is constantly working on building will not destroy society after all, despite the same ones working on further development are the ones pushing that narrative. This visual novel pushes egalitarianism quite subtly at times, sometimes not so subtly, but in a very effective way.
Maybe it's not the scary robots that destroy us - maybe that mass-extermination is entirely internal. Just like it was, here.
At the time of writing this I am just about finished with the questions arc of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Hou. This game is probably going to wind up getting a gigantic write-up once I finish it - it should be towards the end of this month! - but I digress.
It's weird to think that Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet is the first visual novel that I have completed, but that's mainly just due to how short of a vn it is. I believe this sort of plays into how efficient of a story it is, though.
The three things that really stuck out to me the most in Planetarian is Key's efficiency, world building, and themes. The writing here manages to pack a massive punch despite it being around a 4-5 hour visual novel. The world building here is quite impactful too, and I again want to emphasize how fucking impressive that is for how short of a game it is!!!!
I think thematically this game really stood out to me, in a way that maybe was not the overall point of the work but I don't really like to think in those terms; I view it as rather binary, and fiction - art in general, really - should not be approached like that. Even so, I am not going to focus on what one might consider the "overall point" of the game because I would much rather talk about what stuck out to me, personally.
In the current world of constantly developing artificial intelligence and a general fear of something out of our control destroying civilization, there's a gentle reminder in Planetarian that technology can be good! Maybe these things that the tech industry is constantly working on building will not destroy society after all, despite the same ones working on further development are the ones pushing that narrative. This visual novel pushes egalitarianism quite subtly at times, sometimes not so subtly, but in a very effective way.
Maybe it's not the scary robots that destroy us - maybe that mass-extermination is entirely internal. Just like it was, here.
this was one of my first visual novels many moons ago, and i'm happy to say that key still manages to tug at my heartstrings and pull out the tears, even when i know what's coming and how the lay of the land is.
in one of key's first true left-field moves, planetarian is a starkly different story as far as location and secondary themes go when compared to key's surrounding work, but the pathos and earnest love of humans as individuals and the basis for timeless dynamics rings through here just as prominently as in clannad and little busters!. i can see the potential read of "it's sort of messed up that the thematic hook in yearning for the earth humanity has lost comes in the package of a robotic customer service worker", but at the same time, i think key opts to forgo the sociopolitical discussion here and write closer to what they know - earnest, human compassion, even when the definition of "human" is blurred for both protagonist of wire and circuit, as of flesh and bone. for the right person, this just might be a fantastic recommendation to get started with vn's as they come. another feather in key's cap.
in one of key's first true left-field moves, planetarian is a starkly different story as far as location and secondary themes go when compared to key's surrounding work, but the pathos and earnest love of humans as individuals and the basis for timeless dynamics rings through here just as prominently as in clannad and little busters!. i can see the potential read of "it's sort of messed up that the thematic hook in yearning for the earth humanity has lost comes in the package of a robotic customer service worker", but at the same time, i think key opts to forgo the sociopolitical discussion here and write closer to what they know - earnest, human compassion, even when the definition of "human" is blurred for both protagonist of wire and circuit, as of flesh and bone. for the right person, this just might be a fantastic recommendation to get started with vn's as they come. another feather in key's cap.
This review contains spoilers
This one hinges on getting attached to the main girl and really I couldn't care less. Sorry that you died miss hoshino yumemi that kinda sucks i think.
"Why don't you come to the planetarium?
The beautiful twinkling of eternity that will never fade, no matter what.
All the stars in the sky are waiting for you."
Planetarian is a touching story about a man who is trying to scavenge for supplies in a wartorn city coming across an old planetarium and an abandoned robot girl who still attending the place. A remaining relic of a lost civilization. The juxtaposition between the bleak, cold, rainy outside world and the dreamy, warm, peaceful planetarium with its purehearted, vibrant hostess affected me a lot. A star shines brightest in a dark night sky after all.
The beautiful twinkling of eternity that will never fade, no matter what.
All the stars in the sky are waiting for you."
Planetarian is a touching story about a man who is trying to scavenge for supplies in a wartorn city coming across an old planetarium and an abandoned robot girl who still attending the place. A remaining relic of a lost civilization. The juxtaposition between the bleak, cold, rainy outside world and the dreamy, warm, peaceful planetarium with its purehearted, vibrant hostess affected me a lot. A star shines brightest in a dark night sky after all.
For a VN, I dare to say this aged a bit poorly when it comes to design and some QoL features modern VN has, but it's still competent.
The only thing it irked me was the music repetitiveness, it can get a bit old pretty quickly after a while listening to the same tune over and over again (that, and some jarring sound effects were a bit annoying too)
Overall as expected of Key, an emotional short story worth the price for.
The only thing it irked me was the music repetitiveness, it can get a bit old pretty quickly after a while listening to the same tune over and over again (that, and some jarring sound effects were a bit annoying too)
Overall as expected of Key, an emotional short story worth the price for.
Key VNs make me feel such a specific type of sadness. I live for it.