Starting off, Planetarian is a kinetic novel, not to be confused with its sibling, the visual novel. Being a kinetic novel, it has no dialogue choices like visual novel's do. This simply means that reading through Planetarian is much like reading a book. This is not necessarily a bad thing however.
Planetarian was written and developed by none other than Key, who also made the near legendary visual novel, Kanon. Knowing what Key is capable of as far as plot goes, I began the game with fairly high expectations. What I found in this short little experience completely blew away all of my expectations. I was shocked and amazed when I found what Key was able to do with only two characters. I am not going to spoil anything, but in the end Planetarian brought a tear to my eye.
When I look back on Planetarian the most memorable things about it, aside from the storyline, were its music and CG. Visual novels and kinetic novels alike use music, text, and CG to develop the storyline and evoke emotion in the reader. All of the music in Planetarian is light-hearted and has a very pure and innocent sound to it. This type of sound is great for the feel of the story.
The CG is also very well done. During game play I was studying the beauty of detail that was taken in making the CG, when I noticed something that nearly took my breath away. The current scene I was looking at is inside the welcome hall of the planetarium, looking outside through the glass revolving doors. Then I noticed that it was raining. The rain in Planetarian is key to the mood of the storyline. Key had taken the time to make a rain animation to be used when looking outdoors. That rain animation was what caught me off guard. It was not something I expected, which as I stated earlier, I had high expectations of this game, before I even played it.
All things considered Planetarian itself is a true masterpiece. The only problems I had was that the text was occasionally “scrunched up” extremely close to other characters, which occasionally made it hard to read. It is not something that is detrimental to the delivery of the story, however. I highly suggest this kinetic novel to everyone. Even if you don't like anime, or aren't into visual novels. This game presents a truly unique experience that everyone can enjoy.
