With this being a venture to get more educated about VNs, I felt I had to play atleast one Key game, since I feel they're so synonymous with the early 2000s era of the genre. Well...bad first impression, I gotta say!
I was excited for this one, I LOVE robot anime girls! But it's also a post-apocalypse story, and I think that is my least favorite genre of fiction. I find them to be uncreative and frequently just...too bogged down by trying to paint a hellscape that they forget to have a point that isn't painfully bleak. Planetarian lives up to my lack of expectations of the genre. The world has fallen into ruin with super acid rain and killer war tank robots prowling everywhere that it just feels like setup to a super try-hard edgy 360 war game.
That isn't my biggest problem wit the game though. What drove me up the goddamn wall, what bogged down the whole game, was the protagonist. The amount of times I said something like "This guy's a dick," "I hate this guy," or "OH MY GOD STOP BEING SO MEAN TO HER" in my notes are 8 but I definitely thought it more. He just...tells Yumemi to shut up so much, and even past when you'd think he's warmed up to her, he still complains about how much she talks. I can only describe this guy as a grumpy jerk that only a handful of times is nice.
I already dislike this trope of straight man anime guy negs anime girl so much, but also in this setting it just feels...unbelievable. Like damn fucker if I was trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic hellscape where I gotta fight for my life I'd kill for pleasant conversation! He's just so thoroughly unlikable it kind of bogs down any emotional bits that involve him. There is a whole chapter near the end dedicated to him struggling to survive as he's hunted by this giant war mech, and it's supposed to be tense, and I skimmed it because I didn't care.
This was the first of like three times I actually liked him and I felt for him. I wish there was more of this...Yumemi, Ms. Jena, and the Planetarium being a respite from the terrible world outside.
Also, I don't have anywhere else to put this, so while I'm dogging on this game; quite a few times they point the finger at overpopulation and the failure of plans to colonize space as some of the reasons why society collapsed. I’m gonna chalk these up more to just a lazy trope of this kinda fiction than anything...ideologically malicious.
While I do not like Planetarian as an overall package, there’s alot to like about the game. The art looks great, I love the mix of 2D and photo backgrounds, the UI is peak 2000s VN UI, Yumemi’s VA is giving it her all. The craft of Planetarian is all stellar (heh).
And of course, the star (heh) of the show, Hoshino Yumemi! From the moment you see her you’re instantly endeared, her design is adorable and her whole personality is very sweet and 2000s moe cute. She’s earnest and passionate about her job. She’s even anime girl clumsy!
There is a plot thread that whenever the MC tells her that humanity is nearly extinct and nobody wants to go to a planetarium, Yumemi can’t process this data, and she earnestly believes that customers will come and the staff will return from their "trip" one day.
I was waiting, fucking salivating, for the moment where it’s revealed, no, she knows everything, she just refuses to accept reality, because she can’t bear it. Begging for just a crumb of interiority. It would’ve been soooooooo sad and good! But no, she 100% has no idea about anything.
The best scene in the whole game is after the MC fixes Ms. Jena, the planetarium’s projector, Yumemi puts on a presentation just for him. The music gets very twinkly as the screen is filled with stars and galaxies, it’s very pretty.
Suddenly, everything turns off. Doing the projection used the last little bit of power the backup generator of the planetarium had. Yumemi is upset that she'll have to stop, but the MC goes "Go on, I'll just imagine the stars in my head." This is the 2nd time I liked him.
Yumemi talks about how, no matter the many problems Earth has, war, pollution, hatred, she believes humanity can overcome them. It is very touching. The post-apocalypse stuff works here, it really gives this a painfully bittersweet feel, because you know we don't.
The next morning, the MC says he has to leave. He knows with the power out, Yumemi won't charge. She says she only has about 4 hours of juice left before she has to go plug herself in. I was expecting it to end here, on a quiet, sad note. I kinda would have liked it that way. But nope, Yumemi insists on escorting the MC back to his car, and all the fuzzy feeling from the projection quickly fade away. The MC gets in a fight with one of the big war tanks, and, well...I won't spoil it, but it's not hard to imagine how this thing ends.
It doesn't work for me. It tugs very hard at your heartstrings, and I did get emotional about it, but in the back of my mind I was rolling my eyes. I really don't believe it had to end the way it did. I'm sitting here wondering if I'm a heartless jerk that I don't like this game. The general consensus from what I could find was that it was a heartbreaking, beautiful story, and I just...disagree. Even about 9 months after I played Planetarian, I'm still not sure if I was being too hard on the thing. Hmm.
One thing is for sure though, Yumemi is super #webcore #animecore and you know what I'm not immune to that at all. Gonna be making blurry CRT screen edits of these as fast as I can.
