SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky is a spin-off of an incredibly long-running series: Memories Off, which has been running since 1999, is now close to twenty titles deep, and has, over the years, had some legends of the visual novel medium work on it, including Mr. Zero Escape himself, Kotaro Uchikoshi. The only problem is that none of it had been released in English until this here release was localised by PQube. Thankfully you don’t need to have played any of that to jump into Off the Starry Sky, and what’s here is impressive enough that I’m now hoping against hope that this kicks off a series of remakes or rereleases of those previous titles.
Off the Starry Sky weaves a slice-of-life tale focused on Junya and a harem of women that surround him. It’s not one of those lusty “romance” stories though – well, not totally. Junya’s not one of those nose-bleeding idiots who gets himself into one compromising situation after another with the girls. Rather, he’s a gentle and helpful soul who ends up splitting his time between helping the family business, helping a close friend of his renovate an old family property into a café, helping a schoolmate from overseas explore the architecture of the town, and so on. He really throws himself into his work, and that’s for a simple reason: the work helps him cope with some pretty extreme grief.
See, Junya lost his brother in a horrible accident a year or so ago, and he and the people around him all struggle to come to terms with it in their own way. And then a mysterious girl shows up, who also knew the brother, and what’s more, knew that his brother was working on some kind of secret task right up until his death. So there’s an element of mystery and darkness there, though this is in no way a thriller or horror game.
There are moments of lightness, humour, sweet interactions, and a sense of blossoming romance. There are moments of fan service, though nothing too extreme, and it all comes together very, very slowly. Very slowly. Off the Starry Sky is not in a hurry to get anywhere and instead focuses on developing the rapport between Junya and all the girls in order to make the eventual revelations and pay-offs land. This is always a challenge for slice-of-life stories – when you’re dealing with the monotony of day-to-day life, and there aren’t the extreme situations that help to expedite the characterisation, the only solution is to go about setting, world-building and relationships with a methodical, languid pacing.
What works in Off the Starry Sky’s favour is that most of the characters are written beautifully. It was off to a shaky start as one of the first characters you encounter is the big-chested daughter of local money, Chihaya Hojo, and her equally big-chested tsun-like nerd Hinata. I didn’t much care for either of these characters through much of the story, but then the delightfully quirky Chunyu, the angry (with good reason) Azusa, and Misora, the sister with a rather immodest outlook at life.
There’s one other major character that too, and you’re looking at a solid few hours reading before you even get to her, which is my way of reminding you that this is a slow burner and long read. Thanks to the utterly stunning art and music supporting the lovely and at times even poetic writing, it’s quite easy to lose yourself within it. The beauty of the written work is unfortunately lost a little from a script that needed a heavier editor’s eye to look over it, but nothing that made it impossible to enjoy.
There is even some effort to introduce some depth of thought into the story, as it turns out that Junya isn’t the most reliable of narrators and the story is very keen to make sure you’re aware that you’re looking at characters, events and situations through a single perspective. We’re not talking about something that will challenge you like some of the classic unreliable narrators out there – we’re not talking about putting yourself in the position of experiencing the world through a Holden Caulfield, Clockwork Orange’s Alex, or Humbert Humbert, but the feeling that there is something going separate to what Junya’s perception of reality gives Off the Starry Sky an edge that you would not typically expect from a visual novel where there’s one boy and a whole lot of pretty girls around him. Come for the antics of a Date a Live and end up staying for something that is often surprisingly introspective and even intelligent.
It has taken me an age to review this game – it was released a month ago – because one of the good things about a slow-paced slice-of-life visual novel is that you can mess around with it in between playing other things, but it has never been far out of my mind as I’ve played it. To fully appreciate it you’ve got to be comfortable with glacial pacing and an earnest attempt to take something that looks like it should be fanservicey and give you something to think about instead. Calibrate your expectations just right and SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky may just surprise you.
