I enjoyed Sex Rockets (Byakko / Farther than the Blue Sky) quite a bit. The main characters are all interesting in their own ways, some more than others though. Through its routes it manages to tell a scientific story where the science and progression is somewhat believable on the R&D front, although obviously truncated and simplified so that it would be palatable to a larger audience. It definitely does some things differently - namely the H-scenes and its true route - but I personally enjoyed the differences.

I would recommend a route order for this game: Honoka > Kaho > Natsu > Arisa > True this is for some spoiler reasons which would lessen the drama a bit in the later routes if done in a different order.

The characters and routes present here in Sex Rockets are pretty stereotypical for the genre, and while a few were great examples there were also a few that were somewhere in the middle. There's the violent tsundere (Arisa) who I feel is a love or hate character for the audience and while I personally loved her character, I feel like her route was somewhere in the middle and quite predictable. Arisa's route also deviates the most from the other heroine routes, with her being the project manager it focuses on the big picture rather than specific rocket bits. Then there's Honoka who is the extremely joking / flirty kouhai with a hat and a fang who exists largely to make the MC's life more interesting. She's wonderful as a support character, good as a heroine, and her route is interesting. Kaho is the cute, shy, quiet, and bookish type who is always standing up for what she thinks is right. For me her route was the best, it felt like it balanced the drama and rocket sections better than the others. Lastly there's Natsu, the extremely airheaded senpai. As a character Natsu is wonderful comedic relief, but I found it hard to consider her as a romantic interest, so her route for the romantic sections largely felt awkward. Her story and the rocket business however was fine. The true route I personally found to be entertaining and I felt it conveyed the overall tone and message of the visual novel very well, and was one of the dramatic highlights of the game. However, I can see it definitely being somewhat divisive, so your mileage may vary here.

The balance of storytelling between more dramatic character driven sections and more science heavy rocket sections particularly impressed me. They even managed to make the H-scenes more important to the story. No, you cannot completely check out or skip the H-scenes in Sex Rockets without missing some decently important story bits. It was a nice change to say the least. On the negative end some of the common route can feel very information dense as they essentially give you a quick primer on the basics of rockets. At one point I had to take a break after reading for a few hours.

I would recommend Sex Rockets (Byakko / Farther than the Blue Sky) to anyone who likes a pretty well written moege. Bit of a caveat though: this will be much more appealing to anyone interested in space related things, especially rockets or physics. If you have zero interest in these, then I'm unsure if this is the visual novel for you. If that all sounds good, I'd recommend picking this up even at its high price - but especially so if you wait for a sale.