Hoshizora no Memoria Review Discussion

[XReaper]

on top of those sleep inducing sections of reading where you're being taught a bunch of bullshit you don't care about about japanese folklore of celestial bodies. It didn't inspire emotion in me, i didn't feel satisfied getting a full clear, and the artwork i ended up with just wasn't worth the hours i put into it

my on opinion on this game aside, but yeah, think people shouldnt ignore the fact japanese eroge and their derivates are indeed primarily developed for the Japanese market, thus ment to appeal to a japanese audience who´s valuing/prefering different stuff culture-wise, as this is something i came to whitness quite often in many reviews, or comments (non neccessarily speaking about fuwa here)

[joehawks12]

a bunch of bullshit you don't care about about japanese folklore of celestial bodies.

Yeah that stuff was kind of important though. 

Maybe since it was about an astrology club, but it had zero relevance in terms of the actual plot.  there was one that talked about lovers being seperated or something, and i thought that might be what this game is about.  The guy is searching for a girl from his past lives, and has searched for her for many of his lives, even though he shouldn't even be able to remember her.  Nope. Just a bit of info to throw you off, greatly disappointing you when you found out the protag is just some dude who thought real hard at a magical alien rock from space.

Edited October 19, 2015 by joehawks12

[Justin579]

Aren't you a few years to late to post this?

[Chuee]

a bunch of bullshit you don't care about about japanese folklore of celestial bodies.

Yeah that stuff was kind of important though. 

Hidden Content

Uh yeah, the true route was actually supposed to mimic the Tanabata legend. So yes, it was kind of important. 

[Decay]

Hoshizora no Memoria is the single most overrated visual novel in the west. Although I probably wouldn't be quite this harsh, I can fully get behind this review.

[joehawks12]

a bunch of bullshit you don't care about about japanese folklore of celestial bodies.

Yeah that stuff was kind of important though. 

Hidden Content

Uh yeah, the true route was actually supposed to mimic the Tanabata legend. So yes, it was kind of important. 

i understand that.  I'm saying it was way more boring than it could have been.  like say the tanabata legend IS the them, from the true route, not just mimicking it.  And besides tanabata, nothing else of the astrology shiz is important.

[WinterfuryZX]

 

You see, Asuho can’t hear out of her left ear. Apparently, this dramatic plot twist is enough for her to make her feel that you are a terrible human being. Because of this, she is no longer good enough to be your girlfriend anymore. 

No, that's because she knew Yume's name from the start.

 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2015 by WinterfuryZX

[Decay]

on top of those sleep inducing sections of reading where you're being taught a bunch of bullshit you don't care about about japanese folklore of celestial bodies. It didn't inspire emotion in me, i didn't feel satisfied getting a full clear, and the artwork i ended up with just wasn't worth the hours i put into it

my on opinion on this game aside, but yeah, think people shouldnt ignore the fact japanese eroge and their derivates are indeed primarily developed for the Japanese market, thus ment to appeal to a japanese audience who´s valuing/prefering different stuff culture-wise, as this is something i came to whitness quite often in many reviews, or comments (non neccessarily speaking about fuwa here)

I kind of think people SHOULD review like that. People tend to think reviews should be one of two things: Objective buying advice, or highly subjective opinions. I'm personally in camp B, I don't want to read a review from someone who doesn't like a game but is trying to stay "objective" and list off the positive traits like a back-of-the-box summary. However, in the objective case, the reviewer has to keep in mind their audience. If their audience are westerners, then it doesn't make a difference who the game was originally developed for, it only matters how the game will come across to their readers. If you tell your readers that the game is good because of a whole bunch of reasons that only apply to Japanese people (I don't think this actually happens very often), and none of your readers are Japanese, that's not very good buying advice.

If instead you're going for the subjective approach, then NOTHING else matters other than your own personal experience with the product. If I were to review a game or VN, I would put myself in a vacuum and ignore every single aspect of the game besides the experience of playing/reading it. Developer intents are gone. Was it an indie game where the developer went through tons of hardships while making it while on a shoestring budget? Don't give a shit, if the art sucks I'm saying the art sucks. Subjective reviews should be highly personal and should be about the game and yourself, rejecting absolutely all other outside factors not relating to your personality, including the factors you're mentioning in your post. 

So TL;DR: That stuff is ignored for a good reason, simply because it doesn't and shouldn't matter to us. 

Hidden Content

There were two major sources of drama in Asuho's route. One was a completely absurd and unrelatable trauma. And the other was understandable but still kind of annoying. 

 

The ear thing was just stupid, straight up. Nothing good came from that plot development, and the inferiority complex she built around being deaf in one ear was one of the dumbest things I've ever read in a VN.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Decay

[WinterfuryZX]

Sure that was completely stupid even the fact she could'nt hear people to her left is totally idotic, but that wasn't the real reason she

brake up with the MC

[Eclipsed]

I could've sworn unoriginalranter said he loved hoshimemo a while back, 3/10 too stronk

Nice review though~

[Zalor]

Steve would disapprove this review.

Joking aside, I thought it was not only well written, but expressed the flaws in the game that kept me apprehensive about playing it. I've never read Hoshizora no Memoria because it didn't look like a VN I would like, and this review confirmed my speculations. 

[Zakamutt]

Steve would disapprove this review.

Joking aside, I thought it was not only well written, but expressed the flaws in the game that kept me apprehensive about playing it. I've never read Hoshizora no Memoria because it didn't look like a VN I would like, and this review confirmed my speculations. 

The funny thing is, I legitimately think Hoshimemo has some level of depth to it to the point where you could write at least somewhat of an analysis (it's certainly #deeper than Little Busters.) I'm probably reading too much into it, though that's fun so why not?

[solidbatman]

Aren't you a few years to late to post this?

I guess you could say Ren is JUSTIN TIME

 

[Darklord Rooke]

Joking aside, I thought it was not only well written, but expressed the flaws in the game that kept me apprehensive about playing it. I've never read Hoshizora no Memoria because it didn't look like a VN I would like, and this review confirmed my speculations. 

Ditto. Amazing review, Ren.

[Tyrael]

Aren't you a few years to late to post this?

I guess you could say Ren is JUSTIN TIME

 

Horrible. Good job, batman.

[Stormwolf]

on top of those sleep inducing sections of reading where you're being taught a bunch of bullshit you don't care about about japanese folklore of celestial bodies. It didn't inspire emotion in me, i didn't feel satisfied getting a full clear, and the artwork i ended up with just wasn't worth the hours i put into it

my on opinion on this game aside, but yeah, think people shouldnt ignore the fact japanese eroge and their derivates are indeed primarily developed for the Japanese market, thus ment to appeal to a japanese audience who´s valuing/prefering different stuff culture-wise, as this is something i came to whitness quite often in many reviews, or comments (non neccessarily speaking about fuwa here)

I kind of think people SHOULD review like that. People tend to think reviews should be one of two things: Objective buying advice, or highly subjective opinions. I'm personally in camp B, I don't want to read a review from someone who doesn't like a game but is trying to stay "objective" and list off the positive traits like a back-of-the-box summary. However, in the objective case, the reviewer has to keep in mind their audience. If their audience are westerners, then it doesn't make a difference who the game was originally developed for, it only matters how the game will come across to their readers. If you tell your readers that the game is good because of a whole bunch of reasons that only apply to Japanese people (I don't think this actually happens very often), and none of your readers are Japanese, that's not very good buying advice.

If instead you're going for the subjective approach, then NOTHING else matters other than your own personal experience with the product. If I were to review a game or VN, I would put myself in a vacuum and ignore every single aspect of the game besides the experience of playing/reading it. Developer intents are gone. Was it an indie game where the developer went through tons of hardships while making it while on a shoestring budget? Don't give a shit, if the art sucks I'm saying the art sucks. Subjective reviews should be highly personal and should be about the game and yourself, rejecting absolutely all other outside factors not relating to your personality, including the factors you're mentioning in your post. 

So TL;DR: That stuff is ignored for a good reason, simply because it doesn't and shouldn't matter to us. 

Hidden Content

There were two major sources of drama in Asuho's route. One was a completely absurd and unrelatable trauma. And the other was understandable but still kind of annoying. 

 

Hidden Content

Quite difficult to know what values Japanese readers have as a western reviewer or reader though. I don't have the faintest idea.

I agree with the ear deafness being utterly ridiculous, but as a whole the vn was pretty amazing imo. Mare being the absolute most memorable character in this vn for sure! Voice acting and characteristics were amazing! By that i'm not talking about the h scene ofc.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Stormwolf

[Fred the Barber]

I kind of think people SHOULD review like that. People tend to think reviews should be one of two things: Objective buying advice, or highly subjective opinions. I'm personally in camp B, I don't want to read a review from someone who doesn't like a game but is trying to stay "objective" and list off the positive traits like a back-of-the-box summary. However, in the objective case, the reviewer has to keep in mind their audience. If their audience are westerners, then it doesn't make a difference who the game was originally developed for, it only matters how the game will come across to their readers. If you tell your readers that the game is good because of a whole bunch of reasons that only apply to Japanese people (I don't think this actually happens very often), and none of your readers are Japanese, that's not very good buying advice.

If instead you're going for the subjective approach, then NOTHING else matters other than your own personal experience with the product. If I were to review a game or VN, I would put myself in a vacuum and ignore every single aspect of the game besides the experience of playing/reading it. Developer intents are gone. Was it an indie game where the developer went through tons of hardships while making it while on a shoestring budget? Don't give a shit, if the art sucks I'm saying the art sucks. Subjective reviews should be highly personal and should be about the game and yourself, rejecting absolutely all other outside factors not relating to your personality, including the factors you're mentioning in your post. 

 

I think it's all about the intended audience (and it may be possible to address both with one review, I don't know). Anyway, here are two hypothetical audiences for a review:

- If the audience is reading a review to try to make some sort of decision about whether to try something out, then that audience needs some shared experience which is, obviously, not the object being reviewed. Generic categories like ratings on "graphics" and "music", or overall numerical ratings, are an understandable attempt to help with that. The goal is to evaluate whether an individual audience member will personally be interested in it, but there's no guarantee of any individual shared experience, which makes this a really hard kind of review audience to address. I think Tiagofvarela offers good suggestions for addressing this audience, such as offering a breakdown of what aspects worked well and what aspects did not work well broken down by genre rather than by technical area. But in general, a hyper-subjective review probably will of course not get this across as well as a review that makes an attempt at some degree of objectivity. Analyzing the subject matter into relevant pieces is likely best you can do, here, because the audience doesn't share the total experience, and they aren't going to share it purely on the basis of your review. And the total experience is, generally, much more likely to be subjective than the analyzed pieces. Maybe I just find Chinami's tone of voice while she yells "onii-san" to be incomparably adorable, and I melt in a puddle of happiness every time I hear it.

- On the other hand, if the audience has already experienced the thing being reviewed, then the audience is looking to connect to the author about that shared experience. For this kind of audience, I agree that the most subjective review possible is going to give the best experience for the audience, because you're more likely to hit on common ground on that same shared experience in a subjective discussion, vs. by boiling it down into numbers or classifications. Synthesis of the overall experience, rather than analysis of the little pieces of the experience, is complete in the mind of both the reviewer and the audience, so you know you have a lot of existing shared ground to build upon for the sake of discussion.

Given the responses, I expect this is a great review on the second fork, but maybe not so great on the first fork, especially given the 3/10 rating; I doubt that is anything like a useful or objective rating, given HoshiMemo's ~8.0 VNDB rating, for someone like me who is late to the party and has yet to read it. By all means, give a subjective review saying all the things you found troubling, but if your numerical rating is so far outside the norm, then probably you're better off not giving one at all, unless you're just trying to stir up controversy.

[Narcosis]

Steve hasn't posted a long-winded defense yet?

[Nimbus]

This was a pretty damn good review. It brought up a few things I hadn't considered before and really made me reevaluate my opinion of Hoshizora. I wouldn't say I agree with everything Ren has said but still very well reasoned. 

[Suzu Fanatic]

A lot of thought went into the review, and it shows.

But I can't see it as anything but an opinion piece - and opinions are like assholes, we all have one. There is clear bias behind your words.

[Narcosis]

I smell butthurt

Oh joy.

[Decay]

A lot of thought went into the review, and it shows.

But I can't see it as anything but an opinion piece - and opinions are like assholes, we all have one. There is clear bias behind your words.

Uhh, yeah, the review is an opinion piece. As reviews are by their very nature. No crap?

[Suzu Fanatic]

"Shrug" It's worded in a style to establish it as objective instead of subjective - at least that is what it came across to me as a I read it.

I smell butthurt

Oh joy.

lol, not really - I disagree strongly with the review - but he's entitled to his opinion regardless. : P Or, am I not allowed to speak against it? Does OR somehow have a immunity to criticism here?

[monkeysrumble]

Am I the only one who missed the spoiler warning? I'm not too mad but a spoiler warning would have been nice.

From what I've read of Hoshizora no Memoria I can agree with a lot of what this review said. Common route was good and Asu-hoe's route was really not that great. I really liked Komomo's route though but that may be my tsundere bias. Hoshizora is pretty overrated though from what I've read. I wouldn't say it's 3/10 bad but review scores are dumb anyway.

Good review Ren!

[Decay]

Wow FuwaReviews-chan calm down you look angry

Well then someone should bother releasing an actual good VN for a change.

edit: Oh yeah when I was talking to ryechu earlier today I was actually intending to complain about the lack of a spoiler warning but I forgot to, so instead I'll do it here. The review is spoilery as all hell so it should probably have a warning.