The final of the orginal 4 Starry☆Sky games – and probably my favourite too~
Game Information
Producing Company: Honeybee
Artist: Kazuaki
Release Date: 25th December 2009
Story
Continuing on from the Autumn game, the season has now turned to Winter and Tsukiko has begun to spend more time with the student council – consisting of chairman Kazuki, vice-chairman Hayato and resident inventor Tsubasa. Initially, Kazuki forced everyone to join the student council on their first days at school. Even though, they all enjoy their time spent with each other. However, Kazuki will be graduating at the end of February – will the group be able to make his last 3 months memorable?
The writing in this game (in my honest opinion) is the best in the original series due to the really good common route and the very interesting character routes, i also liked that the character routes split a bit earlier so there was more time to develop the character’s story while still managing to have a very good and satisfying common route too. The routes are very serious overall but they do have their sweet and funny moments. My only complaint was that Hayato’s route was too emo, seriously. I could also really relate to Tsubasa in his route so i liked his the best – even if it was pretty sad at times. 😦
Characters
Kazuki Shiranui
CV: Yuichi Nakamura
Kazuki is the genki 3rd year student council chairman who is always trying to get everyone to do something and who won’t take no for an answer. He’s really friendly and gets on with everybody. He also acts as the father figure of the student council group and tries to look after everyone. Tsubasa has nicknamed him “nui nui”
Kazuki was a pretty awesome character overall, the only other character i can think of similar to him would be Kyousuke from Little Busters as they’re both leaders and have both funny and serious sides.
Hayato Aozora
CV: Daisuke Hirakawa
Hayato is the 2nd year vice chairman of the student council and is much more serious than either Kazuki or Tsubasa. He can appear to be quite quiet but does give his ideas at the appropriate times. He’s also very polite to everybody and can play the piano very well. Hayato shows his scary side when trying to stop Tsubasa and Kazuki arguing by scraping his nails down a blackboard. Tsubasa nicknamed him “sora sora”
I found Hayato to be a good character – not as appealing to me as the other two but still likable. He’s by far the most “normal” of the characters in this game and is much more serious. His route was far too emo though which put me off him a little. He kinda redeemed himself towards the end of his route though.
Tsubasa Amaha
CV: Kenichi Suzumura
Tsubasa is a 1st year student and is also the newest member of the student council, he’s an inventor but none of his inventions go to plan and he usually ends up causing explosions and other mishaps, causing Kazuki to rage at him and chase him around the room. Tsubasa can appear to be quite cold when you meet him at first, but as you get to know him, he’s a pretty cheerful and up-beat guy. He likes to nickname people too.
Tsubasais like a giant teddy bear (i say giant since he’s like the tallest character in the series), and is really pretty cute. As i mentioned earlier, his route was pretty touching and i could relate a bit to his situation and understood his actions. Overall, my definite favourite from this game and one of my favourites from the whole series. His deredere side is way too cute!
Artwork
As with the rest of the games, Kazuaki does a really good job at the cgs for this game – there were very a mistakes (which is to be expected) and there was enough cgs for the length of the game. I also really like the colouring style. The background art is still pretty simplistic though but it does the job fine.
Music
Song: Grayed Out by Yuichi Nakamura (who plays Kazuki in the game)
The opening song is pretty nice and i like it quite a bit (the full version is especially good). The voice actors all did a very nice job too, i especially liked Kenichi Suzumura as Tsubasa but they were all good. The BGM was the similar to the previous games so it was nice and there were a few memorable tracks.
System
The system is the same as previous games except in purple now. Nothing much to say here since it’s pretty nice overall – just no music player.
Scores
Story: 18.5
Characters: 19
Artwork: 19
Music: 19
System: 18
Total: 93.5
Conclusion
In my opinion, Starry☆Sky~In Winter~ is the best out of all the 4 original Starry Sky games and is definitely worth a play if you have time due to the interesting characters and stories. The student council theme will also appeal to most people and the game still retains quite a bit of humor while being serious too.
The review for After Spring will be out tomorrow, so for now i’m going back to play Yura’s route in Josou Sanmyaku – there’s no way my trap can be this cute!
Liemyx's Eroge Blog~ 