Planetarian - General Discussion

Key Discussion
#19

What I like about Planetarian is how simple it is while at the same time deep and complex. It is very unlike any of Key’s other works (maybe because no Maeda? I have to say, as genius as he is, if this is how all Key’s works would be without him, it wouldn’t be so bad).

The world it is set in is HUGE, and I would love to see much more of it. Especially with the inconclusive end, which was actually kind of nice for a change (like @mechgamer123 said, no Key magic). The story was “over”, but there was so much about the world left unknown. Lots of post-apocalyptic settings have been showing up lately, but rarely do they feel so dark and lonely. I think the mystery behind the war, the machines, the junkers, and the rain really just pull you in, which allows the story to be as short as it is.

I’m really glad Sekai Project picked this up. Its short enough, emotional enough, and un-VN-like enough to surely get some new people into it as long as it sells well enough.

4 Likes
#20

Have you read/heard Hoshi no Hito? It expands upon the Planetarian ending very nicely~

#21

I keep meaning to… I guess I’l go do that right now

#22

Wow. That brought back some emotional memories. I agree, it is very well done, and expansion is good word for it. Hmm, sitting here trying to think of the words to describe it… its like there are two endings and one ending at the same time. It satisfied my wish for a little more of that world, while still leaving it open. It reinforced the beauty of the stars that exists despite the lonely world, and it didn’t ruin the feelings I had from the original ending. Thanks for reminding me about it :smile:

#23

I only found out about Hoshi no Hito yesterday! I can’t believe it took me so long to find out about it. I’ll have to give it a listen.

#24

The Planetarian Bookclub has officially started! Please use this topic to discuss the game.

#25
#26

I must say, that Planetarium sequence is really beautiful. I can very much empathize with the Junker’s awe at the whole spectacle, even after the power outage. For just a few minutes, nothing exists besides the Planetarium, and you can immerse yourself in the presentation completely.

3 Likes
#27

Bonus points if you played with the lights out :stuck_out_tongue:

#28

Well I’ll definitely play the game with the lights out, but with my first move through the game (to get Music Mode and show a friend of mine a little tidbit, which I will talk about).

Here’s the tidbit. On Board 8 of GameFAQs we have a group that plays a ‘pick your favorite’ type of game constantly and call ourselves the Gauntlet Crew and create join.me chats to host these games and obviously to chat. I made one today to honor Planetarian, naming it “WelcometothePlanetarium” and making my name Yumemi Hoshino… so about an hour ago, that friend asked how I could like that girl, due to revelation that she was a robot.

So I showed him the stars. And had him listen to Gentle Jena during it. And even thinking about these emotions again make me tear up. I love that part of the game. He was drunk at the time so I couldn’t get too much of a serious opinion out of him, but he might be willing for me to show him more of it, some time, and I really hope to.

#29

I’m generally not one for visual novels, but planetarian came highly recommended, and it was on sale on steam so why not?

When it opened with chimes playing “What a friend we have in Jesus” the words to the parody song “when this lousy war is over” sang in my head. I was amused then (“haha, I’ll have a hard time taking this seriously”). but I by the time I was done, it turned out to be strangely appropriate. I have a military background (and the technical details were good, which I found really helped me self-insert as the junker), so when I was told it was a sad tale, I replied with usual machismo “sure, whatevs brah!”

2 hours later when I’m asked why the world broke, I could barely croak out a pathetic “I don’t know!”

It seemed to me that she, in a way, wanted to believe everything she said about humanity overcoming it’s problems and was willfully ignoring what had happened to the world, that the idea that she was broken instead of the world was comforting to her. To be forced to face reality in her final moments seemed too cruel.

I’m glad I had the foresight to play this in the dark. It helped!

Hoshi no Hito, eh? I am hungry to know more about this world, good stuff.

6 Likes
#30

I really love the differences that I noticed between planetarian and other Key VNs that have been discussed.

I like that not really that much happens in a pretty small area in a short story, yet it is still entertaining and has it’s own charm about it.

I very much liked the back-story and scene they set for it, like when Junker was telling the history, explaining how the population of humans eventually got really tiny I thought that it’s pretty crazy awful.

I loved the element of the never-ending rain, not only just for atmosphere but it is a pretty cool concept, very much emphasised right before Yumemi stands in between the fight and he’s wounded, the constant reminders of “The Rain still falls” throughout (with an uppercase r each time it’s mentioned). Rewrite Kinda similar to how every mention of the moon in Rewrite has an uppercase m.

1 Like
#31

Okay, so I’m like… 19 minutes in (we’re fixing Jena right now) and it’s quite a struggle. The first time I read it, it felt very slow. This time, since I’ve already read it, just feels like every minute is a minute of time I could spend doing something more interesting… The rain and the calming music don’t help at all.

The only payoff for the VN for me is the ending. I don’t really care about the setting or the flawed mechanics of some annoying robot, so planetarian doesn’t appeal to me much.

#32

Wow Bonecuss, I didn’t notice that detail about Rewrite!

On that note, I feel like in many ways planetarian is a prototype of Rewrite. They both feature very similar themes. It’s almost like Rewrite was their attempt at expanding on planetarian’s scenario. @On_TheBounce, of all of Key’s games, I’d probably recommend this to your the most if you liked planetarian.

2 Likes
#33

Rewrite Because I knew that one of the routes was called Moon, I picked up on pretty much all of the subtle mentioning of the moon when I played through. In some cases it felt very strange that they’d be mentioning the moon so often. I seem to remember Kotarou meeting Touka in one of the routes and she mentions “Isn’t the moon bright tonight?”. Kotarou would in some scenes be out in the city at night and mention “The Moon was bright tonight”.
Some of the mentions of the Rain felt similar.
And yeah I liked that there were shared themes between the games. I very much loved the themes in both of them and I hope they’ll explore more things like that in the future.

#34

Okay guys, keep the discussion flowing! Take notes while you’re playing of things that come to mind that you’d like to talk about here. Let’s analyse planetarian as thoroughly as we can over these next two weeks!

We’re also now accepting recorded messages! Maybe you want to tell us what you thought of planetarian, or you have some topic or question you’d like us to address on the podcast? Record a short voice clip, link it here and if we like it, we’ll include it!

Also! I’ve extended the bookclub by 2 weeks! You’ll all have more time to chat here, and prepare artwork to submit!

#35

I finished Planetarian and it was very enjoyable for the time and money invested. Yumemi now places pretty high on my list of Key heroines(9/32), she caught my interest very quickly. Having Kanata/Shizuru´s voice helped but I was hooked when they had a line like, -This unit has an error causing it to talk for long periods without consideration of time or place-(paraphrasing), that was hilarious and she proved it to be true that’s for sure. One exchange that made me laugh hard was when the Junker tells Yumemi to be quiet as a high priority, she accepts but after about 5 seconds she continues talking, certain people can take stuff that normally would be annoying and make it extremely funny.
Since Planetarian is around half the length of the common route of Rewrite or LB it helps incredibly much to have an instantly likeable character as opposed to someone like Lucia who picks up after some time. The entire novel lives or dies depending on this character. Now you could look at Planetarian and see some philosophical stuff but that’s not my cup of tea, I just like the emotions and it did a great job on that part.

#36

Planetarian has inspired me to do a lot of thinking (some of which I hope to talk about in future posts), but for now I’ll just share the emotional impact it had on me.

Although this was the first Key visual novel I’d ever had the pleasure of experiencing, I already knew beforehand that their stories had quite the reputation for making people cry–it’s the one thing you can count on people in comments sections to joke about when any of Key’s games are under discussion: “Have a box of tissues ready,” and so on and so forth. I just took it as so much internet hyperbole, one of those things that people enjoy saying for comedic effect but gets worn out from overuse. I was very excited to play a Key game for the first time, but I did not for a second really think that it would bring me to tears. Fictional stories just generally don’t have that effect on me, and I didn’t see why Planetarian should be any different.

But then I actually met Yumemi–so clearly a robot despite her highly sophisticated programming, and yet still strangely captivating. During her entire “death” scene, to my astonishment I really was crying. More than that, by the end of it I had to actively restrain myself so my weeping would not become audible and cause my family to ask me what was wrong! Against all of my expectations (and most of my experience with entertainment of different kinds), this simple, 2-3 hour story reduced me to tears.

What was it that caused this reaction? How could such a short story produce such powerful emotions and feelings? Everyone will have a different answer to go with their own experience, but I hope to offer my own thoughts in a later post. Suffice to say, I was blown away by how much Planetarian moved me, and I’ll definitely play Clannad with a similar expectation (and maybe a box of tissues at the ready!).

10 Likes
#37

It’s really special to find people who are experiencing Key for the first time. Thank you so much for sharing that experience with us! Hopefully we’ll see you around talking about your first time reading Clannad in the near future!

1 Like
#38

My pleasure, thank you for creating this website and forum so that there’s a place to talk about these things! Even though they’re getting more exposure in the West than ever before, visual novels are still very niche, so it’s great to be able to come to this forum and talk with other fans right after finishing Planetarian.

As for Clannad, I hope so too! :smiley:

Also, @therationalpi: The development of Yumemi’s leitmotif didn’t really strike me until you pointed it out. Thanks for talking about the soundtrack in such detail, the music in things like this matters a great deal to me too!