Since Memories: Off the Starry Sky puts the novel in visual novel. It is a full length novel on your Switch. Instead of short and snappy, stories have long slow burns and take time to develop. Unfortunately, that is also this game’s problem, which is why I only got to the end of chapter 2 before “slamming the Switch against my head.” It still took several hours of reading to get there. Anyway, the story is about Junya, a college student still reeling from the death of his brother a year prior, when a mysterious girl shows up and accuses him being responsible for his brother’s death. And that is where part of the problem lies.
Very minor spoilers to Since Memories follows:
The girl is named Azusa and she refuses to tell you anything, spilling it out in an eternally slow manner. “You can’t take Takaya’s Place,” she keeps saying, without elaborating. Eventually, she starts following you around once you start looking in Takaya’s situation around his death. This is where I lost interest in Since Memories. There’s good slow burn stories. And then there is dragging it out for the sake of dragging it out for length. If Junya and Azusa had a real conversation for five minutes, the entire thing could be resolved and the story would move on. But that’s not how Since Memories plays it, and it drags the whole thing down.
Rest of the story
Aszua is one of five girls Since Memories revolves around. There’s a rich girl who wants to renovate an old Japanese manor. There’s an anime obsessed girl. There is an Chinese exchange student who loves looking at old houses. And there is a girl not introduced yet because this visual novel is the slowest thing I’ve ever read since Charles Dickens’ Bleak House in college. Besides them, there’s your sister, your sister’s friend, your father, a restaurant owner, his 9-year-old daughter, and a whole host of other well put together side-characters. The visual novel is good in that everyone who is shown(as opposed to just text) is pretty fleshed out.
Conclusion
My ultimate problem with Since Memories, though, isn’t that it is long, its that it is boring. Scenes can just drag on and on. There was eternally long sequence where you and the Chinese exchange student argue over pricing of your services. The visual novel is fully voiced. Even Junya is voiced in dream sequences. However, that doesn’t really help much. But maybe I’m not the target audience. Maybe my attention span has been too whittled away with time.If your looking for a solid, if very slow visual novel. I guess you can’t go wrong with Since Memories. Therefore, this will get Recommended Verdict with a seven back-end score. I chose this over a Your Mileage May Vary because I feel having severe ADHD is not a really a reason to dock this.
Overall: Since Memories is a very long, very slow, but well written visual novel. I eventually lost interest, but I foresee plenty sticking it out.
Verdict: Recommended
| Release Date | 10/23/24 |
| Cost | $39.99 |
| Publisher | Pqube |
| ESRB Rating | T |
P.S. If you’re looking a completely different style of visual novel, try Ghost in the Pool.
Game received for free from the publisher!
