[PC] Yosuga no Sora – Review

Title: ヨスガノソラ
Developer: Sphere
Release Date: 5th December 2008
Age Rating: 18+
Length: ~20 Hours
Links: Official Website, VNDB

Following the sudden death of their parents, Kasugano Haruka decides to take his twin sister Sora and move back to his grandparents’ countryside home. The pair spent their childhood summers there but had not visited for many years as their grandparents had passed on.

Despite the time that had passed, little had changed in the small countryside village they now called home – the scenery was quaint and the people friendly. Haruka reunites with his childhood friend Nao, and quickly accustoms himself with his new classmates when he transfers into the local high school.

However, he can’t help but feel that he is running away from everything. As the summer approaches, how will Haruka & Sora deal with their new lives and relationships going forward?

Thoughts

Yosuga no Sora is a game that is probably best known for its infamous anime adaption. That being said, I haven’t actually seen said show so I went into this with no expectations. Did Yosuga no Sora have anything to offer beyond its beautiful exterior?

I need to address a really personal problem I have with this game and that’s its writing style – there’s an absurd overuse of ellipses (…) within the text even by Japanese standards, which creates unnatural pauses and makes normal conversation feel stilted. I recognise that this is a personal issue because once I noticed this, I was hyperfixated on it for the entire game and it drove me insane.

Aside from pure writing style, I had issues with the pacing and route splits. The game branches into the heroine routes far too early so you have to read multiple of the same events (beach, festival, etc) with minor changes which means you can’t automatically skip them. This artificially bloats reading time and just makes the game even more tedious. It’s not like the plot is particularly interesting either.

Akira – the one bright spot in this mess

Moving onto the heroines and their routes and I’ll begin with easily the best of the bunch – Akira. She’s the lovable, cheerful classmate and shrine maiden who actually has a fairly interesting backstory. There were some questionable parts to her route but overall it was actually very engaging.

Now we have more Akira~ Oh wait this is meant to be Kazuha?

Next up is Kazuha, a violent tsundere ojou-sama and is the best friend of Akira. Her personality is downright unpleasant, especially towards “dumb male best friend” side character Ryouhei (who absolutely does not deserve the treatment he recieves from her). Her route is pretty much the same as Akira’s except worse, so most of the plot is either stuff you’ve read before or isn’t about Kazuha herself which was certainly a choice.

Motoka

Motoka is Kazuha’s maid and is the “adult but a ダメ人間” trope, being useless at her job and a functioning alcoholic. Because you know eroge writers view of “older” women is that all they want in a relationship is sex, you know that the romance here is godawful. And don’t even start me on the actual “plot” of the route – it was so dumb and felt like a cheap daytime soap-opera. No wonder she was made into a joke into the TV show.

Nao

Nao is the long lost childhood friend of Haruka, who Sora hates for some (good) reason. Nao is one of the rare older childhood friends and I actually liked her personality but dear god her route was bad. It was a case of a writer trying to broach serious subject matter without the tact, skill or care to do so properly so it comes off lazy and almost gross. Was not a fan personally.

Sora (& Haruka)

Finally we have Sora, the heroine that the game is known for and is meant to save this title from mediocrity, right? Right? Yeah I didn’t warm up to Sora as a character at all. I completely empathise with her situation – losing her parents and suddenly moving, thus wanting to hold dearly onto Haruka as the one person she has left. However, the way she shows these emotions is hard to like – she’s pushy, argumentative, and indecisive. Yet can somehow stick her nose into other routes and cause issues. Even in her own route, I struggled to understand her actions at times but I can’t deny she was at the very least memorable. I will say that her dere side, while very rare was cute. Her route was okay overall compared to the rest of the game, kinda underwhelming though.

The game has a few side characters, the most notable being the sweet shop owner Yahiro (who gets a route in the fandisc), and previously mentioned dumb friend Ryouhei. I find it kind of surprising that the class president Kozue got a route in the fandisc when she barely has a role for most of this game.

The artwork from Hashimoto Takashi & Suzuhira Hiro are one of the few reasons to play this game. Especially taking into considering the age of this game, the artwork is outstanding with a lovely soft colouring style. My one complaint would be a lack of CGs as there were definitely parts where one would have benefitted the scene.

The BGM was fine, although fairly forgettable. I liked the opening song from Rita. The voice acting was pretty nice, although it was Isshiki Hikaru as Yahiro that stole the show imo.

The H scene writing in this game was bad (well like worse than usual lmao). Again the overuse of elipses which is a new pet peeve of mine but also Haruka barely speaks to the heroines in these scenes which just makes the whole thing feel so awkward. And it’s not as if we’re getting interesting internal dialogue (for example some of the Imouto to Kanojo scenes) either.

Conclusion

My Score: 3/10

A beautiful artstyle and one good route are the only things Yosuga no Sora has going for it. The rest of the game fails in pretty much all deparments – plot, romance, characters, writing. It’s not as if the premise is particularly groundbreaking and I would recommend most other countryside-themed moege over this one.

Unfortunately for me, I bought the set with the fandisc when I purchased this title so I may as well play it at some point. I have zero expectations or hope for it but at least the CG gallery will be pretty?

Thanks for reading!