Asterism

Asterism is a visual novel about a young Aligner, a high school student who, along with his friends, has the supernatural ability to detect specters and banish them using weapons made of constellations. And by 'constellation', I mean a physical manifestation of the mythological concept. Constellations appear in both a weapon and human form, the former the means to banish scepters and the latter being characters within the story. Once you accept the premise; it makes sense, I guess? The plot can be summed up rather succinctly; it is about the protagonist Aligner and his friends rescuing constellations of the Zodiac from being consumed by specters. This is a visual novel with a number of different dialog options throughout the narrative, but unfortunately, roughly 90% of them are trivial and are usually only a line or two different with no consequences whatsoever. The remaining choices affect whether or not you enter into an optional (and easily obtained) homosexual romance between the protagonist and his best friend, though much to my chagrin, it turned out to be a very minor detail within the context of the overall story. If you're looking for a good romance between two men as the description, "Optional male love interest" might imply, look elsewhere; it's simply too insignificant here. (There is no nudity or implied sexual content; this is not an adult game and only has the occasional, minor curse word). Beyond the absurdity of the premise itself, which is perhaps a metaphor for something I didn't grasp, the story is just pretty boring overall. The love interest is generally rude or acts like a mother figure, and I tended to find him unlikable overall. He's not unbearable by any stretch, I just felt like the protagonist had to put up with a lot in exchange for friendship. The quest to protect the Zodiac constellations are a very dry segment of "find Zodiac constellation, kill specters, take constellation to the infirmary to heal; get insulted by one or more of your companions; rinse, repeat, and ignore the narrative holes." On the technical side, I found a few issues. The first is that much of the gallery is unlocked before starting the story; photos that you should unlock as you progress the story normally. The second is that most of the photos in the gallery are extremely large, though not high fidelity. They are effectively screenshots enlarged 4 times and you have to scroll to the edges of the screen in order to view the whole image (which could have easily fit on one screen to begin with). It mostly made sense when these images were part of the narrative, but in the gallery, there really should be a single screen sized image there. The last issue is that in the current release (as of this writing, Oct 4. 2021), you cannot hide the interface with the keyboard or mouse. I had to use an Xbox controller to do it with the Y button. Overall, the story isn't overtly bad, but it isn't very good either. I read through the whole thing, unlocked the entire gallery and obtained the achievements (very simple) but nothing here resonated with me. The art is fine; with the major exception of the aforementioned size issue and the music loop can get grating. I recommend spending your money elsewhere.

This game had a lot of potential, but it ended up being really disappointing. The plot lost it's way after a few main points, and never picked back up. The "love interest" was an after thought that I genuinely feel was just a cash grab. Hopefully the creators put a little more effort into plots in future games.

I really enjoyed playing this game. I played the demo of it a while ago on itch.io, and I liked what it showed of the full game. Now that I have played it (I played it offline), I can definitely say that it is worth eight to twelve hours of your time. I found the story and characters to be very engaging, and I liked the artwork, the soundtrack and the writing. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an immersive experience.

It was pretty boring so I didn't get very far.

Overall, I don't see the point in describing the game's plot, as the developers' description explains it well. I spent several evenings playing this game, and I can say they weren't boring, just calm and enjoyable. Despite the adventure element, the game has such a cozy retro vibe that I felt very comfortable. There are no nerve-wracking events, and the characters are very charming and diverse. The graphics are attractive, and some technical issues with the gallery that were present early in development have already been resolved. The music is pleasant. I would recommend the game to those who enjoy cute young characters and aren't looking for thrillers or horror.