Is this visual novel worth it? No spoilers please

[Dominic]

Hi all, I'm a huge key fan who have read a lot of their vn from Clannad, Little Busters, planetarian, Tomoyo After ~It's a Wonderful life and Harmonia. For the most part I do love a lot of their work but I was wondering how Summer Pockets stacks up? The last two I read is Harmonia and Plaentirum which I found all right but didn't like Harmonia at all. Is this vn the same emotional roolercoaster Key is known for or does it not live up to it? Just wondering here.

[DangoKnight]

I may not be a great point of reference because I really enjoyed Harmonia, but in my opinion this novel does have everything that makes Key great.

It also follows a new structure I do not remember experiencing before, but for me it was a very refreshing change.

[Astralyn]

This VN has a lot of emotional moments, but it also has plenty of SOL and hilarious moments as well. I would say in some ways it is kind of similar to Clannad: AS (haven't played the VN, but watched the anime). I still prefer something like Rewrite over this (no idea why this isn't on Steam though). I haven't gone through Harmonia or Planetarium, but I spent about a good 60 hrs with Summer Pockets, which is a lot longer compared to those, so I think you'd find some enjoyment in it, plus I found all the girls very likable (although some don't seem to like Shiroha, she ended up being my favorite). There are a couple things I didn't really care for in the VN, but overall, it's pretty decent. Definitely worth it imo.

[DangoKnight]

Originally posted by Chanty ❣:

This VN has a lot of emotional moments, but it also has plenty of SOL and hilarious moments as well. I would say in some ways it is kind of similar to Clannad: AS (haven't played the VN, but watched the anime). I still prefer something like Rewrite over this (no idea why this isn't on Steam though). I haven't gone through Harmonia or Planetarium, but I spent about a good 60 hrs with Summer Pockets, which is a lot longer compared to those, so I think you'd find some enjoyment in it, plus I found all the girls very likable (although some don't seem to like Shiroha, she ended up being my favorite). There are a couple things I didn't really care for in the VN, but overall, it's pretty decent.

Rewrite is currently being translated by Sekai Project (They launched a kickstarter a few months back) and should be ready late 2020 (or so they estimated back then).

Favourite character from Summer Pockets, hard to choose between Kamome and Ao.

[Astralyn]

Originally posted by DangoKnight:

Originally posted by Chanty ❣:

This VN has a lot of emotional moments, but it also has plenty of SOL and hilarious moments as well. I would say in some ways it is kind of similar to Clannad: AS (haven't played the VN, but watched the anime). I still prefer something like Rewrite over this (no idea why this isn't on Steam though). I haven't gone through Harmonia or Planetarium, but I spent about a good 60 hrs with Summer Pockets, which is a lot longer compared to those, so I think you'd find some enjoyment in it, plus I found all the girls very likable (although some don't seem to like Shiroha, she ended up being my favorite). There are a couple things I didn't really care for in the VN, but overall, it's pretty decent.

Rewrite is currently being translated by Sekai Project (They launched a kickstarter a few months back) and should be ready late 2020 (or so they estimated back then).

Favourite character from Summer Pockets, hard to choose between Kamome and Ao.

Ah yeah I completely forgot about Rewrite+.

I still have a hard time ranking the girls, but I liked Kamome a bit more than Ao.

[Miuna]

Yeah Rewrite is my favourite too, i put some cash on the kickstarter just to help let others see how amazing it was, can't wait to play it again.

Anyways, OP yes in short this is a key VN, in that it holds all that emotional stuff we love with SOL elements, your "common route" as they have come to be known is rather SOL in which you wander the island on your daily life meeting the characters and such - pretty standard for key basically, its got a lot of comedy scenes and good replay value in that it adds new lines of dialoge to additional plays from the first, only minor but its there.
The character routes are key all over, i wont give spoilers but they are good. The only thing they fell on is Shiroha who is potrayed as your Nagisa (Clannad), Kotori (Rerite), Rin (Little busters) ect (kinda the lead) is a hit and miss, she is a shy guy but gives of a sense of attitude which some didn't really like and others did.

It is essentially very much though like a key VN.

Harmonium and Planetarium are what are called kinetic novels, the kind which are a fixed story which no choices to let the player diviate their own path or no alternative endings (like character specific routes), this could be in turn part of the reason you didn't take to Harmonium, some games don't always have a character we like, i found Tomoyo a bit plain in clannad for example, if the game was only about her i wouldn't really have enjoyed it (hense why i never took to Tomoyo's spin off, its a wonderful life) but because it offered other endings it was a great game. So yeah i think you would enjoy summer pockets, if you like Little busters and Rewrite, this will probably be your thing (i know you haven't played Rewrite yet though).

Its defo worth buying, just my opinion there though.

[Mr Unlimited]

In my opinion this is classic key. you'll have the great characters, hilarious moments, and some tear jerking ones. I finished all the routes including the true routes in 50 hours so it's well worth the asking price. the translation was great too, very little errors. go for it! the more people who buy and love this, the better off the vn community will be.

[Taiketsu]

Just finished reading the game yesterday and i would say it is worth(i did read Clannad, LB and Rewrite which ofc were much better). It has some problems with some unexplained stuff and hicups but overall its a beautiful tearjerking story especially the last 2 routes. Personally i would have liked that the final route would have gone a bit longer with a nice happy cg at the end, especially after that last since in alka route but overall i nice story for me.
So just give it a try it wont disappoint.

[Dominic]

Originally posted by Miuna:

Yeah Rewrite is my favourite too, i put some cash on the kickstarter just to help let others see how amazing it was, can't wait to play it again.
.
The character routes are key all over, i wont give spoilers but they are good. The only thing they fell on is Shiroha who is potrayed as your Nagisa (Clannad), Kotori (Rerite), Rin (Little busters) ect (kinda the lead) is a hit and miss, she is a shy guy but gives of a sense of attitude which some didn't really like and others did.

It is essentially very much though like a key VN.

Harmonium and Planetarium are what are called kinetic novels, the kind which are a fixed story which no choices to let the player diviate their own path or no alternative endings (like character specific routes), this could be in turn part of the reason you didn't take to Harmonium, some games don't always have a character we like, i found Tomoyo a bit plain in clannad for example, if the game was only about her i wouldn't really have enjoyed it (hense why i never took to Tomoyo's spin off, its a wonderful life) but because it offered other endings it was a great game. So yeah i think you would enjoy summer pockets, if you like Little busters and Rewrite, this will probably be your thing (i know you haven't played Rewrite yet though).

Its defo worth buying, just my opinion there though.

Like I mention in the starter post. I did like Planetarium but Hatmonia not so much. I actually read Tomoyo's side story which I really really love. Mainly because for the longest time I did love Tomoyo as my fav in Clannad lol. Thanks you.
I'm already 7 hours in and finished Shiroha route and tear up (I'm emotional ok no need to judge) :( it's been a very long time since I spent hours on reading.

On a side not dying to get Rewrite on steam. I really really want to read that.

Originally posted by Senseipunk:

In my opinion this is classic key. you'll have the great characters, hilarious moments, and some tear jerking ones. I finished all the routes including the true routes in 50 hours so it's well worth the asking price. the translation was great too, very little errors. go for it! the more people who buy and love this, the better off the vn community will be.

Ah thanks you, the last vn I read didn't have good translation at all. Was hoping if it wasn't just a one time thing for the route but so glad to hear that's there's not much errors.

Originally posted by Taiketsu:

Just finished reading the game yesterday and i would say it is worth(i did read Clannad, LB and Rewrite which ofc were much better). It has some problems with some unexplained stuff and hicups but overall its a beautiful tearjerking story especially the last 2 routes. Personally i would have liked that the final route would have gone a bit longer with a nice happy cg at the end, especially after that last since in alka route but overall i nice story for me.
So just give it a try it wont disappoint.

Thanks you for the reply. Just stopping after the first route to collect my own emotions but currently just thinking over the first route which hit me where it hurts.

[Miuna]

After some RL issues i had to delay playing the rest of the game so my progress from my last post is pretty much the same, oddly enough Shiroha's is the one route i am least interested in, so i am glad to hear it sounds good.
If you re-read the common route you will get some decent hours from the game, i do as i appreciate 2-3 plays of it in all VN's and i think the extra additions are always worth it :D

PS - Re-write is planned to be released about a year from now, its ETA is 2021 with a early release of Jan-March, so fingers crossed. You should love it, its probably one of Keys longest works, its story is extreely indepth and quite long. The steam version will be Rewrite plus, this has some new additions to the common route (i look forward to) and extra content including some epliloges for some characters and some spin-off endings (due to the endings for some characters was pretty hard to follow). I wont spoil but its insane how much effort was put into Rewrite and i happily assure anyone they should love it!

[DangoKnight]

Originally posted by Miuna:

PS - Re-write is planned to be released about a year from now, its ETA is 2021 with a early release of Jan-March, so fingers crossed. You should love it, its probably one of Keys longest works, its story is extreely indepth and quite long. The steam version will be Rewrite plus, this has some new additions to the common route (i look forward to) and extra content including some epliloges for some characters and some spin-off endings (due to the endings for some characters was pretty hard to follow). I wont spoil but its insane how much effort was put into Rewrite and i happily assure anyone they should love it!

This is very interesting to me... I loved Rewrite, but up until now I only saw people bashing on Rewrite and going on about how it's lower quality than anything else Key has ever produced...

[Taiketsu]

I did Rewrite back with fansub and supported the Kickstarted recently and i can say it was pretty good imo. Each character was well build up and the overall story was also very cool ( liked Lucia and Chihaya's route the most). Whats cool is that Rewrite + will give one of the major subchara a sprite (that journalist girl if i remember right) and ofc the fandisc with some funny moments.

[Miuna]

Yeah the journalist gets a new sprite so she finally has a face :D
@DangoKnight - the game did actually get bashed on a it, there was some weird reasons though, funny enough one of the biggest was because the character routes was outsourced to top VN writers accross Japan. meaning routes was technically written by different people, despite that i felt it was great. Never understood the hit on the game, i can appreciate a title is good/bad even if my personal opinion doesn't align, as said above i wasn't big on Tomoyo after, mostly because i never liked her but when i played it, it felt rather cheesy and the humour didn't hit home, however i appreciate it was mostly well recieved and appreciate it was probably just me. So Rewrite i accept i favoured maybe more than some but i felt truly the games story telling was amazing, i did hear most didn't appreciate the fantasy side to it, the idea of Gaia and their creations didn't sit well with people, especially how it had a darker side to it (Akane's route). But honestly it was my favourite of their works and i still recommend anyone to it. I met some skeptics but most said it was decent, most friends i pushed it on loved it (thankfully :D). Glad you like it as well =]

@Taiketsu - Yeah i played the fansub though i do own the original JP game, i imported as a weird way of supporting it because i liked it so much, then dropped £120.00 on the kickstarter... yeah i seriously liked the game lol (Glad someone else helped its kickstarter, even just $1 helps :D). Glad someone else loved it, i really enjoyed Lucia's and Chiaya's route as well, though i can never pick a favourite as i also really enjoyed Shizuru's (though the ending did leave something to be desired) but then i also loved Kotori's... you get the idea, i liked 'em all :D
I look forward to Kotori's new ending, i think all characters (iirc) get a new mini route to play in plus, the fan disc i think offers a small new "after" arc for most which mostly is a alternate Slice of life style extra to the game, but iirc Kotori's ending will have a Epiloge which continues her ending as it was left open... sorry i got into Fanboy mode :D

[JdP500]

For me, this VN is up there with Clannad, Little Busters, and Rewrite in terms of quality. I would actually place it above Rewrite because I had a lot of issues with Rewrite's pacing in the common route and some tone inconsistency between routes (still love it to death, though). For me, the most impressive thing about Summer Pockets is the way that it innovates on common. There is pretty much no "wasted time" here, which is not something I can say about most other VNs, even other Key works. The map system allows you to really tailor your experience to your heroine of choice, while still tying things together with morning and evening scenes. I also think that Summer Pockets's OST is really good. I have always said that Rewrite had the best Key OST, but Summer Pockets is giving it a run for its money.

There are a couple of things that may either delight or disappoint you, depending on your perspective. I found the gap in writing quality between the heroine routes and common much smaller this time around. If, in Little Busters, I would give the average heroine route a 7.5-8/10 and Rin2/Refrain an 11/10, in Summer Pockets the heroine routes are a solid 8.5 on their own while the final routes are a 9-9.5, depending on what you think of Pocket. Pocket IS the most confusing final route in a Key VN, and I hope some of the gaps will get filled in with Reflection Blue. That being said, Alka is **very** strong.

I went into Summer Pockets expecting something quite good, but not amazing. I know Key is going through some transitions as Maeda hasn't been able to take a more active role. That's why Rewrite was so different and Harmonia was so familiar. However, my expectations were surpassed. This is coming from someone who has read Kanon, AIR, Clannad and Side Stories, Planetarian, Tomoyo After, Little Busters, Rewrite, and Harmonia. If you're a Key fan, there's no reason to pass on Summer Pockets.