This visual novel is one of three VNs in developer Pulltop's "coming of age" trilogy. As such, as you might expect (especially after seeing the store page), you'll be treated to a story about a boy and two girls, from the boy's perspective, with some romantic elements. This particular VN also features a few other things.

Most prominently, it basically also acts as half a tourism guide to visiting the real-life Ogasawara Islands, and specifically features multiple islands as settings for the story, depicted in richly detailed background art. (The cover art depicts the island of Minamijima, in case you were curious.) The VN also includes various facts about the islands that are relevant to the story. Furthermore, the characters go scuba diving, and one of them is a complete newbie to this, so you'll get to learn about scuba diving alongside her, too.

While these aspects may seem a little gratuitous, I've been enjoying them. On one hand they might detract a little from immersion, but on the other hand they fill in information that's actually useful to know for the story or otherwise interesting tidbits fleshing out the setting. It's a surprisingly educational experience, in a story set on a laid-back tropical island, with ample images of people in swimwear for your viewing pleasure. In the in-game gallery, you can review the geography facts that you've unlocked (though you'll have to remember the scuba diving tips yourself).

The music's also pretty nice; I'd say it does a decent job of bringing to life the story's atmosphere. This one track called "Open Water", which plays during certain important scenes, is especially gorgeously beautiful. If you like the music you can buy the soundtrack separately, but there's also a sound test in the VN itself. (Like the geography facts, the tracks are gradually unlocked as you play.)

The game has settings for a ton of things, including scrollback options, keyboard shortcuts, and even mouse gestures. And of course, volume settings, separately for sound effects, movies, and individual character voices. Everyone except the lead boy is voiced (in Japanese), and you can turn them up/down as you please.

I'm not yet done reading this VN, but so far I like it. I've heard that this VN has more than one route, but I haven't yet explored it thoroughly; I think I'm halfway through as of the writing of this review.

Edit: I've since finished reading this VN, including both endings. They're actually quite well done and I really enjoyed them. I'd just advise putting some time between reading the two endings so that you can keep their story paths more cleanly separate in your head; I think doing that enhances enjoyment.

The story seems well-written, and the English translation flows smoothly. The art is gorgeously crisp and detailed. I personally wish the two lead girls weren't drawn with what seem like somewhat oversized boobs, but if you're more into that than I am (and you can easily decide by looking at the store page screenshots), then I guess you'll appreciate it more than I did, but regardless, the art is quite polished, and the well-written characterization means that the characters don't merely serve as eye candy. Meanwhile, the interface style is decent, though the animations and scene changes occasionally lag a bit or otherwise display choppily. I'm running this game on a Win8.1 system with a 4th-gen i5 processor and integrated graphics, which should be more than enough. But, this issue really doesn't impact the VN much.

Edit: Running this now on a more recent Win10 system with an MX130 graphics card (one of the not-hugely-spectactular ones; this just came built-in), it does run smoothly now, albeit making the computer rather warm. For some reason this VN is rather processor-intensive. Not really sure why.

(Disclosure: I got this game for free when it was offered by the publisher to the group J-Indie Arcade, via Steam's Curator Connect feature.)

This visual novel is one of three VNs in developer Pulltop's "coming of age" trilogy. As such, as you might expect (especially after seeing the store page), you'll be treated to a story about a boy and two girls, from the boy's perspective, with some romantic elements. This particular VN also features a few other things. Most prominently, it basically also acts as half a tourism guide to visiting the real-life Ogasawara Islands, and specifically features multiple islands as settings for the story, depicted in richly detailed background art. (The cover art depicts the island of Minamijima, in case you were curious.) The VN also includes various facts about the islands that are relevant to the story. Furthermore, the characters go scuba diving, and one of them is a complete newbie to this, so you'll get to learn about scuba diving alongside her, too. While these aspects may seem a little gratuitous, I've been enjoying them. On one hand they might detract a little from immersion, but on the other hand they fill in information that's actually useful to know for the story or otherwise interesting tidbits fleshing out the setting. It's a surprisingly educational experience, in a story set on a laid-back tropical island, with ample images of people in swimwear for your viewing pleasure. In the in-game gallery, you can review the geography facts that you've unlocked (though you'll have to remember the scuba diving tips yourself). The music's also pretty nice; I'd say it does a decent job of bringing to life the story's atmosphere. This one track called "Open Water", which plays during certain important scenes, is especially gorgeously beautiful. If you like the music you can buy the soundtrack separately, but there's also a sound test in the VN itself. (Like the geography facts, the tracks are gradually unlocked as you play.) The game has settings for a ton of things, including scrollback options, keyboard shortcuts, and even mouse gestures. And of course, volume settings, separately for sound effects, movies, and individual character voices. Everyone except the lead boy is voiced (in Japanese), and you can turn them up/down as you please. [strike]I'm not yet done reading this VN, but so far I like it. I've heard that this VN has more than one route, but I haven't yet explored it thoroughly; I think I'm halfway through as of the writing of this review.[/strike] Edit: I've since finished reading this VN, including both endings. They're actually quite well done and I really enjoyed them. I'd just advise putting some time between reading the two endings so that you can keep their story paths more cleanly separate in your head; I think doing that enhances enjoyment. The story seems well-written, and the English translation flows smoothly. The art is gorgeously crisp and detailed. I personally wish the two lead girls weren't drawn with what seem like somewhat oversized boobs, but if you're more into that than I am (and you can easily decide by looking at the store page screenshots), then I guess you'll appreciate it more than I did, but regardless, the art is quite polished, and the well-written characterization means that the characters don't merely serve as eye candy. Meanwhile, the interface style is decent, though the animations and scene changes occasionally lag a bit or otherwise display choppily. I'm running this game on a Win8.1 system with a 4th-gen i5 processor and integrated graphics, which should be more than enough. But, this issue really doesn't impact the VN much. Edit: Running this now on a more recent Win10 system with an MX130 graphics card (one of the not-hugely-spectactular ones; this just came built-in), it does run smoothly now, albeit making the computer rather warm. For some reason this VN is rather processor-intensive. Not really sure why. (Disclosure: I got this game for free when it was offered by the publisher to the group J-Indie Arcade, via Steam's Curator Connect feature.)