Thank you Visual Arts for sending us this visual novel to review!

AIR was Key's second visual novel (VN), and one of the last ones to never be available officially in English. For Key's 25th anniversary, they have been releasing important backlog items in their catalog. Kanon's 25th anniversary was last year, their first ever VN as a company, and we finally got that one . Now, AIR's 25th anniversary has arrived, and Visual Arts/Key has given us this missing classic to enjoy in English for the first time. It's great that we're getting closer to having everything they've released in English every day!

For those not familiar with visual novels, they are essentially a combination of books and still pictures, and in this case, full voice acting (in Japanese). This type also includes choices for the player to adjust the flow of the story based on what they want to happen. Sound effects often increase the impact of what's going on, where you might hear something reinforcing what's happening in the story. For example, when a motorcycle almost runs someone over, you get to hear what's happening to heighten comedic effect.

Like most visual novels, AIR has plenty of choices spread throughout the story, each of which leads to not only various different antics, but also to different routes and endings. There are several bad endings, but they are sometimes worth reading anyway because you can unlock different CGs (computer graphics, or fully drawn scenes) that you can see again in the gallery. There are also Steam achievements for seeing every ending. Thankfully, you can skip previously read text easily, and you have plenty of save slots, so between them seeing everything isn't too difficult to do. There are also plenty of walkthroughs if you want to target a specific route or can't find something.

AIR begins with the perspective of our main protagonist, Yukito Kunisaki, being dropped off by the bus in a small town near the ocean. He is hungry and tired to the point of exhaustion, and is found sleeping on a nearby bench. Once he awakens, he finds a sweet but naive local high school girl named Misuzu who is concerned for his well being. Fresh out of money, he begrudgingly accepts her charity, and her food and lodging; even if her mother kicks him out of the house and into their shed, he still has some form of shelter.

Yukito is on a journey that his mother personally passed on to him: to search for a girl with wings. Unfortunately, his mother passed away when he was younger, and the only real skills he has is a magical power that she passed on to him called Houjutsu. This allows him to move puppets around with just his thoughts, so he puts on puppet shows as a means to earn a living, with mixed success.

It's not too long before Yukito meets Misuzu's alcoholic mother Haruko, as well as a couple of other girls at the school, Kano and Minagi. Misuzu has a hard time making friends, but Yukito can get to know her or the other two girls well through choices that leads to their routes. One of the things I really like about AIR is that while only one route is canon, the other two do contribute to the narrative significantly, as they shed different light on the main narrative. That, and they are fun, as Kano's bubbly personality and Minagi's gentle spirit and subtle wit make them both a joy to read through. Minagi's route was incredibly emotionally impactful to me, with both an excellent ending and even a really interesting bad end.

As you probably guessed, Misuzu's route is the primary one, but you do need to read through all three and see their Dream endings before Summer and AIR opens up. Summer is a fantastic story that was a major highlight for me, and kept me glued to my seat the whole time. I read through it in one sitting, being unable to do much else. AIR is the final route, and I'm not going to spoil that. This release of AIR also includes a short bonus chapter called 'First Sky Chapter' that you can read once everything else is completed.

Compared to other visual novels I've read, I found AIR to be a very consistent narrative, with a lot of melancholy. Even when there are laughs, there is some subtext about the situation being rather difficult. The challenges around parental love is a major theme of AIR, and everyone in the story has suffered some level of loss. The deepest emotional moments come when trying to make the best of these difficult situations. There were a few moments where manly tears were manifest, but the first (and strongest) was at the end of Minagi's route. It's not unusual with Key VNs for my favorite character to be one of the side ones, and that happened once again here for me.

I suppose I should point out that each of Key's VNs takes place in a particular season of the year, and this plays a significant part in the narrative. As such, while Kanon, their first story, was in winter, AIR takes place in the summer. Dealing with the heat is a constant struggle for our poor traveler.

Morally, AIR is not as bad as many visual novels, but it has some notable issues that keeps it firmly in the late teen and up category. Like several other older Key releases, these were originally written with erotic scenes present, and were removed for later releases. So this Steam release has none of that, but one route has pretty much confirmed premarital sex via a fade to black (with her guardian calling you two 'like newlyweds'), and another route somewhat implies it when heading to a bad ending. Thankfully, visually it's pretty clean, though one of the older women does wear a tank top with some light visible cleavage. In one video cinematic, there is what appears to be a naked female body silhouette, but it literally flashes on the screen for just a moment. As for the relationships themselves, it's probably worth pointing out that age of consent laws are different in Japan; Yukito is around 20 years old, and the girls he can romance are estimated to be around 16-17. While this is legal in much of the USA, it's not everywhere (including the state the author is in if one of them is 16). It is legal in Japan.

Outside of sexual content, there are some curse words used, especially 'h*ll' and 'd*mn'. The alcoholic mother mentioned earlier has been known to try to get anyone she can to drink with her, including Yukito (20 is legal drinking age in Japan) and even an animal. It's very difficult to avoid this in a playthrough, as you are staying under her roof, so there is a power imbalance there. When drunk she does make some sexual jokes. Some magical powers are on display, and one character is possessed by a spirit. Curses play a major part in the story. There is blood during a small number of scenes.

From a technical perspective, it runs flawlessly on almost anything. The art looks great, if you appreciate late 1990s/early 2000s anime-style art like I do. It is of a lower resolution, even if it's been scaled up a bit compared to the original releases. The music is great, and it's Verified on Steam Deck. Probably close to 90% of my playtime was made on desktop Linux via Steam Proton, and it ran without issues, though your system requirements might be slightly higher than they would be on Windows, where it can run on anything with a 64-bit compatible CPU. Mouse, keyboard, touchscreen, and controller support all work great.

AIR is a really memorable visual novel from Visual Arts/Key, and for a sophomoric effort, they did a really good job. While I believe their next few releases were their peak, AIR is a quite large step up in narrative quality and cohesion over what Kanon offered. The localization is also quite good. While I personally found the ending a bit ambiguous for my tastes, it's still overall a really good and moving story that will pluck at your heart strings. It's also a solid thirty-plus hours (it took me thirty four), so I would say that it's a decent value as well. If you are a visual novel lover, I would say that AIR is absolutely worth a read. Recommended!