At the time of this writing, Visual Arts/Key's latest visual novel (VN) is planetarian: Snow Globe, a prequel to this time-honored classic. Given that I purchased but never got around to playing or reviewing planetarian, I felt that now was the time to correct this. (Visual Arts/Key did supply us with a review code for Snow Globe, so please look forward to that review as well.) I am grateful that I finally got around to enjoying this classic.

Visual Arts/Key is one of my favorite visual novel developers. I've been blessed to review almost all of them, and I am never disappointed. planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~ was their very first kinetic visual novel, and also their shortest. It was also the very first Key release officially in English on Steam, way back in September of 2014. This release was lower resolution but perfectly serviceable for the time. planetarian HD was released much later, with higher-resolution sprites and art. For several years, the HD re-release was in Japanese only, but thankfully it finally came to English in 2022, and the older planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~ title was delisted from Steam. (I have both versions, and I'm grateful to say that the HD release does look a lot better.)

For those not familiar, a visual novel is a written story with graphics. Key's VNs are usually also accompanied by music and excellent Japanese voice acting, as is the case here. Words are shown on the screen describing what is happening in more detail than the accompanying still images can show. Being a kinetic visual novel, there are no choices or gameplay of any kind; you just watch, read, and enjoy the story.

The story of planetarian begins when our main protagonist, an unnamed junker, searches the remains of a ruined city and walks into an abandoned planetarium. Inside he is greeted by a surprisingly chipper young lady, who turns out to be a female robot who goes by the name of 'Yumemi Hoshino'. It's clear that she used to help run this planetarium, and has lots of enthusiasm for it.

Little does she know that the world has since been all but destroyed from a world-ending conflict thirty years before. Humanity is on the brink of extinction, and our junker is searching for anything that can help people survive. A deadly Rain never ceases to fall from the sky, and what little technology remains is not always there for the betterment of mankind. The junker almost launches a grenade into Yumemi, though thankfully refrains. After much pleading, he decides to help her get the currently broken-down planetarium operational once again.

Being only a four-hour story, I don't want to spoil too much more getting into man details. What I can say is that the junker eventually feels compassion for Yumemi, and their interactions are quite interesting. The junker gains from the experience, and what comes next is a very touching story.

The story itself is really well written. I have generally been pretty happy with Key's localizations, and it didn't disappoint me. The HD remaster is fine, though I checked out the original pixel art version and that one has charm, also. The music is also really good, though one of the songs has the same tune as a classic Christian hymn; I don't know if that was intentional or not. The Japanese voice acting is full of emotion, really helping to drive the impact home. All spoken lines are voiced, while thoughts and narration is not. I find that balance perfectly fine and a good, consistent choice.

Morally, planetarian isn't too bad, but some minor language issues will concern some, especially since 'god' and 'Godd*mn' is used a few times, along with 'h*ll'. There is some violence and explosions, and scenes of life-threatening injuries. No blood is shown. The some of the subject matter is pretty heavy, since mankind is near extinction. The junker is known to smoke and drink alcohol, and does so in one scene.

From a technical perspective, this game will work on nearly any Windows PC, and also works flawlessly on desktop Linux. There is a controller profile that should work just fine on Steam Deck, and is rated 'Playable'. It is not controller compatible out of the box, but it can easily be configured to work via Steam Input. It of course works perfectly with a keyboard and mouse. I had strange error messages (in Japanese) when trying to save or load, but it saved anyway and everything worked as expected otherwise in my playthrough.

I completed planetarian HD in a little under four hours. Thankfully, the price is very reasonable, and it often goes on sale for around four dollars, making it an entirely fair value. Given the relatively short runtime and low price, this could be a very good introduction to visual novels if they are new to you. I'm also pleased to say that the moral concerns are fairly light as well. If you enjoy emotional stories, I'd say that planetarian HD is worth your time, especially on sale.