Always The Same Blue Sky...

Always The Same Blue Sky... is a very good visual novel game with a beautiful story. The graphics are nice and the soundtrack is Chill and relaxing... I highly recommend it. 💗💗💗

I thought it was cute and it had a lot of potential but it was very short. It didn't feel like much of a connection was made between the two characters. I thought the artwork was really nice though.

This one's an awesome indie visual novel from a small European studio that well, I enjoyed months ago and of course I forgot to review.
It's definitely quite short, but on the other side it's well worthy to be played in my opinion. That's why I'm replaying it after many months right now :P
And while it's true that often a game with lots of endings is usually lengthier and more developed, with many characters and so on, it's never automatic the connection between many endings and a beautiful game.
There are lots of visual novels, like this one, with few endings (yes, just two!) and with a short playtime, but with a nice replayability value and many positive aspects - outstanding, too!
Always The Same Blue Sky, too, features a really well-made personal user interface, for what concerns dialogues and choices, but also the text position in the bottom part of the screen - it's clear from the first sight that much work has been put into this novel (which had been approved firstly on Steam before being published) and you can see this from the menus, the graphics and every small aspect that many other visual novel use to standardize (like the auto, skip, pause etc. buttons that look all the same in dozens of games). RenPy engine, if you're wondering :)
Plus, here we have outstanding graphics in my view, and an awesome soundtrack which can be bought as a 1€/$ DLC - even if the game's short (two-three hours more or less if you wanna read through it all), you'll hear almost 15 different songs and the DLC also contains non-published tracks and mixes :)
I also found the story very charming and nice, soothing I'd say. Nothing complicated at all - it's a romantic and peaceful one - but definitely enjoyable. It's clearly indie, and maybe some scenes aren't perfectly linked one to another, but overall nothing mines (is this English? I hope so xD) the game's quality.
As I was saying, we won't face sexual contents or magical things, or even complex storylines.. the world is quite "late teenager" as your main character (you choose your sex ^^) goes from school to school and well, you'll find yourself on an island which is quite the context in which everything will take place, good or bad.
The fact that your main character is put finally, after what he/she went through his teenage years, on a remote island of course opens tons of different possibilities and this is probably one of the reasons why the game suffers from some plot holes and jumps from one theme to another one, but as I said, nothing too bad to say it's rushed or even hard to enjoy in my view.
Yeah, the writing isn't always perfect, but to me it's really okay. And it offers you way more than a good and a bad ending - although on one hand there are many choices that aren't really "important" for a different outcome, on the other one you can do multiple playthroughs and see the reactions if you're playing positively, or if you want to behave the opposite way. This is great, since you can still make a "wrong" decision if you feel that it suits your mood, and still stay on one of the two routes :)
The too long, did not read version of this is: there are lots of choices, but they will lead you to two endings only; though, they will still affect many small bits of dialogue here and there.
With Kira being the only character you'll get to know, of course, the game limits itself a bit but well, it'll be ok :P
For the sake of completion, there are something like, 15 choices per playthrough if you really wanna know xD
I just can't speak about the language options - there are many translations, but of course being Northern Italian and knowing only my native tongue and French I went for English.. but you can also play the game in German, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and Russian - there's no voice acting at all, so nothing will change and trust me, the music and the full OST are really charming and interesting even from an amateur musician's point of view ^^
I just can say that the English novel is great apart from some bits of dialogue, but I generally write my reviews only for the English versions of the games since well, I still have to find a nicely translated game into Italian or French and my knowledge of Spanish is too bad to enjoy everything. Not to speak about other languages I should have studied or learned years ago..
I think I made some mistakes and errors and I'm too stupid to go through the review once again but I hope I gave many nice ideas on what you're going to play. Few characters but greatly made, a nice and charming seaside/island romantic story, awesome artwork and music, and an overall short time needed for every choice, ending and such.
For its price and its indie development, in my view this one's really a great visual novel in its genre. And it's suited for every age too. Lots of details in the artwork. Worth every single cent :)
And well.. I "tricked" a little bit talking about the branches the story will take.. there could be some magic in the.. water.. :)

Was not a fan of this game it reminded me a lot of Voices from the Sea which is a free to play game here on steam and a lot better.

Extremely short, but interesting. I do like how the story surprised me a bit. I thought it was just going to be a slice-of-life story, but the ending(s) changed that. I do wish it had been longer and that the choices didn't just lead to two different endings (a good and a bad one). Overall, it was enjoyable but could've been better.

The artwork was very pretty.

I recommend it as long as you're okay with short VNs.

Personally, I enjoyed this visual novel. I bought it despite some of the bad reviews, as it was cheap, and was pleasantly surprised.
The writing does lean towards excess, and could do with some editing - for example, a lengthy description of Kira's appearance is not necessary, as we see her sprite and already know about her apple-green eyes.
I loved the odd sense of place this game had. It felt somewhat familiar, yet alien. I also liked the way the story emerged as a series of vignettes - again though, there are some loose ends and the transitions in some places were a bit confusing. In one instance, art appears before the writing has caught up, leaving me confused as to why the protagonist was talking about Kira walking away when the art shows her smiling with a fishing net.
I liked the ending, but the lengthy explanation Kira gives felt a tad clumsy. I also disliked how every ending has Kira deciding to be good, either before or after she murders the protagonist

The game is very short, it took me under an hour to 100% it.

All in all, this is just what I think. The bad reviews raise good points, but for me the good outweighed the bad in the end.

A cute, short story of spending your time with a cute girl by the beach.

Who might be a demon or something, I'm still not quite sure.

I don't remember if this has a gender option or not for the protagonist, but even so it's pretty good for all types of people.

Great Visual Novel by Crimson Night and published by Flying Interactive, on steam. This Visual Novel was very short but very enjoyable with choices with 2 endings 1 being a bad ending and the other being a good end. Another Visual Novel with easy achievements.

Well it's hard to vote down but since there is no "neutral" button i tend more to negative then positive...

PRO:
- Nice Art
- Lovely peaceful Soundtrack

CON:
- Several decisions but effect only two events
- Some decisions doesn't make much sense
- German translation is full of mistakes
- Very Short Story
- Not very suprising ending - only two of them
- Sometimes Kira looks like an Figure of Paper

So lets get some text.
Always the same blue sky is a little VN wich plays on an island somewhere in the mediterran south. The player can name himself like he want and can choose if he wants to be a girl or a boy. And here comes one of the strangest decisions of the Novel. The whole story is written on the role of a boy. But it doesnt effect anything if you are a boy or a girl. So you decide if you get to a normal or lesbian romance? For what? Its one of the things i don't get. Nobody need a decision like this its just senseless. Art and Soundtrack ist well done. It fits and have some pretty CGs.
The decisions you made are also a little bit senseless. It results in just two ends: A "good" one and a "bad" one - but i think they are predictable and not well written. This is a pity! There is so much potential to make a very good Novel with serveral decisions but most of them are not effect something big. There are one or two diffrent scenes you can get but with all ways you come down to the same endings...
My first walkthrough was made in 45 minutes... sry this is too short for me... The price ist ok i think if you want something you can read in between times its a choice. And: Read it in english! The german translation is just a joke - in english you'll have no problems. All in all its a little Novel with good Art and Soundtrack but much mistakes and strange decisions. You can buy it but don't expect too much. For the price it's ok.

4/10

Pros

• Small price tag.
  
  
• Several different endings, has replayability.
  
  
• Easy achievements and nice cards.
  
  
• Colorful and fun artwork.
  
  
• A very soothing musical soundtrack that is easy on the ears and fits the theme of the game very well.
  
  
• Features no nudity or foul language. Appropriate for those who prefer a softer VN.
  

Cons

Always The Same Blue Sky is a very charming visual novel. My only real complaint is that its pretty short, only about 30 minutes, but when you consider the price, thats fine. And it may just be me but I actually preferred the "Bad" ending over the "Good" ending

Always The Same Blue Sky is a difficult game to say whether I recommend it or not, since it does have good and bad qualities in almost equal measure. Let's start off with the positives - the visuals are are quite pretty, some of the plot elements introduced are truly intriguing, and the music is decent. However, where this game fails is in the execution of the story. While I appreciate it being advertised as a story that gets right to the point and ranks a 0 on the pretension meter, I believe that it this same attitude that hurts the overall experience. Yes, it is nice to cut out the excess nonsense filler the plagues many games like this, but so much has been cut away that only a bare-bones structure remains. A little extra time to bond with our solitary (!) love interest would have been nice, with the added bonus of a little extra depth and get a sense of who she truly is.

Personal taste for fluff aside, what isn't cut out of the game is severely underdeveloped. Crucial twists and plot points are touched upon exactly once and then never brought up again (glass dolphin, anyone?) Also hurting the game is the use of the dual endings. Unless you answer the choices in a very specific way, you get the bad ending. Just wow. No gray area at all, eh? I don't know if all VNs work this way or not (I've only played a couple before this), but it drives me crazy when games stack the odds against the player of getting a satisfying ending. It doesn't help that some of the choices are absolutely ridiculous (announce your name proudly or shyly? Really?) and give you little to no feedback on how each choice changes the way Kira feels about you.

Finally, the writing. Oh boy, the writing. It isn't something I'd exactly call terrible, but I'd place it somewhere between "Internet fanfic written at 3 AM after one too many glasses of wine" and "$5 paperback romance novel gathering dust at Wal-Mart." I've always said that a thesaurus is every writer's best friend, but this game's authors suffer from going a touch overboard with it. A little rosiness in the narrative and dialogue is nice, but it would benefit greatly from a little conciseness as well.

In terms of my recommendation, what it all comes down to are two questions: Would I play this game again? Would I recommend this to anyone else? In short, no and no. I wrapped the story twice in 50 minutes and got 2/3 of the achievements doing so. With one love interest and only two endings, I see no point in playing this game again. I would suggest this game to hardcore visual novel fans, and even then only in passing.

Always The Same Blue Sky escapes my thumbs-up, but only just. Honestly, there are worse ways you could spend three bucks and an hour.

Cute little visual Novel that offers 2 endings as well as 2 hidden achievements one of them including a small childstory

Each run takes about 30-45 mintutes, the price of 3€ is totaly okay i think

Pro:
- Story is quite enjoying
- Hiddencontent
- Music
- Backgroundpictures
- Achievements
- Cute character
- Short
- Choosing between Boy and Girl
- Name yourself and get to choose whether you are shy or not by telling your name ^-^

Con:
- Girl / Boy makes no difference what so ever
- Can't find any more

I give it a 7-7.5/10 it is a small Novel but a good middleclass one

Bought this mainly because of the promise of "breathtaking artwork and an addictive soundtrack", I figured that, as a person who adores VNs, and it being only £1.69 at the moment, I had nothing to lose...

...yeah, I was wrong.

Don't get me wrong, the story is okay (although honestly I was more interested by the "hidden" side-story) and the artwork and soundtrack are also okay, but that's it. Just okay. Nothing special, nothing that made me feel like this was different to other VNs I've played. I feel like maybe this VN would be better suited to someone relatively new to VNs. The dialogue, at times, also felt too poetic, like it was forcibly trying to be captivating. Instead, I just quickly got tired of it.

Despite giving this a negative overall review, I would recommend it to people new to VNs.

I think the background artworks are very nice, and there's potential in the story idea.
However, I felt that the actual story is too short, with abrupt transitions between scenes. Elaboration of the plot points, as well as addition of more "intermediary" scenes will probably help here. The language also felt too flowery at times.

In addition, the endings felt jarring because it's suddenly implied that Kira has killed many people prior to her encounter with the protagonist.

Overall, I think the VN is still OK, and hopefully the team's future works will be better.

This game left enough of an impression on me to want to review it. That's not to say it's good or amazing, but to say that I think it's worth the play for what it is.

It presents itself very well with charming art and an equally charming soundtrack, the writing isn't going to blow you away but it wont leave you disappointed either.

The reason I have difficulty saying this is a good game is that the writing leaves a lot to be desired and in a VN, writing should be your star point above all else. The story feels like I was being rushed through it, it didn't take its time building the characters and that makes it hard to feel much for them. Not to mention the endings feel a bit lacking in impact, mostly due to the issue of pacing. That's not to say this game didn't do things right, despite the flaws in the writing I chose to play through it again to see what I had missed and how the alternate ending would play out, meaning I liked the overall story enough to read through it without just giving up on the game. In fact I really liked the short bonus story because its pacing felt right and had all the charm I was looking for without any real issues in it.

All in all I'd say this game is worth the price of admission and I really hope to see more from the people involved here, because I think with experience under their belt from this and hopefully taking criticisms in to account, they could come up with something amazing for their next project should they decide to do one.

Consider this a thumbs halfway recommendation. Do look into the game if you're interested, but if the descriptive text above doesn't draw you in, the actual game is unlikely to change that.

Terrible sales copy aside, Always The Same Blue Sky does in fact present nicely detailed art and a fitting soundtrack, both of which are used to good effect. It's easy to see the effort put into making things look and sound good, and Crimson Night’s team clearly have a good eye for what works, particularly with animations. But where Always The Same Blue Sky falls down is where a lot of first productions do: on the story.

While the narration has some charm and wit, it's very much held back by trying to be as flowery as possible, often to the point where it's hard to know what it's describing anymore. Between a few straightforward lines or simple descriptions, the narration tends to go into purple prose overdrive about the simplest of things. It's hard to know what's important between it. In another visual novel this might be forgiven, but it's already a great struggle to understand what Always The Same Blue Sky wants to say.

It could be apt to describe this game as a collection of vignettes, but thinking about it that way doesn't quite make the story any more satisfying. The glimpses into the setting and Kira seem too insignificant, the ending that joins them a bit confusing, the mystery behind mostly everything a bit too out of reach. Is it simply a story to make you think about humanity's destructive nature? Is it more a way to capture a certain feeling? Or are we supposed to think about or feel something else? It feels like there's more to what we're given; that, like the hidden story on the title screen, there's things left to discover that can help you piece it all together. But all of that seems to remain out of reach, so what's left is a very short collection of moments connected somehow that lead to an ending that might make you think about whatever you think the game’s getting at.

Clearing the game once allows you to play through it again with more options, but being meek or assertive doesn't really reveal anything more about what's going on. You can also see an alternate ending where it seems the game really is all about your outlook on the world, but who really knows?

In all, even though it looks and sounds well-produced and has hints of a good mystery/psychological story, Always The Same Blue Sky is as it's shallowly described on the store page and that's probably the most disappointing thing it could be.

Why you should buy this:
The visuals and music alone are worth the meager asking price.

The review:
You don't really get to know Kira (the only character besides you) very much during the short 30-45 minute story and the ending, while it seemed rather rushed, was quite emotional for me. You do get a few choices during the story which will ultimately determine whether you get ending 1 or 2, but they don't really change the rest of the story much. All in all, its a good visual novel that maybe needs to let the pictures do more of the storytelling and increase character depth with a little more dialogue and little less poetry. If you want a lengthy and heartwarming VN, look elsewhere. If you want a short, emotional little trip, pick this one up.

As someone who's played a lot of VNs, Always The Same Blue Sky did not win me over. Large spoilers ahead, so be warned.

- The language came across as overly poetic to the point of being purple prose. For example, we get lines such as "The precious fabric was a rich shade of turquoise which transformed the glaring sun into a thousand stars." There's nothing wrong with clever metaphor, but it should be handled carefully, not swung around willy-nilly like a sledgehammer.

- A great example of what the game does wrong comes in how it describes Kira, the heroine. You get a whole paragraph about how unbelievably perfect she is, from her 'porcelain face' all the way down to her 'piercing apple-green eyes, which penetrated through all pretense'. Firstly a character with no obvious imperfections is boring; secondly, it violates 'Show, Don't Tell' pretty horrendously.

- Rather than a coherent story, the game seems to just be a collection of disconnected scenes scrambled together without much in the way of pretense. One minute you're sharing milkshakes with Kira by the seaside, the next you're talking with her about the selfishness of mankind. None of these transitions feel natural at all, and the supposed drama that emerges from them turns into overly-drawn angst. (Oh, hey, my girlfriend's on the roof of the school crying to herself! Better walk away and do absolutely nothing to help because somehow I know I'm not supposed to!)

- Speaking of story, it feels like huge chunks of plot are missing. There are several topics that are vaguely touched upon but never see any sort of payoff. For instance, during the opening sequence, the protagonist takes a pill of some sort before rushing to school. Is this an indication of illness? It's never brought up again. Likewise there's a bizarre subplot about owls in the Mediterranean which again leads nowhere. And sometimes things just...happen, without any real context (OK, so we're being moved off the island...why, exactly?)

- Finally the ending comes out of nowhere and makes very little sense. So it turns out Kira's some sort of sea spirit who's been killing people every month to maintain her human form. After a VERY heavy-handed moral about the destructive nature of humanity she's sucked up by the sea again, and we get a short epilogue of how the sea will always be with us and so Kira's never gone or whatever. DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE SHE WAS A SERIAL KILLER, GAME?

Perhaps the frustrating part of all this is that there is plenty to salvage. The art is excellent for the asking price, with a plethora of backgrounds and CGs, and the game does a few neat things with Ren'py you don't see often (blinking characters, walking animations, etc.) The music was forgettable, but I didn't mind it in particular. It's just that the terrible writing sinks the whole package and makes me feel like I wasted my money on it.

In short, Always The Same Blue Sky is wonderful to look at, but absolutely miserable to play. Those hoping for a quick VN fix should look elsewhere. Consider the freeware game Voices From The Sea instead.

Always the Same Blue Sky is a short (30m - 1hr) visual novel with a lovely aesthetic and a nice if simple soundtrack. Well written with interesting characters, it's biggest issue is perhaps that it's a little -too- short. Character relationships progress in between the scenes and it feels like it's missing some of the content that would really pull you into their interactions and give them more weight.

It's lovely to see more original English language VNs on Steam, and for three bucks you can't really go wrong. Treat yourself to a short break with Always the Same Blue Sky, feels for three.