Always The Same Blue Sky…

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. - Jacques Yves Cousteau
Well... Always The Same Blue Sky... is the first visual novel from NeoNight. It is short, somewhat charming with marvelously beautiful art style and alluring soundtrack, but also with a problematic story pace and plotline revelation. With a bit more elaboration and some more content, it would have been something gorgeous. At the end of the day, it is a short charming VN, with a great deal of embellishment wrapped around some narrative flaws. Considering it holds some imaginative value, I'll not down-vote though.
Our protagonist is a young adult who travels the world, attending different colleges for 2-3 moths at a time and moving on again when a phone call comes in. His/her background is wrapped with quite a lot of questions. Some of their answers will be vaguely hinted, yet most will be left completely unanswered. This time, he/she moves into a small Mediterranean island and meets an eerily beautiful, flawless young woman named Kira. They become friends on a fast pace and exchange ideas, share magical moments etc. When our short story comes to an end with another phone call, we are to learn that Kira isn't quite what she seems to be.
I'd like to start with the pros here, which is the whole display. Artworks and CGs are plain marvelous, with a rich, vibrant color palette, displaying both a beautiful character design and breathtaking environment art. The Ren'Py engine is used quite masterfully to add some character animations, glitters and glimmering effects. Soundtrack is pretty and various, which serves to be a fitting mood enhancer.
The story itself is rather short though, with a somewhat absurd dialogue pacing. There is no event correlation between occurrences, or if there is, it is a really loose one. One moment you are sitting at an ice-cream parlor, laughing with your friend; and in the next scene you are at the beach, another day. Huh? How did that happen? One moment everything feels like a light mood parody, the other your companion starts a semi-philosophical debate on human nature with a grim tone. What? The idea behind the story is a beautiful one, if not a bit cliché and it is obvious that the developer had all the necessary skill set to arrange a shining presentation for it. The narrative is rich, if not a bit redundant, containing 2-3 metaphors, allegories and figure of speeches in each sentence too, which means they are also qualified in writing a friggin narrative. Why to cut down on the story itself then? We are presented an hour or so for a full walkthrough and 2 different endings, depending on whether you've acted endearing to Kira or not. Both of these endings carry similar consequences with little to no setting revelation. It all comes down to a commentary built upon a fairytale, but the story doesn't premeditate neither the commentary, nor the event flow sufficiently. The ending, and the reaction of our protagonist comes very abrupt, even as absurd.
Sure, Always The Same Blue Sky... is a beautiful visual novel which carries a glow of potential. But as it is, I can only recommend for you to purchase on sale or in a bundle to kill an hour or two. You'll like the artwork, that's for sure. But the story pacing needs some work, maybe even the addition of a lot more content to reveal that potential.
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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.

This VN was very short but very enjoyable. The art set itself apart from most other VNs I've played this year. I also liked the soundtrack quite a bit. It sounded fresh and relaxing. Whenever I closed my eyes I could almost see myself at the beach.
As I've mentioned, the game is short and you basically get what you pay for (length-wise). It's not much of a downside though as this VN ends at just the right time. It does not drag on.
It was a nice experience and I would definitely consider buying another title from this developer.

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.

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.. :)

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.

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
Choices seem to matter very little. You are given a lot of choice in the game, but the main love interest (Kira) seems to adore you regardless of what you do. A bit confusing when trying to go for negative/bad endings.
Follows only one love option, which may be a bit of a disappointment to those used to VN's with several options.
While the story is nice, it's a little bit disjointed and the ending is mildly confusing and takes a bit of a strange dark turn that seems a bit out of place.
It felt a little too short. I feel as if the story really could have been fleshed out a bit more and the relationship between the player and Kira could have been more developed.