Koenchu! The Tale of the Voice Actress - You, the Sky, and that Summer

Koenchu! The Tale of the Voice Actress is a rather good visual novel with some flaws to it. On the plus side of things, the art in the game is very well done. Environments are pretty and characters look fantastic, but all emotion is portrayed in the face as their bodies have only one pose and remain static. The story is also rather engaging, and has several different paths to it to keep replayability up. There are also unlockable quiz and typing mini games to add in a nice occasional change of pace.

However, english players have to deal with an incomplete translation. There is a side story section that is completely untranslated, and in the main game the text occasionally slips into what appears to be quick machine translation. Thankfully, those parts tend to be at unimportant parts of the game, such as when about to go to sleep. More serious than that, however, is that in certain parts of the story for some character paths, you run into more untranslated parts. (I went through one characters story with no missing parts, but on a second playthrough with a different girls story, near the end the text suddenly had a lot of parts where it said "DUMMY" instead of the lines, and for the final scene with her literally every line was simply the "DUMMY" line, leaving me wondering how it ended.)

All in all, I did enjoy my time with the game and will likely play more to get more endings, and I recommend purchasing it. Just make sure you're okay with having some missing parts in your game (if you don't understand Japanese) before you purchase.

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Art in visual novels can usually be broken down to background art, "paper doll" art, and fully illustrated event CGs.

In Koenchu!, all three are of high quality.

Backgrounds are photographs from location shoots that have had filters applied to them to soften and defamiliarize them. There's a good variety of natural, urban, and indoor scenes, and a several areas have both day and night versions. Paper doll art is detailed, with shading and blush effects. Characters have on average three different outfits, and around eight facial expressions. Many characters are given dynamic poses to prevent dull talking head situations. Each character keeps only this one pose throughout the game, so it's hard not to feel uncomfortable for a few of them. Poor Rino looks like she could use a nice deep tissue massage after the first playthrough. Regardless, the art is well done, with nice touches such as regularly blinking eyes.　

The music is pleasant and quietly complements the on screen text. There's a good variety, so you don't end up hearing the same tracks over and over as in some visual novels. Sound effects are excellent. Every time there's a reference to something, such as splashing water or crickets, there's an accompanying sound effect. One cool example is when the class splits up to rehearse lines, and you can hear the background chatter echo through the classroom. Japanese voice acting is well done. Performances vary, with definite A, B, C classes of performance, but most of the main characters have good voice work with voices that fit the characters. Incidental characters often sound somewhat awkward, however. Also of note in Koenchu is the estimated 10 hours of radio programming. Each night, before bed, you have the option of listening to the radio, which has both music and scripted shows.

If u love visual novels I really advice you to buy this :3

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