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Haretaka aka Farther Than the Blue Sky Discussion [UPDATED]


littleshogun

Farther Than Blue Sky Poll  

6 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is the best heroine?

    • Akatsuki Arisa
      2
    • Reimei Kaho
      4
    • Michibiki Honoka
      0
    • Ibuki Nazuna
      0
  2. 2. Which is the best route?

    • Akatsuki Arisa
      2
    • Reimei Kaho
      2
    • Michibiki Honoka
      1
    • Ibuki Nazuna
      1


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Since Mangagamer posted 4 koma manga at their blog (Don't eat the banana like Honoka if I may give advice here), I'll just assume that Mangagamer already firm with their decision to release this in five days later (At 19th). So I figure that this is the best time to open Haretaka discussion page here, although currently there's no much to talk though other than Mangagamer's payment processor problem, Chuuable's bankruptcy, and the rocket. Anyway I'll write more about the heroines here, so I'll just say that Haretaka's writing here did have some focus on the rocket engineering which is natural seeing that the premise here is about rocket development. Feel free to discuss about Haretaka here.

Edit - Here's the promised heroines info here.

1. Akatsuki Arisa

26432.jpg

If you play Suki Suki and then you directly thought that this girl is tsundere the moment you see her, then you would be right because she's more or less a tsundere. If anything she's quite passionate to rocket and that she'll do anything to defend her club Byakko, plus she already got helped by Otoya so at least we can see her cute side at the beginning (Not that it stop her to hitting Otoya). Her role in the club is Project Manager, in which basically she's the one who make the plan on building the rocket and lead the construction (She's also the president of Byakko and the main heroine of Haretaka here). Her seiyuu/VA is Yuina, in which her roles are Tokeizaka Kanon from Majokoi, Serikawa Eri from Suki Suki, Matoi Ayame from Uchi trilogy, Shizuki Yachiyo from Loca Love, Takayashi Matsuri from Family Project 2013, and Endou Saya from Kisaragi GOLD Star.

2. Reimei Kaho

26433.jpg

At first she's the rival for Byakko seeing that she's a vice president for ARC in which it's the biggest rocket club in the school, and that she deliver the decision to dissolve Byakko. But after a certain event she decided to quit ARC and then joined Byakko in order to work on the rocket as the one who responsible for the electrical stuffs. Unlike Arisa, she's more stoic and calm so she's pretty much the opposite in term of personality, and also she's a better teacher to Otoya compared to Arisa. Her VA is Aji Sanma and her roles are Shinozaki Marika from Hoshiori, Mochizuki Rina aka Rinarin from Fureraba, Kukichi Touko from Kara no Shoujo, Kibanohara Ethica from Tokyo Necro, Hinai Paulette from Maitetsu, Fuuma Tama from Nekonin, Tsukinoura Ai from Himawari to Kioku,  and Heroina di Caballero istaa (Still a mouthful name) from Kirikoi.

3. Michibiki Honoka

Michibiki Honoka

The childhood friend of Otoya, and also his underclassman as well. As for her, we can say that she's more or less like to play a prank and our Otoya here is the most frequent victim of her pranks. She joined Byakko because it looks fun, or at least that's what we can understand from her dialogue or something like that. Her role is to take care the airframe section, in which she'll do her best to do it seeing that she's the winner in rocket building competition. Her VA is Akiko Hana, in which her roles are Kathryn/Kath from Evenicle, Hiiragi Yuzuyu from Evenicle, Alice Bedford from Newton VN, Komachi Mahiru from Suki Suki, R-Ne from Corona Blossom, Ichinose Miu from Hemoimo, the titular heroine in Apeiria, and Takigawa Kotori from Nanairo Reincarnation.

4. Ibuki Nazuna

26435.jpg

Nicknamed Natsu, and she's another default Byakko member before Otoya joined. Other than that she's the daughter of the school chairman so basically she's an ojou-sama, although her interest didn't really reflect that seeing that she like to playing fire so much that she want to commit arson. We also know that she's quite an airhead one, and that she's the third year. Her responsibility is propulsion, which may or may not connected to her hobbies of playing fire. Her VA is Kasumi Ryyou, in which she voiced Myougi Marika from Princess Evangile, Yamanouchi Koharu from Kara no Shoujo, Mary from Mugen Renkan, Silent from Evenicle, Eleanor Ran from Rance 03, and Dahlia Basquiat from Flowers.

I guess that's all for the heroines info here.

Edited by littleshogun
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Would you kindly use the English name in the title? You know, the one that people can actually recognise?
I understand titles that were previously fantranslated using the Japanese one, but ones that have only been advertised by their English one are unrecognisable if you stick to the Japanese one.

 

Also, glad their payment processor woes are ending. I'm interested in this title, though not as much as Sengoku.

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And it's released according to their tweet below. Feel free to discuss about Haretaka here and have fun.

PS - I'll add the heroines info in the opening post later, and yeah we'll going to have a section in that we can see the characters will explain rocketry lingo.

Edited by littleshogun
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Very nice that they could finally resolve their payment processor issues. Would be interesting to know what happened this time. Since they are not giving out Steam keys anymore, it shouldn't be the same thing like last time. Well, maybe they make a blog with some insights about it.

Anyway, concerning Haretaka, I do have some interest in it since it was rather high in the Getchu award ratings a few years ago. However, for the current price it doesn't really look good or interesting enough for me, so I'll abstain for the moment. But since MangaGamer also announced an upcoming sale soon, I'll finally take the opportunity to pick up The Most Forbidden Love in the World and the Hapymaher hard copy.

Edited by ChaosRaven
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As for Haretaka here, I can say that the author here have a lot of fun writing this compared to back at Suki Suki. I don't have proof though, seeing that it's what I felt here although the lack of soap opera plot point help though (I may be wrong about this). In any case, I'll add the poll here so feel free to cast the vote here.

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So far I finished two routes - Arisa's and Kaho's. My opinion for now - it's definitely better than SukiSuki. I actually like the main story about rockets, common route is good, and I like the heroines, but I'm not satisfied with how romance and ero stuff is handled (especially going into this right after Mashiro Iro Symphony which was definitely above average in those aspects...). There are too sudden jumps in the relationships - the confession and start of the relationship lacks proper build up - and h-scenes, while better than in SukiSuki, are still a bit over the top for my taste. (not that there's some extreme content there, they are just "typical-eroge" scenes, with most of the bad tropes present :P)

Also, I feel it actually is pretty close to the "Konsora with rockets" I was hopinig for, but Konosora handled relationship stuff much better IMO.

Will post more once I complete it.

PS I was really surprised that Kaho and Rina from Fureraba have same VA, since their characters are so different :o

Edited by adamstan
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On 9/21/2019 at 5:56 PM, Freestyle80 said:

Anyone played the VN/Have any thoughts on it yet? 

Just curious before I try it :sacchan:

It's kinda like Konosora, except replace the good relationship development for way more tech explanations. Probably because rockets are way harder to build then a glider, this focuses a lot on explaining terms and on how things work. Legitimately, a lot of the routes have sex scenes that then go into rocket explanations because the sex lead to a breakthrough for the project.

 

I found the entire thing good overall, though I hated Arisa in her route. Kaho is probably the most properly romantic of the lot, Honoka is a comedy but also has the best drama, and Natsu has some good build up before they start going out. Common route is solid, though if you don't like lectures you'll probably get tired of this. The protag is an idiot exactly so they have to explain everything.

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4 hours ago, jikorde said:

Legitimately, a lot of the routes have sex scenes that then go into rocket explanations because the sex lead to a breakthrough for the project.

Yeah, I found this attempt to tie sex scenes to the main story genuinely hilarious :wahaha: (though I noticed it only in Honoka's route, not so much in Arisa's and Kaho's)

4 hours ago, jikorde said:

Natsu has some good build up before they start going out.

Oh, really? Then I'm looking forward to it, since it's the thing that remaining three routes lacked IMO.

4 hours ago, jikorde said:

I hated Arisa in her route.

I happened to like Arisa. However the beginning of her route seems like they tried to mimic Ageha's route from Konosora.

Spoiler

"It's only physical! No love involved!" disclaimers from Arisa.

Kaho was genuinely sweet, I agree.

4 hours ago, jikorde said:

It's kinda like Konosora, except replace the good relationship development for way more tech explanations. Probably because rockets are way harder to build then a glider, this focuses a lot on explaining terms and on how things work.

Yep. Rocket stuff didn't bother me (I actually liked it), but it's a pity they didn't manage to handle relationship stuff well too.

Edited by adamstan
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Finished.

Natsu's route indeed had nice build-up. If other routes had it too, it would have been great.

I have an impression, especially after true route, that romance isn't focus of this game. It's a bit tacked onto main rocket story. And then there are h-scenes tacked onto the tacked-on romance - probably that's why they felt jarring to me. There were some nice parts, but overally they had "nukigey" feeling to me. And the way all heroines turned instantly into non-stop-orgasming sex demons was so over the top, that it felt almost like a parody.

Of course, there are many positives too ;) I liked all heroines, and the main story. True route was pretty good, although writer opted for similar kind of drama as in some of the SukiSuki routes - maybe they went a bit overboard. Still, nice.

If I had to rate routes, I'd say that my favourite was Natsu, followed by Kaho, Arisa and Honoka. However I have problem with choosing my favourite heroine - I liked them all almost equally. If pressed to answer, it would be probably Kaho > Arisa = Natsu > Honoka.

Art was mixed bag for me. Sprites and CGs were nice, but some of the backgrounds had very 'cheap' feeling to me, with their overuse of simple shapes (like taken straight from 3d modelling software) and gradient fillings. This approach might look good in 16 colors on PC98, but in modern titles I prefer more "hand-drawn" and detailed look. (Aokana would be good example to compare).

Now let's talk a bit about English version. The translation leans to the liberal side of the spectrum, however it was fun to read. They ditched the honorifics, but kept name order and distinction between using of first and last names. However that last point turned out a bit messy, probably due to lack of sufficient editing QC. By this I mean, that sometimes they are swapped for no apparent reason. There were also a few editing mistakes that resulted in slight mistranslation (like missing negation or particle in some lines), but nothing too serious or impossible to figure out. The attempts to translate jokes turned out fine :)

Final score - 7.5/10. Points detracted mostly for unsatisfying handling of h-scenes. While it was better than Suki Suki (which got same score from me), I still feel that it didn't reach the level of other "8" VNs from my library. So maybe it should be something like 7.7 or 7.8, but I don't want to introduce that level of details into my scores ;)

Not the greatest, but enjoyable. Worth giving it a try (especially if you score it on some sale :D - base price feels a bit steep)  

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Have you read it, or do you speak based just on forum posts and your prejudices/bias? :P

Nah, I wouldn't say it felt especially awkward or "westernized" - actually opposite, it was rather smooth (excluding those editing hiccups I mentioned). Of course, it's stylistic thing so it's all about personal preferences, but while this VN has many problems, IMO translation style isn't the biggest of them :P (And there's no "dude" in this one :D)

Edited by adamstan
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Well, when phrased like that, you may have a point. (I disagree about Arisa being shit, but I'm sure we won't agree on her :P). However it has redeeming qualities too. Main story and characters were good enough for me to keep me interested despite shitty h-scenes and rushed romance. But then, indeed I might be the one with weird/shitty taste here, as I liked glider stuff in Konosora, astronomy stuff in Sky Full of Stars or planes in Hitotsuba :P And I bought Maitetsu (all ages version of course) for trains, silly me... (haven't read it yet)

Edited by adamstan
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finished 4 routes. in the prologue im convinced that hes not stupid, hes just good on something else. i hate that "my/other" side transition

kaho is sweet. arisa's route is good so is naZuna but honoka was.... something.

unknown.png

i know its not the best art but dat smile.

 

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So I just finished all routes including the final one...I have one question.

 

Why exactly do they end the true/final route with no confirmation on the relationship between Arisa and Otoya? Contextually, you can get to the the assumption that they'll get together, but why even make a true ending that doesn't show that sort of confirmation?  
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8 hours ago, Naterocks2000 said:

So I just finished all routes including the final one...I have one question.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Why exactly do they end the true/final route with no confirmation on the relationship between Arisa and Otoya? Contextually, you can get to the the assumption that they'll get together, but why even make a true ending that doesn't show that sort of confirmation?  

 

Spoiler

Probably they wanted to leave things ambiguous to not annoy players, who aimed for different waifu ;)

 

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