Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog

I can't say The Gun-Dog was bad - more like... Disappointing? It's definitely well made, looks good, and the setting is interesting. But from my perspective, its problems lie in areas that are too critical for a visual novel game: namely, the quality of the writing and the lack of payoff in the story. The game relies too heavily on long descriptions and explanations, which hurts the overall pacing. When you're in the middle of "action scenes" the game becomes much more interesting and engaging, but too often you're required to "explore everything once again" and these sections are really hit or miss, often quite dull. As for the ending, [spoiler]I like the overall tone and the direction of the final scenes. But I feel like the game fails to conclude the "investigation" part of the story in a satisfactory way, and that kind of ruins the overall experience.[/spoiler] I sincerely wish the studio good luck with the next project and will be following their work. However, as far as their first game goes, I personally can't fully recommend it.

I really liked this! It's a kind of strange combination. The art and aesthetic are very obviously inspired by 80s sci-fi anime, especially Gunbuster, Gundam, the more military ones. But the writing is clearly western. The dissonance is kinda bizarre--not bad, just very weird. The converse would be like watching Terminator 2 except everyone is using japanese honorifics and talking like it's an anime translation. One nice thing is that the characters don't fall as hard into anime archetypes as I was expecting from the art. Even the quirky genki girl is played in a less heightened way than you'd expect from a japanese script. None of them are super deep, but there's a little more to them than it seems at first glance. The overall vibe felt very old-school sci-fi, kinda Heinlein-esque. The characters have lots of anxiety about technology and space. The story is good, and pretty well-paced, but when I got to a certain point I started having the bad feeling that the game was going to end up feeling like chapter 1 of a much bigger story. And that's kind of the case. The ending I got was sort of a cliffhanger in the grand scheme of the plot, but it was an actual ending for all the characters. Less "half a story" and more "the threat isn't over..." I will say that I didn't get the impression that most of my choices mattered all that much, although it shows you a chart near the end that had quite a few decision trees I didn't even touch, so maybe it was more tuned than I thought. Overall, feeling pretty positive on it, although if your tolerance for ambiguous endings is low you might be frustrated at the end.

this game is something else. Strong art direction, Good OST, and to top it all off a solid story. shit this game got it good. def recommend

An excellent Visual Novel with great graphics, characters, and a fantastic soundtrack. I put in just over 11 hours and had a great experience … very enjoyable and endearing!

I enjoyed this. It's short (around six hours), so it doesn't overstay its welcome. There are a few neat surprises in the narrative and it ends in a way that leaves room for a sequel, but is satisfying. It works well on both PC and Deck. Key to Know: This is 99% a narrative experience you mostly read. There is limited animation. There are a few minor puzzles, but you can count them on one hand. There are a few key choices, but again, it's like 3 or 4 (and I only played once, so I'm not sure how much they all matter). If you like military science fiction, Robotech, that sort of thing, it's a good, quick read, err, play.

The game didn't really hook me. And I was really looking forward to this game too. While the presentation's great and (for the most part) faithful to the OG PC-98 games, the writing is quite bland, predictibale and overall uninteresting.

Very enjoyable 4-ish hour visual novel. It's not transcendent, but it is worth your time.

It feels exactly like it looks (in a good way). The story is enticing but I think it could be longer.

Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog is a barrel of fun. I was engrossed when playing it and even after finishing the game, I still love it. This game DEFINITELY needs a part 2. The ending left off on such a cliff hanger!

Dang near perfect for what it's aiming for. Exactly what is says on the tin, spaceship VN goodness with a decent mystery story and characters.

Finished game several times with diffenert routes and I liked it a lot. All this 1980s sci-fi vibe is pretty cool cocept I havent seen in games in a while. I especially liked that almost everything that happens in the game is somehow conected to each other even some small observations by MC will find it's use later in a game. Game is not perfect, not gonna lie, but since I liked the concept, art style, story, music and characters I got a lot of fun while playing it. My first try took around 10 hours, but I was reading every single line of text even some observations about elevator doors :D so normally it shoud take around 6-7 hours I guess. So if you into such retor sci-fi vibe and not afraid of pixel art I think you can give it a shot...but dont read door observations, they are different each chapter :D Looking forward to see a next game of these series

In playing this game, I have found out that I don't really like Visual Novel style games. In that, your choices don't really matter and the agency you're given as a player is very, very little. That being said, they market this as a visual novel and so in that capacity it is a good one of those. Definitely wanted more from this game, though. Probably won't play any future titles in this series.

Absolutely worth the $15. Very memorable cast of characters.

I usually don't enjoy visual novels but i can get behind this one

Good