<report>This was a title I knew very little about before "diving" in, and was my first entry into the expansive Baldr franchise. All I had previously to go on was some brief synopses and cover arts, so even the genre and presentation of this work ended up really impressed me. I certainly didn't expect that Baldr Sky would turn out to be this sprawling, expansive cyberpunk urban thriller. Works in this genre absolutely live and die by how compelling their setting is and how much integrity their worldbuilding has to offer, and Baldr Sky completely nails this aspect.

The world and setting of Baldr Sky is tremendously well-realized and offers its own fantastically novel take on many of the core themes... Read more »

<report>Without getting into spoilers, I can say that this game makes excellent use of its VN tropes. While you could talk about things that make the story clichéd for hours, that honestly shouldn't matter if the game executes those clichés as flawlessly as Dive. Having read games with similar plot twists and turns, I can really say that I would rather read Baldr Sky than any of them. Regardless of any of that, the story on display here is very well thought-out. Every emotional moment is earned. If nothing else, Dive is an achievement in scale, and Murasaki and Kikakuya demonstrate a true mastery of the art of scenario. The overwhelming scale of the story at play, along with the shocking depth of... Read more »

<report>Let me get my thoughts on gameplay out of the way first. At start your options are limited for combos but after first route you can get equipment to make air combos which are the main highlight of the game. The enemy placements and fights are decently distributed except the last route where it feels like you're just crushing trash lvl mobs after mobs.

The story is honestly one of the worst I've read. While the world building is really interesting in the first route it shits the bed in terms of good characters. Rain, chinatsu and aki are the only ones beside kou who feel like they have a decent character. Even then Rain is underdeveloped due to her route sidelining her in favor of sora and... Read more »

<report>To be honest, I have a lot of issues with Baldr Sky. However in an effort to make this review a little more useful, instead of a traditional review where I focus on what I liked and didn't like about the game, I'm going to go over a few things to try to make the experience more fun for other people, especially those that aren't particularly feeling the gameplay.

First of all, there are a few misconceptions that I want to get out of the way:

The difficulty. Before I picked the game up, I'd assumed that the last route would be the hardest. During my playthrough however, the hardest part about the game was the switch from Hard in Dive1 to Very Hard in Dive2 and having to adjust my playstyle... Read more »

<report>TLDR: Good combat, mediocre story with some parts really exciting and some parts really questionable.
It is hard to review BSD1 apart from BSD2 or vice versa, so I will review both in one. My review for this game will be divided into two parts: VN parts and the combat parts.
The combat part I will divide it into two sections: the combat design and the level design.
1. The combat design is a bit hardcore for me. It is very combo heavy, and you cannot just spam your keys in higher difficulties, and I feel like there is a bit of grinding to level up the weapon and unlock it, or maybe I did not play it right. But there are lower difficulties for those who do not like this system or are not good... Read more »

<report>It almost feels wrong to call this game a visual novel, considering it features a surprisingly well-developed arcade style top down mecha shooter/bullet hell. Taken as a whole, I would recommend Baldr Sky. As a narrative, it is well-written and the themes are poignant (becoming more so every day in our postmodern hellscape). The characters are great - some say they're tropey, but if you're so averse to anime tropes, you should really be looking at another medium for your entertainment needs.
However, Baldr Sky suffers from 2 major issues:

1. Its length. This game could have been half the length that it is without losing anything. In fact, if it actually was half the length it would likely... Read more »

<report>When I finish Dive 1(to which I have a 6.5 to), my main complaints were there were too many questions with no answers, there are too many factions with different motives, why is the cult/agent acted differently in every route independent of Kou's action, it was hard to keep track of what was going on, and none of the routes seemed to be conclusive.

Dive 2 somehow fix everything and make this game so much better than I ever expected.

**I will assume you already play/know about dive 1 plots hench light spoiler for dive 1, no spoiler for dive 2**

The gameplay stays pretty much the same as dive 1 but I unlock so many skills at this point and making combos and just doing combat, in general... Read more »

<report>Baldr Sky is one of the best recent VNs and JRPGs to have been localised to the West, delivering an entertaining story, memorable characters, and robust action RPG combat.

It's set in a cyberpunk vision of urban Japan in the aftermath of a tragedy called Gray Christmas, which left an entire city in ruins. Local and federal governments, a private corporation, a research team and a religious cult are implicated in the event, with each party blaming the others. The survivors who comprise the bulk of the main cast include alumni of an esteemed school, who believe they had been witness to suspicious events prior to the disaster during their school days.

The game takes place from the... Read more »

<report>My opinion is that it's good, but not great.

Generally the the VN got better is it went on route-wise, with the exception of Aki (derivative and weird incest stuff) and Reminiscence (not bad but forced you to go through stuff you've seen already).

Setting was pretty cool. Music was fine with a few stand out songs. Gameplay was cool, grinding abilities to get better ones was annoying but when you get your ideal build and just grinding out orbs for plug-ins and stuff makes things a lot more fun. Characters were generally likable and interesting but none I'd personally put on a top favorites list.

Biggest issue was definitely the repetitive nature of the storytelling. Yes it ultimately made... Read more »