Space Live: Advent of the Net Idols Review

Player(s): 1
Platforms: PC (via Steam)

​Ever wonder what it would be like if Firefox, Safari, and Chrome decided to have an all-out battle to see who was the best? What if they were actually idols? Sounds a little crazy right? Well, that scenario pretty much describes "Space Live: Advent of the Net Idols" and seeing as how we at A-to-J Connections are no strangers to idols, we decided that this is one game we'd have to check out!

Space Live is a visual novel from Circus (The developers behind "Da Capo" and "Dal Segno".) and published by MangaGamer. First, let's get one thing out of the way. While the game does have "Net Idols" in the title you're not going to get a collection of YouTube or NicoNico "net idols" here. No, instead we have a tale that centers on five idols who represent various "Spaces" that are interconnected in an odd future where we all apparently live online. (In about 200 years no less!) These idols are all named in ways that refer to various real-world browsers and the spaces refer to their real-world creators. For example we have "G Chrome" from "Goggle Space", who I think is the most blatantly obvious one as most of the others are a little more carefully named. This game is a visual novel in the purest sense of the term. There are no branching paths, no dialogue choices, and no multiple endings. This is a concise, yet strong, story that takes you from start to finish having you experience it exactly as the creators desired. It's also worth noting that similar "Go! Go! Nippon!" (A title developed by OVERDRIVE and also published by MangaGamer) this release was developed and intended for the Western market specifically. So while the game does have an impressive pedigree behind it, it's not the standard quality you probably expect when hearing these names. Anyhow, let's jump into the review proper now!

Ai E is Best Girl

If only irl Chrome came with cat ears.

So we have five idols who are gathering together for a special live that only takes place once every four years. The past winner is none other than Goggle Space's G Chrome, but our story focuses on Ai E from Macro Space who, along with Sarifa of Ai Space, make up the main trio of characters who are returning from prior appearances at this contest. The puns and references are strong here, they literally make up the game and dominate a lot of its humor and while the idol and browser references are both represented, I almost felt like they could have been used to make their own games. It was awesome seeing Ai E go into her "Edge" transformation, but at the same time it was almost too much for me. I found myself wondering why these browser references were so front and center, but more idol plot devices weren't. Don't get me wrong though, I found most of these references really clever and the only one I think fell a little flat were those revolving around Tsukikage of Luna Space. Answer me this, can you name the browser her character refers to? I couldn't either at first. Being as this game was created for the Western market I found it really strange that the creators chose to feature a browser that practically only people in Japan would know of. (It's Lunascape by the way.) I actually had to look up this reference and while I appreciated the idea of Tsukikage and Higitsune (of Mosaic Space. AKA the Mozilla Firefox reference character) playing sort of the underdogs here I thought that it could have been better played if a different browser was used. (Perhaps Opera?) I also won't spoil the ending here, but because this game is fairly rooted in the realities regarding the popularity of these "browsers" and "spaces", it's pretty clear early on how the contest was going to pan out. Normally I'd go a bit deeper into plot here, but there really isn't a whole lot for me to talk about. It's all fairly straight-forward and there isn't a whole lot to speak of regarding characterization. Each girl has a certain idol trope they act towards. Ai is almost a "standard" idol you want to cheer on, Sarifa can play on an audience's emotions, G Space is cold and calculating but with a strong following, Higitsune is sly and mischievous, and Tsukikage is cute and traditional. There is some effort made to tie this into what they should be representing as their browser, but the connections there are weak. While it's not really a negative, the story here isn't going to win any prizes and isn't exactly as ambitious as the setting could possibly allow for.

I wanted to really like Higitsune, but...

I actually downloaded Lunascape after playing.

Now, what exactly does this Space Live mentioned earlier consist of? Well, it's more of a variety show that is split into four segments than a straight contest. There is a singing competition, a bathing suit segment complete with a flag game and a water slide, a special third segment I'll go into more in a bit, and finally an athletic competition that's a rather odd note to close on. There is something regarding scores we're never really privy to, and an admittedly interesting use of fan interaction, but there isn't much given towards how any of these individual parts are used to choose an overall winner. The pacing within these individual segments is done fairly well, and even though there isn't anything else really given to us beyond what I've already mentioned, the story never really gets drab or boring. Now let's talk a bit about that third segment of the contest I left out. Simply put this is where the main characters take part in a series of themed love confessions. These sequences take up about half of the game overall and while I did think they provided some interesting, and sometimes moving, moments they're very long and have no real bearing on the central plot. Add to this the fact that we are given rather truncated segments of each contest before where we only see a part of the action and you'll have an even stronger idea of how this entire section seems to come out of nowhere. These segments could have been used for character building, but being that they are pre-planned scenarios where the space idols take on specific roles you see them act very out of character compared to everywhere else in the game. So this means not only do they break up the main plot, but they also sort of break up whatever little character development we had going. Don't get me wrong, these scenes are fairly well-played out (except for Tsukikage's where I felt the "punchline" ruined the entire scene) but they definitely are an odd break from everything else and felt like I was playing a different game entirely. It's almost as if the developers created art of these girls dressed in various anime stereotypes and the creators felt they needed to somehow wrap story scenes around them.

A great scene.

Of course there'd be a maid outfit...

Let's talk art for a bit. The art in Space Live is definitely its strongest point. I have played visual novels where characters have "movement" before, but this one is done in a different way. Here there are several stances and positions for each character during their normal dialogue scenes which are mixed up in a way that acts as a sort of movement. Now I know other games have art variations used in this way, but it's more detailed and better executed here. It's a thing that's hard to explain unless you see it in action. Also, this is the first game that I've ever played that has scenes where a character isn't always facing forward, meaning that every character has a design that shows their back. This leads to conversations between characters that have real spatial elements that aren't just a line of characters standing side-by-side. Even turned away there are also several poses and faces for each character which adds to the "movement" thing I mentioned before. All of these character variations are available to test out in the CG Mode and it added a surprising level of depth to the game's graphics overall. There are also specific CG illustrations that are all perfectly done and I honestly have no complaints at all with any of the character portraits or designs. Now not all is 100% perfect though, the backgrounds are very basic and don't stand out much. That said, they're not badly designed or out of place, they're just... there. The only true complaint with this game's graphics though is with the frequent use of pans and zooms. Most games of this genre can usually handle these well, but Space Live seems to use very low-res versions of the art for these scenes. When the camera zooms in on a static image for dramatic emphasis you see a LOT of blurriness and artifacts that make it seems as if they blew up an 800x800 JPEG file. Add to this that this usually happens at a moment where the game is trying to elicit some sort of response from the player and you'll find that you notice it more and more as the game goes on. It was really jarring whenever this happened and I wondered as to how this could have been left in the final released game. Surely obtaining larger versions of the art couldn't have been too hard? I'm not sure if there is a reason behind this, but this is the only aspect of the graphics and art that keep me from giving them a perfect score.

An example of a spatially-aware dialogue scene.

I'm sure this influences other things as well...

Let's briefly tackle the topic of adult content. Contrary to my little warning up top, there really isn't much to talk about regarding this. There is some nudity here, but it's light and there's no sexual content to speak of. Everything is pretty tame which is nice considering the subject matter involved. I do mention that there is nudity and I really must say that I don't know if I really buy the situational wardrobe malfunctions we see though. I almost feel there shouldn't be any nudity here as it was definitely surprising when it did come up. Visual novel veterans are sure to go through these scenes without batting an eye though so this really comes up to a matter of preference. Elsewhere, besides a couple light innuendo-laden scenes this game, everything comes off as light, fun, and tame, and no one really needs to worry about any content that is NSFW.

This is how “bad” the nudity gets.

NSFW CONTENT

If this game has any big glaring faults then they're definitely in the sound department. Let's get the obvious out of the way, there are no voiceovers here at all. I can accept that considering this game's low cost of entry and such, but it is worth mentioning for those interested in that kind of thing. While I can forgive the lack of voices easily enough I can't as easily forgive the rest of the sound design. I swore I was hearing the same two or three tracks over and over again and I was shocked to see that there were apparently ten tracks in the game. (At least that's what the sound test showed.) I'd be hard pressed to pinpoint them all, but I'm sure that at least half of those ten are only used once. The music isn't horrible by any means, it's just extremely generic and vey repetitive. This is all the more glaring since this game is about idols and even features a "singing" segment (with no actual singing of course) and I think a little more attention should have been given here given the subject matter. There is also an issue when it comes to looping the tracks. Rather than loop in an endless, seamless way that many other games do, Space Live's tracks fade out and then start again from the beginning. This can be anywhere from weird to mood killing depending on what exactly is going on in the game. I'm not sure as to why this is the case, but similar to the pan and zoom thing earlier, this seems like something that shouldn't have made it to the final end product. Also, while it's not too surprising, I found that the lack of an opening cinematic or song was an odd omission and brought down the presentation overall. What makes all these poor sound design choices most bothersome is the fact that this game would be pretty close to amazing otherwise.

You can see some of the issues in close-ups here.

A song we'll never hear unfortunately...

Is this game for you? Well, if you're a fan of idols, parody, or honestly just want a good short, simple visual novel then you can't go wrong with Space Live. It's relatively low price tag of $9.99 also makes picking this up rather painless. The whole experience takes up about 3-5 hours depending on how fast you read which I feel is just the right length for this kind of game. I had a lot of fun here and I think you will too. Also, if you pick this up now (around the holidays) you just might find this one on sale!

-Manuel

You can pick up "Space Live: Advent of the Net Idols" via the links below!:
MangaGamer
​Steam​

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Graphics: A
Sound/Audio: C-
Gameplay/Story: B+
Value: A+
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OVERALL: B+

Pros:
+Unique scenario and plot elements.
+Amazing art and character designs.
+Perfect length and doesn't overstay its welcome.
+Perfect price point.
+Ai E is best girl.

Cons:
-Music and overall sound design are lacking.
-Some presentation issues keep this from being perfect.
-General pacing issues and lack of focus bring down the overall experience somewhat.

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Disclaimer: This game was provided to us by the publisher for the purpose of this review.