“Tem” (as she prefers to be called, finding her full name embarrassing) comes from a military family. At a young age she moved to Mars, attended a high-powered cadet academy, and enlisted upon graduation. She keeps to every rule and regulation to a fault, and is a bit of a neat freak especially when it comes to her personal quarters.
She finds it hard to let down her guard around others, but once stationed in deep space she has to learn things are more easy going than life back near Earth. She dreams of being a career pilot and is a bit of a tomboy. She’s very stern sometimes but cares about her teammates.
Pilot Officer. Risty Mello
(Callsign: Deneb)
She comes from the colony Neo Sao Paolo orbiting Europa. A telecommunications expert, she handles the networking, planning and analysis for her team, as well as communication to and from the ship. She seems somewhat distant or anti-social when she’s out of her comfort zone but she’s extremely attached to Vii and has a hard time objecting to the Space Elf, especially when Vii is more ‘adventurous’ in where she pursues Risty’s affections.
She’s constantly mediating between Vii and Tem, trying to find a balance between Vii’s carefree negligence and Tem’s strictness.
Pilot Officer. Viiflidi Ylvida
or “Vii” for short.
(Callsign: Vega)
Viiflidi or “Vii” comes from a biometallic humanoid-like species named “Space Elves” by humans, who live in a distant region of the galaxy. As part of the growing political relations with humans, many elves are given the option to serve on human ships and vice versa. Polyamorous by nature, Vii becomes interested in humans upon arriving aboard the Shooting Star, especially Risty.
Vii is very lackadaisical and is entranced by human pop culture, obsessing over the simplest things from TV shows, to junk food, and underwear. Because her body is so metallic, she must take metal supplements not present in human food.
Lupiesoft Games
Mazemarble
So far this continues my belief that while lupiesoft games may be short, they have amazing character development.
A Blast from Sci-fi Past
Father_Zed
I really have nothing more to say other than I love this title. Definitely the biggest factors for this title come from not just the overall artwork, which reminds me of old sci-fi tv shows like Lost in Space, but also from the character development. While it is overall short I still feel like it's a definite must buy for anyone.
Great
FriedHuggababy
Really nice but way too short, I wonder how many sequels this will get.
Good start but flat finish
Skuttle
I enjoyed Lupiesoft's previous game The Menagerie. It had some issues, but overall I enjoyed that title. Stargazers share some of the problems as Menagerie as well but they are a lot more apparent in the newer title. After I reached the end of the game, I had to scratch my head and wonder did I miss something or made the wrong choice in one of the MANY arbitrary choices the game gives you. I did get another ending after some digging, but that only leaves far more questions and disappointment than anything.
Going through the story through different perspectives of the 3 characters is an interesting take. It's a nice touch, but it feels lacking and not enough substance to them. I go through each of the choices, find some pleasant surprises and that's it. The character development is spotty. The big 3 are a bit weak despite the attention given to their routes. In fact, the additional background story sometimes just add more plot elements that are just desperate for attention but never got them. (The Menagerie kind of has this as well, but at least those were a lot more minor than the ones here) Their rapport and attractions to one another almost just seems to happen out of the blue. Even the anime gag encounter involving a faceless protagonist and a school girl with toast in her mouth running late for school have more chemistry and impact than what happens between the 3 teammates. The supporting casts while quirky and fun, don't have enough time or situations to shine. Which is a quite a waste of the colorful crew and the antagonist (?) of the story.
Despite my best attempts, it really does seem like all the options and choices given are completely pointless. There's only 1 ending no matter what I do. Which may be fine in a visual novel, but I'd say this really works against Stargazers given the other shortcomings. The ending. It's... quick, abrupt, and just makes you go "that's it!?" The pacing is terrible. Everything just comes to a complete dead stop. Sure, there are some manners of things wrapping up. (if you can call it that) But there were still several plot threads that needed to be dealt with. If you told me that this is only episode 1 of a series, I'd believe you. Except this isn't an episodic game. So... I'd skip this and go play The Menagerie instead if you like yuri and don't mind futa. Both games are probably around the same length, but the other one feels far more fulfilling.
Disappointing
CobaltCandle
I was a big fan of Lupiesoft's last work, In The City Of Alabast: The Menagerie. While the plot in that game was pretty disjointed at parts, it felt like a cohesive whole, for the most part; plus, all of the ecchi scenes were very good. Unfortunately not the case for Starfarers. I had high hopes due to the hentai scenes in the demo, but there is only one more scene of that quality in the game, with the others being considerably more ecchi.
The plot itself is a mess, as well; the main gimmick is you may jump between PoVs of the 3 protagonists, but it's never clear if you're going to be seeing a scene that takes place immediately afterward, or if it will be an unspecified amount of time since the last scene. Plus, each path will have nods to your choices that you've made in the other paths, which is fun, but it gives the impression that to get some endings, you're required to jump around from PoV to PoV, and I had to take the game script to a Renpy decompiler to find out that that simply wasn't the case, making the whole character-switching gimmick ultimately pointless. Overall, it's decent, but I expected something closer to The Menagerie, but improved - more sex scenes, and a tighter plot. Unfortunately, it's the opposite.
