I bought this VN on sale and started the game being kinda clueless about japanese idols and having my first contact with a Love-in-Space-VN. The beginning is a bit draggy and very slice-of-life'y, but interesting enough to keep you attached to the world around your idol-group "Starnova". The characters are basically VN-cliche, but still have a bit of uniqueness attached to most of them. The game starts to shine after branching into the routes, dealing with numerous serious, emotional, adult topics. Some of these topics are very dark, resulting in some wicked bad endings (unlocked after the very, very few choices in this VN, that are just implemented to tell these bad-ending-branches). Most routes luckily still have a very positive default ending. The game lasted for around 30-35+hours. The length/price-ratio is definitely a thumbs up. The soundtrack is amazing! I added 3 of the voiced songs to my youtube-playlist and already wishlisted the whole soundtrack. Mariya's route is gold. An excessively heartwarming story. "Shining Song Starnova" is a contender for my VN-Top-Spot along Pixelfade's (Ace Academy, Crystalline, Ethereal Enigma) and IMHHW (If My Heart Had Wings).
