Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog (PS5)
The JFS Gun-Dog is the ship soldiers in the Jovian army get sent to when they just aren’t working out elsewhere. Whether it’s because of their personality or previous failures, the small spacecraft seems poised to provide simple work for soldiers that could slip-up during something more meaningful. While this may sound like it has the makings of a ragtag crew fit for irreverent space adventures, the visual novel Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog presents a fairly grounded view at military life where insubordination is treated seriously and characters do pull rank and understand their place in the hierarchy. In fact, besides having the large humanoid machines as part of the military hardware, it’s a visual novel that puts a great deal of thought into making its science fiction setting feel realistic and lived in, the little indulgences not feeling so out of place when they stand beside some of the careful consideration seen elsewhere in this space-based story.
Your character in Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog is technically one you create to some degree, gender and name in your hands but their history set. We begin with a look back at a moment where they failed to provide aid in an important interplanetary conflict and carry that guilt with them as they take on a security officer role aboard the Gun-Dog, but we also get a brighter spot as part of their baked in personality means you already have a cheery if a bit absent-minded girlfriend named Cassie joining you aboard the vessel. She’s a fairly good example of how the game handles the characters as well, Cassie able to be casual and effervescent around you but also dialing in when she does actual work as Lieutenant Commander aboard the vessel, the Gun-Dog itself a carefully considered craft where you can tell each room had its purpose and layout carefully considered for believability rather than just helping the story unfold. The crew being a bit of a band of screw-ups can lead to not only a few eccentrics but some intrigue about why a few of the more capable crewmates are on board, and with the group flying out in space with only each other, it’s easy to see how having such secrets under the surface can lead to some of the conflict beyond the specific mission of the Gun-Dog.
The Gun-Dog’s specific mission out in space starts mostly on a need-to-know basis but even then gets more complicated as you encounter another ship in a state of ruin and your own vessel experiences life-threatening disruptions. While Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog starts off by setting up a mix of interpersonal conflicts and potential friendships, this visual novel does have a bigger picture to follow with actual battles and mysteries that expand far outside social concerns. You will still guide this story primarily through choices of actions or dialogue made at specific points in the plot, there also some degree of free movement around the ship but besides choices in a perilous or high tension moment being timed, it’s a visual novel through and through. The plot is the most important of the story as well, the player needing to spend time investigating mysteries or considering the right choices for certain key events to be able to properly reach the end. However, the overall story is mostly set in stone, there being some clear divergence points that do make your choices meaningful in terms of how they reach the later parts but it does feel like multiple routes to the same point would be the reason to revisit the game rather than alternate outcomes to the overall adventure. Unfortunately, the game will still leave some major questions on the table, a cliffhanger hinting at the team’s desire to make this the first in a series of games set in the same universe, the degree of attention paid to conveying information about the setting in a digestible but detailed way making even more sense when you consider it’s meant to be the start of a series of connected tales.
Given almost as much attention as the world-building is the game’s distinct retro-inspired look. The default look of the game is a detailed pixel art style meant to evoke 80s anime and some of its clear Gundam influence, many quick and clean animations and expressive faces giving characters some extra personality. While you will spend a good deal of time looking at static pictures of who you’re talking to, the vivid backgrounds give the Gun-Dog its sense of place and special scenes are created for the more emotional moments or key events to add the extra oomph or gravitas needed to carry them further. There are two other settings for the visuals though, one being a green and black look to hearken back to older computers and there’s even a Doujin setting that utilizes a simpler but charming look from the early days of the game’s creation that makes it look like the plucky amateur work it was before it earned more attention. Doujin is a great extra for a second playthrough, although Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog’s more set in stone segments can make it feel like it’s a game better played with use of saves made at key junctions rather than one tackled through full replays despite a small but cute extra touch that crops up here or there from going through the entire adventure again.
The music in Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog also leans into its throwback feel but without the more polished counterpart the graphics feature. The soundtrack leans on chiptune music, something close to the PC-9800 games it aims to evoke even in its more vivid pixel art setting, but the memorable melodies as well as some tracks that suit the more eerie and action-packed moments make it a soundtrack that’s there to do more than pay homage. Some tracks can sound a bit alike, but tracks like the one that plays at the climax are superb in supporting the building emotions and signaling a moment where you need to lock in and pay off all the work taken to get to that emotional payoff. It can take a bit to grow on you, it is loud and unapologetically digital, but it does its job once you’ve adjusted to it and become more steeped in the style.
Perhaps appropriately for a story that wants to be the first of many, Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog mostly feels like an intriguing little space adventure focused on personalities and plot. It’s fun to get to know the tough towering engineer Chief Cathays and seeing her nerdier and rough and tumble sides arise in different situations. Hansen Crwys is clearly built as a rival you’re meant to hate but also one who benefits from the crew’s professional side as you start to wonder if you can reach out to him through it and bridge that gap built off your differing histories in military action. Not everyone is a key player on the crew and their emphasis will shift on alternate routes, but they can provide laughs and spur some intentional anger to help you invest yourself in the Gun-Dog’s mission outside of the effective mysteries your discoveries in space build up. There can be a few technical hitches though, the Function menu that allows you to do things like quickly travel about the ship or consult a glossary of important terms sometimes glitching and not letting you select anything, and there are moments where even the choice menus won’t read your movement inputs perfectly. Since you are mostly clicking through the story at your own pace you can work around the unfortunate hiccups, and since the story isn’t too long, it’s not likely an issue that will crop up often. However, in its 7+ hours of play, there is enough room for some effective swerves and the kind of events that make this work almost as a fully standalone story and one that is still worth a look even if we aren’t yet sure if we’ll see another story from Sol.
THE VERDICT: Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog provides a nice condensed space adventure, its retro style and chiptune music bringing out the best of this visual novel’s moments and characters. Its scale is a nice fit, having some unique junction points based on key choices despite the pieces that are set in stone regardless of your actions, but it keeps its attention on the misfit crew of the Gun-Dog so their interactions and the danger they find themselves in holds some important weight. The mysteries work for guiding you through the journey even if it holds on off solving them all in hopes of future entries, but with the world-building and some respect for realism and procedure despite the sci-fi setting, Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog creates a small scale journey worth taking even if the overall destination is not yet fully clear.
And so, I give Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog for PlayStation 5…
A GOOD rating. While the inconclusive elements do make Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog feel like the first few episodes of a grander narrative rather than a whole package, they are episodes that tie together well in terms of making you care for the key characters and the unraveling details of what is happening out in your isolated pocket of space provides some intrigue that can still set-up a story with value. The payoff is still there and this visual novel knows how to whip out the best of its graphical and musical elements when it presents its most important moments to carry them home, but it can feel like its mostly a space adventure rather than something with deeper or complicated themes. Characters can be slotted into archetypes even if they’re not necessarily shallow, but the alternate routes are good for showing that not everything is totally straightforward or going for the first idea on how someone like Hansen might behave. It’s that extra thought that brought the sci-fi setting to life that probably also benefits the characters you meet, some complexity coming from not thinking of them only as pieces in a story. It is a bit funny to say that this is a visual novel with a fairly strong focus on action even if that is mostly in the form of selecting rooms to go to and how you’ll investigate them, but having choices be more than what to say is what makes this game feel like more of an adventure rather than a character drama. It knows what it wants to be, a somewhat believable sci-fi story that can have its fun but remembers to take certain elements seriously. It doesn’t get too wrapped up in its efforts to sell the concepts but they pay off in the smaller moments where characters can bring up the details cleanly or the realistic limits can be played for drama as this tech isn’t just there to set up for a fun space romp.
Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog does need a little clean-up in functionality and the cliffhanger does sting a bit, but other elements like some characters getting less of a spotlight is just the nature of building a tighter narrative. It’s not reinventing the wheel, its retro elements are a hint at it trying to tell a tale like those that inspired it rather than coming up with its own themes or issues to examine, but it knows what parts are needed to make this an adventure with tension and one that fits in the easy-going pace of a visual novel well. Its most exceptional elements are in the presentation and its commendable commitment to having this ragtag crew still behave like they’re on a physical albeit futuristic military vessel. While visual novels are well known for their dating sims and dramas, Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog is a good example of a quick adventurous one, the format fitting it well since it is still a story first despite working some action into the affair.