I've played very few visual novel games, but this is my favorite! It has so much emotion and feeling packed into one game! Sad moments, happy moments, fearful moments, you name it! And this game reminds me of Star Wars so much!

12/29/2022 EDIT: While I'm replaying it, I should probably update my review. Two and a half years, huh? Wow. Can't believe it's been that long already since I played through it the first time. So much feeling went into the game and the characters. And almost teared up at the Ryuvian Crown Jewel part of the game. Love in Space went all out with this game (haven't played much of Liberation Day, and still waiting on The Captain's Return), and while some scenes with Claude can be cringy, overall, it's really good (minus a grammatical error here and there.) I can without a doubt say that this is one of the best games I've ever played. Though I should warn that the game has at least two mature scenes, one involving a kinda-violent rescue of the main character and another showing one of the pilots showering while deep in thought (you'd think there'd be at least two or three showers on the ship per side, lol.)

Overall, Liberation Day is a pretty good third piece to the Sunrider story. Was honestly not expecting the ending to be as crazy as it was (especially that post-credits scene; Kayto's gonna have one heck of a time in The Captain's Return.) But compared to Mask of Arcadius, this game felt like there were fewer battles than the previous two chapters (First Arrival and Mask of Arcadius, respectively), even though there was roughly the same number as the other two (including side missions.) That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, since this game seems to have a larger emphasis on the story (albeit slightly), which I appreciate. And I'm glad to see more Star Wars references if only a few.

[Re]turn, on the other hand, was a unique experience, offering an alternate take on the game's second half. The "true" ending was pretty epic, but quite a bit graphic (in fact, most of this mode's endings are graphic, some more than others (I'm looking at you, Explosive Depressurization.)) But I can somewhat understand why players might have found this mode's true ending to be better than the game's canon pathway.