I'm going to give it an average score because it really is a great read.
Every single character from the main girls in Starnova to the secondary characters in Quasar and even the minor characters in the fans are all pretty well done.
It's easy enough to play all routes without repeating anything, there is an obvious point where the individual girls routes branch and that's when you pick the center.
Here's where the cracks formed for me. Drama is usually found in these games, it sets the scene for the ending. The good endings redeem it all and the bad endings are usually pretty grim.
Then you have Shining Song Starnova levels of drama. It left the realm of entertaining and jumped straight into the ground of utterly depressing. There is no two ways about it, it's a fucking grim game.
The common route is fantastic, it's when it branches and you see just how grim it can get. You have kids being molested, child abuse, domestic abuse, rape, murder, suicide, kidnapping and those are wayyy before the endings. The bad endings are some of the most horrible things i've seen in a game.
I'll give you a few examples so obvious spoilers ahead.
First is Julie, she's the blonde. She tries to make the producer jealous, she knows he's interested but he refuses to act so she tries to force the issue by seducing someone from a male idol band. The problem there is she has an insane fan that takes offense to that and he attempts to murder her. In her bad ending he succeeds. I just want it known that i've only done her bad route. I fucking hated her personality in her route so dead was best. She turns into such a basic bitch.
Now Nemu the pink haired girl. From the start something is off, she has yandere mood swings but it turns out far worse. She inherited a mental health condition from her mother that sends her crazy at certain times usually when her jealousy spikes. In her bad ending she carves her step mother to pieces and names the cleaver she did it with while smiling.
Aki, the red head with twin tails. When she was 12 her old producer tried to rape her but she escaped. Her mother then beat the shit out of her for not letting him do it to further her career. Her mother remains friends with the pedo that tried to rape her daughter.
Last one i'll spoil is Mariya. She was part of Quasar, the top idol group Starnova compete against, and when she was kicked out the girls forced her to strip naked and eat human feces. Yes, she was stripped and forced to eat shit.
The happy endings do not justify the levels of drama. No one comes out of this happy just varying degrees of mentally scarred if they survive at all.
Do not mistake this for a cutesy story based on the art, it isn't anywhere close.
This isn't a happy tale of fame and fortune it's a grim dark look into the seedy underbelly of idol fame and the lengths people will go to.
It's a fantastic read but I kept the score average because I do believe they went way too far with some of the drama. They could have toned it down and still made the same point.
Edited - I just played Julies good ending. That is the absolute worst "good" ending i've ever seen. Lazy at best. It can't even be called a good ending, it cuts off without any closure of any form. It's that bad it forced me to drop a whole star.
I have honestly never seen an ending that bad.
Fortunately Julie seems to have the worst of it, the rest of the girls certainly redeemed the game in that regard.
I really wish I could score this higher because it really is enjoyable in a lot of places but I still stand by my opinion they overdid some of the drama to ludicrous amounts.
I would suggest trying it out yourselves though.