Right, so like any other submission that's still in-progress, this one is tough to evaluate. I really like what's there so far, but I have to agree with Gatr's comment below that this one ends just as it really starts picking up.
Presentation here is really solid so far - the sprites all look good (less so for Conrad, personally. I don't really understand facial hair on furries, and with none of the characters having human-like head hair the moustache feels distractingly off) and the backgrounds are really effective at setting the atmosphere, which achieves some degree of claustrophobia without veering into full horror. There are a couple backgrounds that are missing, like the bathroom, which leaves a conversation between Barrie and Anita awkwardly set against a black screen, but I presume this was due to jam limitations.
Writing is good as well, with all of the characters behaving in plausible ways - no one is overly antagonistic or incompetent, and they generally all feel like they should be there. I will agree with Gatr again though regarding the hard sci-fi; while the attention to detail on the layout and functions of the ship is really commendable, I am definitely not an engineer and the numerous discussions of primary, secondary, and tertiary power left me waiting for the VN to dumb it down for me later.
With that said, I think with as much attention is given to the ship, there's a lot missing from the worldbuilding. I recognize that it might not be the proximate purpose of the story, but the alternate 1989 setup leaves a lot to be explained. Like, Barrie references the moon landings as an inspiration for him wanting to go into space, but the Space Race in the 60s was essentially a direct result of the Cold War rivalry between the US and USSR. That means a lot of deviation would have had to happen in 20 years to get to a point where the "Union" (whatever that is - is that supposed to be the US? Could be the EU but the Maastricht Treaty wasn't signed until after 1989 at least in our timeline) and Russia are this cooperative. Really hoping some of this is expanded upon if the VN continues.
The character highlights were an interesting decision, but ultimately I don't think they mattered much. The cast is confined to five people, so after the first few minutes it's pretty easy to recognize who's speaking just from their names. It's also kind of an unnecessary effect when so much of this part of the story consists of one-on-one conversations where it's very clear who is speaking.
Last point about presentation, I don't think it ever presented a problem for my understanding of the story, but this definitely could have used another proofreading pass to fix some spelling errors.
Briefly going to get into the plot here, so spoilers going forward.
Again, the plot itself is a bit tough to talk about considering not much, like, actually happens to this point? Like we wake up, there's an adjustment period, we go do some maintenance tasks and get character introductions with everyone, and then the door opens and we find the body (which was effectively done in my opinion - I don't think you need a grisly CG here to get the point across). The writing is good, so the VN never feels particularly slow, but the lack of plot developments does seem clearer now that I'm sitting down to write about it.
There's still plenty to chew on for future twists though, with figuring out what Iva's deal was (which may or may not have something to do with Conrad judging from his reaction to her discovery and his (?) glasses being present - feel like there may have been some bodily fluid-based international diplomacy going on) as well as bringing some other details back, like Chekhov's photo next to the mirror Barrie uses at the beginning, which will almost certainly be relevant later. Given the short description of "In memoriam of the crew of Hermes 5. Gone but not forgotten." though, I'm not particularly optimistic about the outcome.
Two more minor notes: first, I did feel that for being a NovemBuck entry the buck was pretty absent, getting less screen time than anyone else. It seems like he might be a more central figure from here though. Second, as a general FYI, Russian surnames are gendered, so "Soyolov" (which I'm not sure is real? I don't think I've seen that before) would be "Soyolova" for a woman.
Overall really interesting and well-produced, looking forward to seeing the rest of it!