Stella Deus

Context: I love turn-based RPGs and have played a lot of the best and worst ones there are on PS systems and Nintendo systems. 1. The sprite work is beautiful. 2. The voice acting is a little rough — some are good and convincing, while others are not. 3. There are few hints — you have to figure things out yourself. This is well and good, but for the first boss, I had to replay a whole hour because his mechanics were not explained, and so I died quickly. It felt like a cheap trick. Once I read a guide, it still took me an hour because the boss was artificially difficult. 4. The AP system is clever and creates many opportunities for choice — do you move far at the risk of not attacking, or do you get an extra 2-3 hits on an enemy? I wish the action values were not so high, but again, the system allows for a great risk/reward strategy that I don't see as much in similar games. 5. The story is mediocre. Think: The Mist, but instead of most people wanting to survive, most are completely apathetic towards their fate. There's too much exposition (common in anime-inspired games), and with the wonky voice acting, it just makes me not care. I think it's a quirky game with some shining aspects, but then others that muddy the experience. Watch at least an hour of gameplay on YouTube before you decide to buy this.

This is a pretty standard SRPG. For collectors, it's a rarer title, hence the price. As well, the graphic style is pretty unique, and the characters are animated well. I managed to eek over 60 hours out of the game, so it's got a good bit of content. Where it matters most though, the game play, it's pretty run-of-the-mill.