In Stars And Time

Incredible game that is so deeply important to me and I wish I could make everyone play it <3

I found the main character so personally and deeply connected to me, I took their name

groundhog day, but now i need therapy

Just realised I hadn't yet left a review for this game... *ahem* PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT PLAY IT!!!! It will make you laugh, and then BREAK you. Its been quite a while since I've played it, but I still think about it constantly, and have a Pinterest board about it with over 250 pins... also the art is GORGEOUS 110/100, give Siffrin a hug for me

Very good game! I enjoyed going across the world seeing all those different countries, the game puts a lot of emphasis on the different cultures, which I really enjoyed. Meating all the different party characters was fun, I thought changing who lead the party midway through the game (Mirabelle to Siffrin) was a really neat idea, overall the writing was on point. The battle system got pretty repetitive though, and the acquisition of new craft skills is paced really poorly, I got, like, so many in the house of change, which is like, the final area of the game, and I feel pacing them out through the entire game would have been a lot better. [spoiler]I liked Siffrin and Mirabelle the most, I think. I ended up saying out loud "just tell them you weren't actually blessed by the change god, Mirabelle!" Multiple times throughout the game. Oh, and I really liked that scene right before they head to the town before the house where Isabou talks to Siffrin about how its ok that the journey is going to end. It was a really touching emotional scene, and important, too, I mean, can you imagine the emotional state Siffrin would have been in if they hadn't had that talk!?[/spoiler] Overall, a great game. I feel the tags on Steam are a bit misleading though, like, what do you all mean by "time loop"!?

Dont try to do everything

Ok, so I played this game diligently, patiently and seriously, I had no idea what this was about going in, and I didn't use any guide or walkthrough, and managed to find the majority of the story that way. My conclusion after over 100 hours invested, though, is that this game is pretty underwhelming. I wish that it took itself more seriously and stopped assuming I don't want to or won't engage with it. The first half of the game was very engaging and interesting, but sadly, I think I was enjoying my own imagination rather than that of the author. Seemingly significant writing choices turned out to be effectively meaningless and were probably just chosen because they sounded or looked cool. I hate to say it, but this story is a waste of time to close read. Maybe this could have used a critical eye pre-release, but it clearly didn't get one. As the story progresses, the consistency and attention to detail in the world decreases dramatically in a way that seems "extradiegetic." It leaves me wondering who this game is "for"... Some more specific points: - Without introducing spoilers to my review: the game assumes you play in certain ways when you may not have, you are frequently railroaded into choices that do not make sense in context even given the state of the protagonist, and there are gaping holes in the narrative that don't read as genius high-concept choices, and instead just seem sloppy and like the author didn't care about the world they created or take it seriously enough to think about it at length. - In other words, it is not a game that is designed in a way that is truly responsive to player choices. This is probably something you assume exists in a modern RPG, and is clearly possible through other examples using the RPGMaker platform. - I used the looping forwards system maybe twice. and the conversation skip feature even less, It didn't seem like it had a genuine use. Later, the game was essentially softlocked in a scripted way until I chose to use this feature. If I had used it more though, I think I'd be even more disappointed in the game; I had the most fun by exploring and noticing details in the world, but ultimately it didn't amount to anything. - The game uses points systems internally to flag certain accrued player choices, which I suspected, but I learned the ways in which these choices are cued to the player are misleading because the cue is also reused elsewhere. Trying as hard as I did, and actually understanding the underlying system correctly, only to find out the trigger was so poorly implemented mechanically was kind of shocking. - The combat strategy system is genuinely novel, but underutilised, and isn't upgraded as the game progresses. It could have been far more challenging. Instead, combat shortly becomes a chore. I guess I can believe that is part of the game's "emotional palette", but even if that were intentional, its contributions to the richness of the experience were minimal. I think I only ever died due to scripted events, but the game assumes I died more than that, which took me out of the story. - The story is very predictable. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was hoping it would twist, and get less, instead of more predictable. There isn't any twist at all if you pay attention the whole time, and the majority of the mystery is concentrated in Act 1 and 2. Things happening how you expect them to always feels pretty banal in games, and it feels like there was a large disconnect between the experiences of the protagonist and what I thought was happening. I just kept hoping for a real twist up until I saw the credits. - The worldbuilding in many aspects is disappointingly superficial. - Props for including a demo. If not for the demo I wouldn't have purchased. - The chronology is inconsistent in a way not accounted for by the story and is another loose end that is never tied. For someone bothered by their forgetfulness, the protagonist never actually asks to be reminded of anything in a way that could also be used to provide the player with more interest and detail. - Over the course of the game, the derealisation of the protagonist leads them to believe that the people around them are nothing more than characters when they themself alone are real. It might have been a sensible choice at the conclusion to tie this loose end. I was looking forward to talking to Claude the entire game, for instance, only to find she gets all of three lines in the epilogue. What gives? Can't I tell her I appreciated her efforts? Is she really, actually just a side character? The story fails to prove its own implicit statements with design choices like these. - Sometimes characters act in certain ways just to make the protagonist feel bad and for no other reason related to their established character. This is called "bad writing". - The game constantly plays disproportionately loud banging sound effects for comedy (though it's actually annoying and not funny), but turning sound effects off disadvantages your understanding of story cues. Lack of polish. - The central romance is one of the best executed parts of the story, and I appreciate its understatedness, pace, and subtlety. - I enjoyed exploring the effects of various souvenirs in various places. - The ending is poorly paced, awkward, and abrupt, and the hour it took was somehow more tedious than actually repeating the game area thirty times in the space of a week. Why is that? Because the midgame area is full of loving care and detail, and the ending lacks it. Was this rushed to release or something? You stand in front of your party members and repeatedly try to redacted yourself until you exhaust the scripted dialogue. Sorry, but how boring. - The story seems afraid to actually depict the protagonist as genuinely villainous for more than a few minutes at a time, even when it seems appropriate for the story beat; the edges are really filed off. - The depictions of the world's religions are genuinely novel, but only one has more than superficial details. - I wished I could have explored a post-story House of Change and was disappointed that it was omitted. - The art is interesting, but certain characters are drawn inconsistently, and some are confusingly drawn like children. Mirabelle looks like she's twelve years old when she's meant to be in her twenties. Her head is enormous and her hands are tiny. It's weird. - Why is Odile considered an "old lady" if she's in her 40s? That's a genuinely strange assumption that is never explained, and no other middle-aged characters are called old. - There should have been more Odile, because she's the hottest and most interesting character. I guess there are worse things to spend a week doing, but there are better games out there that respect the player more.